What was shaping up to be a measuring-stick match has taken the form of a winnable game for the Kings when they host the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternoon.
It will be the first time the Kings welcome the Avs, who have the NHL’s second-best points percentage since Feb. 23, this season after losing to them in Denver on Nov. 13 and March 27 by an aggregate score of 8-2. The Kings mustered no goals and two goals, respectively, in those affairs, falling short of the magic number (three) that has earned them a 38-0-2 mark this season.
“They’re really fast. We’ve had a tough time with them in their building. Dangerous power play. They’ve got (Cale) Makar of course, one of the elite defensemen in the league, (Nathan) MacKinnon, it goes on and on,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “They’ve got a lot of offensive firepower. They’ll challenge us defensively and we’ve got to find a way to get three [goals].”
Yet Colorado will have neither MacKinnon nor Makar nor Jonathan Drouin nor Josh Manson nor Ross Colton and might miss other regulars Saturday. MacKinnon snapped his string of 209 consecutive games played, missing Thursday’s loss to Vancouver despite sitting atop the scoring leaderboard, tied with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov. MacKinnon was “dealing with something,” Avs coach Jared Bednar told reporters.
“I don’t think that individual accolades [matter to him]. They’re nice, but he’s won a lot of them. His trophy case is huge,” Bednar told reporters. “Winning has always been the most important thing to him. Having accomplished that in 2022, I think he got a taste for it, and he wants to win again.”
That season not only did MacKinnon lift the Cup, but he did so alongside captain Gabriel Landeskog, who has undergone multiple knee surgeries since and has not played since that Stanley Cup Final. Landeskog was set to make his long-awaited return to pro competition in an American Hockey League game against the Henderson Silver Nights on Friday.
Another key figure for the Avs that season was the man between the pipes, Darcy Kuemper, who is now in his second stint with the Kings, who hope he’ll be quaffing bubbly of a different brand this June.
For now, his sights are set on another game with two or fewer goals allowed. One more would tie Miikka Kiprusoff’s expansion-era record of 16 straight in 2003-04, the year Kiprusoff backstopped Darryl Sutter’s Calgary Flames all the way to Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final they came millimeters from winning in Game 6.
“(Kuemper) started the season, he had two stretches where he had injuries. He was solid at the beginning of the season, he had the injuries and came back,” Hiller said. “Once he came back from the second injury, since then, if he’s had a bad game, I don’t remember it. He’s just been there every night, so that’s pretty consistent.”
Kuemper turned in another solid performance in a 6-1 win over the Ducks on Thursday night, when another Kings goalie, prospect Hampton Slukynsky (Western Michigan), advanced to face Boston University in Saturday’s NCAA championship game by toppling defending champion Denver in double overtime.
The Avs will wrap up their regular season this weekend as they’ll visit the Ducks on Sunday at Honda Center.
For the Kings, a franchise record in points would require them collecting seven of a possible eight in their last four games, and surpassing Vegas for the Pacific Division title would be similarly daunting given their six-point deficit.
It appears increasingly likely that the Kings will face Edmonton in a first-round series for a fourth straight postseason, but their four-point advantage over the Oilers means they’ll likely begin this series at home after playing three straight Game 1s – and 2022’s Game 7 – in Edmonton.
AVALANCHE AT KINGS
When: Saturday, 1 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: FDSN West