INSIDER: 5 Keys For Round 1 vs. COL

The Kings aren’t under any illusions here. 

The Colorado Avalanche are a damn good team. They won the Presidents Trophy. MoneyPuck has the Kings as the only team with below a 40-percent shot at reaching Round 2 and they're well below, at around a two-thirds / one-third split. There are going to be times in these games when the Avalanche take over and everyone understands that. But that happened against Edmonton too. The Kings lost those series but they had legitimate chances to win three of the four, really missing opportunities in 2023 and 2025. Colorado is obviously better than most, perhaps better than any other team in the NHL. The challenge is immense, but it’s a challenge the Kings have. 16 other teams conducting exit interviews, the Kings get to play a Best-of-7. 

I don’t think there’s some magic recipe to beating Colorado. The Kings are going to have to do a lot of things extremely well and get a lot of things to go their way. If you were to create an ideal checklist for winning this series of say ten items, the Kings probably need eight or nine to go their way. If they get five, it's probably not going to happen. Below are a few areas that I think are most important for the Kings. Looking at positions, players and areas of the game that the Kings need to capitalize on in order to have a shot in this series. The Kings will compete, there is no doubting that. They've competed all season and they've been in just about every game they've contested. If that mentality can keep games tight, perhaps these items below can swing the pendulum a bit. 

Goaltending

A key ingredient to what feels like every upset in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is goaltending.

Feels like just about every time a team seeded seventh or eighth competes with a team seeded first or second, good goaltending plays a role. 

D.J. Smith was asked about his starting goaltender for Game 1 immediately after last night’s game versus Calgary. He deflected, as is his right to do so, considering the regular season had ended about 15 minutes before the interview. 

In my opinion, Anton Forsberg should start Game 1. That’s not to say he will start every game in the series or throughout the playoffs but I think he has earned the right to open the series with the net. The Kings have Darcy Kuemper’s experience and Stanley Cup pedigree and that’s a great option to have. If things go sideways, he could factor in and the Kings can't lose him along the way. Necessary to have both. However, with the importance of these games, Forsberg has been arguably the hottest goaltender in the NHL in the month of April and you’d have to think he’s got the net to begin the series. 

Forsberg’s April stat line is incredible. 5-1-0, with the only loss coming yesterday in Calgary. He supported the strong win/loss record with excellent splits. Among goaltenders with more than three appearances, his 1.48 goals-against average ranked second in the NHL this month while his .944 save percentage was also second. In terms of goals saved above average, per Natural Stat Trick, Forsberg led the NHL with 8.78 in six April appearances. Per SportLOGIQ, which tracks goals saved above expected, Forsberg was second with 8.40. 

Simply put, it was a terrific month for Forsberg. That’s in the past now, but if you want the hot hand, there isn't a hotter one in the NHL. If he does in fact get the nod, the Kings will need a stout display in goal. The Kings are unlikely to have more of the puck and more of the chances, so they’re going to need saves. They’re going to need Grade-A saves. They’re going to need timely saves. In looking back at the four series versus Edmonton, the Kings didn’t get enough saves to win. Far from the only blemish. But outside of a three-game stretch from Joonas Korpisalo in 2023, the Kings never got that upset-caliber goaltending, whether they were favored in the series or not. The Kings will not be favored in this series. They’re going to need the saves. Getting them creates a foundation that the games will be close, which gives them a chance. 

Looking at the Colorado side of things, the Avalanche allowed a league-fewest 203 goals this season. The goaltending tandem of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood were named as the winners of the Jennings Trophy accordingly. Both guys have been good. Both guys were in the mix for Team Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Wedgewood especially has been excellent in April. Forsberg leads the league in GSAA and Wedgewood ranks second. His splits were stellar and you’d think he probably starts Game 1.

There’s a saying in the NFL, though. If you have two quarterbacks, you have none. 

Very seldomly have we seen a team split their goaltenders in the playoffs. Most would prefer to ride one, assuming they succeed. That would be a deviation for Colorado. Both goaltenders this season played between 40 and 45 games. Near even. Last year, Blackwood was the starter in a seven-game loss to Dallas. Not to suggest they won’t be just fine. But it is a change. Wedgewood has four career playoff appearances while Blackwood has just the seven from last year. If Forsberg can get hot early, it’s perhaps an area the Kings can find the upper hand, especially if there’s any sort of a  goaltending controversy in the other locker room.

Quinton Byfield & Company

Quinton Byfield scored 11 goals over the final 15 games of the regular season. 

He did so while playing in a matchup center role for Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith, placed against the other team’s top forward lines whenever Smith was able to get him out there. Despite the matchups, Byfield was +7 over those 15 games, on top of his goalscoring. 

In this series, that role means a lot of Nathan MacKinnon, who is obviously one of the game’s best players. If you’re talking about award winners, MacKinnon won the Maurice Rocket Richard trophy as the NHL’s leader in goals scored. He buried 53 in 80 games played. You don’t simply shutdown MacKinnon. He’s too good. But the Kings can’t just get caved in either if they want to compete in the series. Over the last month or so, Byfield has shown an ability to produce offensively despite those matchups, without sacrificing a ton the other way. He and his linemates – Trevor Moore and Alex Laferriere – are all two-way players. They’re all capable of scoring but they don’t give up defensively in order to do so. Laferriere has 15 points (5-10-15) over his last 16 games. Moore has 11 points (4-7-11) over his last 12. With how this Kings team is built, this is a massive task, but the Kings need those three to contain MacKinnon as best as they can, while also continuing to put the puck in the back of the net. There simply isn’t enough offensive depth not to get that and have a chance.

Byfield is a unicorn kind of player. Few players possess his combination of size and speed and it feels like he's found the right linemates to get the most out of him. Of late, he’s added the production to match the tools. Think we're seeing close to his best and that's come while playing through injury. The tools and mentality are what can allow him to take on the most difficult of matchups and have a shot. We’ll likely see that line paired with Mikey Anderson and Drew Doughty whenever the Kings can get it. They won’t control the matchup on the road but honestly, when you have Nathan MacKinnon, you probably don’t chase the matchup all that often. 

Byfield and his linemates will get defensive-zone starts routinely and Smith has praised how they’ve embraced that role, sacrificing individual opportunities for the better of the team. The Kings need that line to be at their very best just about every time they are on the ice. Doing so gives them a shot. 

Timely Scoring

The Kings are going to have chances to score their way into games. They can’t afford to pass them up.

Whenever possible, the line of Artemi Panarin, Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe will be out there for offensive-zone starts, with the defensive pairing of Joel Edmundson and Brandt Clarke alongside them. That’s been the approach whenever the Kings can get those players on the attack. Since Panarin joined the team, both he and Kempe have scored at over a point-per-game pace, with Kempe leading the NHL in goals during the month of April.

In his career, Kempe has elevated his game every season in the playoffs. In looking at playoff scoring over the past four seasons, Kempe ranks sixth in the NHL in points-per-game, trailing only the MacKinnon/Makar duo, the McDavid/Draisaitl duo and Mikko Rantanen in Dallas. His 1.71 goals per/60, 5-on-5, rank second in the league among players with double-dight games played. Takes a special player to have that large an uptick come the playoffs and Kempe has delivered consistently. The Kings need that. 

Then there’s Panarin, who will play in his first playoffs in Los Angeles. Look at the 1-0 win over Edmonton in the home finale. The Kings didn’t have all that many chances but Panarin had their best one. He buried it and that was all the Kings needed on that afternoon. Panarin is opportunistic and seems to always find his way into the scoring, even in games when maybe he’s not at his best. At his best, though, he’s an elite offensive talent. Panarin's playoff history is up and down. 61 points in 73 career games isn't bad at all, it's just below his regular-season totals. On both of his conference finals appearances in New York, though, he was productive, as he was in 2019, when he led Columbus to an upset similar to this one would be, over Tampa Bay. 

The Kings need those guys to excel in this series and they’ll be put into positions to do so.

It can’t just be the top guys, though. I touched on Byfield's line earlier and the Kings will also need to find goals from their bottom six and the blueline and you never know who it’ll be. Scott Laughton feels like a playoff gamer, doesn’t he? Just plays that style. Scored at a 20-goal pace with the Kings in the regular season and he’s a guy who could step up. What a time it would be for Jared Wright to get in on the action, too. He's had looks. Joel Armia brought depth scoring all season and he could be important. Could Andrei Kuzmenko potentially step in and provide a boost? Maybe. But you can’t count on that. Regardless, Kings need guys lower in the lineup to support the top guys.

Lots of areas you need production from, but that’s the nature of the beast when you’re playing a team that is deeper than you up front, with elite, MVP-caliber players.

Special Teams

You could look at this Colorado team all day and try to find weaknesses. You might not. 

The one you’d likely be drawn to, based on regular-season numbers, is a surprisingly ineffective power pay. Despite having the NHL’s leading goalscorer, a Top-5 scoring defenseman and a second, 100-point forward, the Avalanche finished the regular season with the NHL’s 27th ranked power play. It’s hard to fathom. The Avalanche converted at just 17.1 percent, compared to 17.0 percent for the Kings. 

Don’t need me to explain to you how power plays have impacted the Kings in the postseason over the last four seasons. TLDR, it ain’t been good.

Perhaps there’s a chance to get hot here. The Kings penalty kill has also struggled for the bulk of the season and only two teams in the league finished below Los Angeles, at 74.6 percent. This isn’t a strength for the Kings so much as it is perhaps an opportunity to capitalize on a weakness elsewhere. If the Kings can find a way to win on special teams, they give themselves a chance. The power play has fizzled a bit as of late and Colorado led the NHL on the penalty kill this season. With Panarin in the fold, though, it offers them a player with power-play pedigree, who can make plays with the best of them. They have Anze Kopitar on the draw to establish possession. They have Adrian Kempe’s one-timer. They have some pieces and they just have to get hot in a short sample size. 

There’s a couple of big if's here, but this is the playoffs. Players get hot. Units get hot. Not looking for a 30-game run here. Kings need to find a few power-play goals and hopefully keep a Colorado power play that hasn’t been all that productive quiet. I think it’s an area to focus on. If the Kings can find a way to win those areas, it could be a large key in a seven-game series. 

The Dirty Stuff

I thought that when Colorado was in Los Angeles at the start of March, D.J. Smith’s first game behind the bench, there was a blueprint for how the Kings can compete in this series. The game in Colorado in December, despite a couple of late goals, offers some encouragement as well. 

On March 2, the Avalanche jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but the Kings continued to work. It wasn’t the prettiest game of the year. The Kings did not dominate the chances by any stretch. Expected goals heavily favored Colorado, by around a 2-1 margin. But the Kings did the dirty work. They hit. They blocked shots. They made timely defensive plays. They got the saves from Forsberg. They did all of the things they needed to do to stay in the game and they were in the game, tied at two, late in the third period.

The Kings had 37 hits in that game, their second-most in a game all season. 23 blocked shots, which ranked tied for fourth. 

Ultimately, the Kings lost that game. But there are going to be stretches when Colorado just sends it. When they take over. When they come hard at the Kings. And, if Los Angeles is not willing to do those things for 60 minutes, the Avalanche are going to score in those situations, save for a 2012 Jonathan Quick type showing from Forsberg in net. It can’t all be on the goaltender. Needs the help in front of him.

I don’t always like blocked shots and hits as positive stats, because it means you likely didn’t have enough of the puck. But let’s be realistic here. Colorado is a puck dominant team with and more likely than not, they are going to have more of the puck. In the regular season, only Carolina controlled a higher percentage of shot attempts than Colorado. Avalanche led the league by controlling nearly 60 percent of scoring chances. More likely than not, they’re going to have the better of the offensive looks. To combat that, and set up the timely scoring referenced above, the Kings have to do those hockey-guy kinds of things. The dirty work. They did it once against this team six weeks ago. Need to find some more of that in this series as well. 

The Avalanche are going to get their looks.  Kings have to do everything in their willpower to suppress as best they can.