lost, 2-1<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe goals came from Artturi Lehkonen late in the second period and Logan O\u2019Connor early in the third. The Kings made a game of it late, pulling goaltender Anton Fosberg with 2:57 to play and getting a power-play goal from Artemi Panarin 35 seconds later. <\/p>\n
But if the Kings lost the game they also gained a ton of confidence with the way they played against the winningest team in the NHL during the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys did what they had to do and played the right way,\u201d coach D.J. Smith said \u201cIt is what it is. We\u2019re down in the series, but a lot of good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played a good game overall,\u201d forward Scott Laughton added. \u201cYou don\u2019t get the results, so it\u2019s disappointing. But a lot of things to build on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kings came in knowing good wasn\u2019t going to be good enough against the team that won the Presidents\u2019 Trophy, the prize that goes to the team with NHL\u2019s best regular-season record in the league. And the Avalanche earned that honor, scoring the most goals and giving up the fewest in the NHL. They also had the best home record in the Western Conference and the best road record in the league.<\/p>\n
But with Forsberg making a number of spectacular saves, the Kings played Colorado even until Lehkonen, defended tightly by defenseman Drew Doughty, was able to reach out his stick and sweep in the rebound of Nathan MacKinnon shot from the right boards to give the Avalanche a 1-0 lead with 4:31 left in the second period.<\/p>\n
A major gaffe allowed the Avalanche to double their advantage 5:50 into the third period, with Joel Edmundson failing to handle a loose puck in the Kings zone, allowing O\u2019Connor to collect it and race defenseman Cody Ceci to the front of the net before beating Forsberg cleanly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just comes down to a couple of bounces, a couple of plays,\u201d defenseman Mikey Anderson said. \u201cThen they find a way to capitalize.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game, which had been physical all afternoon, turned chippy after that and when Colorado\u2019s Brock Nelson took an unnecessary high-sticking penalty at 17:03 of the final period, it gave the Kings their fourth power of the game. This time they took advantage, with Panarin halving the deficit with a wrist shot from just inside the blue line.<\/p>\n
Although the Kings ranked in the bottom five in the NHL in both the power play and penalty kill, they won the special teams battle with Colorado in Game 1, scoring the only power-play goal and killing all four man-advantage situations for the Avalanche.<\/p>\n
![\"Gabriel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776646334_659_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Gabriel Landeskog of the Avalanche fights for the puck against Scott Laughton and Joel Edmundson of the Kings.<\/p>\n
(Matthew Stockman \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
And while Laughton believes the late goal and the special-team play gives the Kings momentum heading into the second game of the best-of-seven series Tuesday, Anderson said the team doesn\u2019t need to rely on moral victories with the way its been playing lately.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been feeling good about our game. We\u2019ve been playing pretty good hockey. Everyone knows how good they are, but I think we have a good team in here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feeling around the [locker] room the last couple weeks, it\u2019s been very high.\u201d<\/p>\n
The series still has a long way to go. And while the team\u2019s playoff history with Edmonton was never encouraging, this time they may actually have history on their side.<\/p>\n
Although the Kings haven\u2019t won a postseason series since 2014, when they hoisted the Stanley Cup, the Avalanche are dealing with the Presidents\u2019 Trophy curse. Only eight teams have won both the Presidents\u2019 Trophy and Stanley Cup in the same season; an equal number have gone out in the first round.<\/p>\n
Colorado might have had the best record in the NHL, but Smith said the fact the Kings are finally playing anyone but Edmonton is a boost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve lost a couple years in a row, three years in a row, it\u2019s in your mind that you have to outperform rather than just do what you do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think this is brand new.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows that\u2019s the President\u2019s Trophy winner. There\u2019s a huge job ahead of us. But it\u2019s a fresh start.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Different opponent. Same result. In each of the last four seasons, the Kings have opened the Stanley Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[23797,551,119440,423,2194,119439,31691,664,48,52,51,31215,47,50,49,38374,3238,8841,30512,5250,6949],"class_list":["post-276162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-forsberg","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-good-regular-season-record","tag-jack-drury","tag-king","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-logan-oconnor","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-net","tag-play","tag-playoff","tag-second-period","tag-shot","tag-third"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}