Though the Avalanche clinched a playoff berth on March 20, the Kings had to fight to make it, clinching their postseason berth on April 13. The Kings had an eight-game point streak (6-0-2) before a 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames in the regular-season finale on Thursday.
In the playoffs for the fifth straight season, the Kings must deal with the Avalanche after they played the Edmonton Oilers the past four first rounds (losing each time).
“We’re going to have to weather the storm,” Kings coach D.J. Smith said. “There are going to be times when they’re really going to come at us. They have five, six, seven of the best players in the world over there, but the one thing we’ve always been able to do is play defense. We’re going to have to defend real hard and then when we get opportunities we’re going to have to sting them.”
The Kings come in with extra motivation: this is the final postseason for center Anze Kopitar, who’s already announced he’ll retire at the end of this season after a 20-season career with Los Angeles. He won the Cup with the Kings in 2012 and 2014.
“It didn’t really hit yet, and it won’t until it’s done then,” Kopitar said of this final run. “We’re focusing on obviously the Colorado team now and go from there.”
The Avalanche and Kings played three times this season, but they haven’t squared off in the playoffs since 2001-02. It’s time for the two to get reacquainted.
“Just continue to ramp it up,” Avalanche forward Brock Nelson said. “The last couple of weeks the talk has been building the game, building the mindset and mentality of what it takes in the playoffs and how that margin for error is razor thin. I’m sure we’ll watch some film, pick up some tendencies, different things from our games (against the Kings) earlier this year, maybe things they’ve done recently in their games and then get at it.”
The Avalanche expect to have their full roster available for Game 1 of the postseason. The status of the Kings' injured players is not known.
