Wedgewood stops 24, Avalanche hold off Kings in Game 1 of Western 1st Round

DENVER -- Scott Wedgewood made 24 saves in his first career Stanley Cup Playoff start, and the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Los Angeles Kings 2-1 in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round at Ball Arena on Sunday.

“Obviously, a long career to get to this point," Wedgewood said. “Proud to get the start. A little anxious to get going, but (at) 1 p.m., you don’t really have much to think about. Just get up, prep and go. Once I got a few shots on, settled down, crowd was into it. First TV timeout, I was talking to (Mackenzie Blackwood). Just kind of felt the heart rate was a little high, but once we got going, it felt like a normal hockey game.”

Game 2 is at Ball Arena on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET; FDSNSC, ESPN, ALT, SN360, TVAS).

Artturi Lehkonen and Logan O'Connor scored, and Nathan MacKinnon had an assist for the Avalanche, who won the Presidents’ Trophy and are top seed in the West.

“I'm really happy with the way we played,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I think that's the kind of game you can expect playing the Kings. It's a tight-checking team. What’d they play, 50-something one-goal games and low-scoring games? I'm comfortable with that. I think our team's comfortable with that.

“It's going to be hard to create offense. We had three goals tonight. One was disallowed, and I liked what we did on the defensive side of things to sort of minimize the quality of scoring chances, the quantity of scoring chances. Managed the puck well. Our guys played the right way and got the job done tonight, and now we got to go do it again.”

Artemi Panarin scored for the Kings, who are the second wild card from the West. Anton Forsberg made 28 saves in his playoff debut.

“We fall short, but there's a lot of good things,” Los Angeles interim coach D.J. Smith said. “At the end of the day, they score the most goals in the League. So, I'm going to say that holding them to two, I think they could ask themselves the same question. Are they going to continue to win with two goals?

“We had a couple empty nets we missed. Give their goalie some credit. I think we could be on the net more and I think the only, maybe, thing I'd take away is we got to be more physical. We got to hit their ‘D’ more, and I expect that in the next game.”

Lehkonen gave Colorado a 1-0 lead at 15:29 of the second period, scoring on the rebound of MacKinnon’s shot past the right leg of Forsberg while skating across the top of the crease. Lehkonen kicked the rebound out to his stick for a wrist shot across his body.

“Nate saw me going to the net, and he put a playable puck there, and luckily it jumped on my tape,” Lehkonen said. “Of course it felt good to score that goal at the time, and yeah, happy we got the job done today."

Said Cale Makar: “‘Art’ made a great play there. Nate threw it to the net and Art beat his guy. That’s playoff hockey. You’ve got to get to the net and it’s on us to get the puck there."

O’Connor had appeared to score the opening goal at 6:46, but the refs immediately called it off for goaltender interference after Jack Drury made contact with Forsberg. Colorado challenged the play, but a video review upheld the call.

“Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t,” O’Connor said. "Once we challenged, I was hoping we’d obviously get that one back. Once we didn’t, then it’s on us to go kill it and do our job.”

However, O’Connor extended it to 2-0 at 5:50 of the third period. He used his speed to charge through the zone and past Cody Ceci before sending a wrist shot short side over Forsberg's glove. Drury sent the puck over Joel Edmundson and off the glass in the Kings zone, and O’Connor beat the defenseman to it for the play.

It was O’Connor’s first goal since returning on March 24 from hip surgery he had in June 2025.

“Super happy to get it out of the way,” O’Connor said. “Felt like our line, over the course of the last couple weeks here during the season, we were continuing to build things. Just try to stick with our game plan. For us, our game translates well to playoffs. It’s a lot of simplicity and muck it up and just wear teams down. It was nice to get that one out of the way and finish the job off tonight.”

Panarin cut it to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 17:38. His wrist shot from inside the blue line went through traffic, including a screen from Anze Kopitar at the top of the crease, and past Wedgewood's blocker.

“Didn't give up too, too much. Obviously, a few too many penalties, but did a good job,” Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson said. “(Forsberg) came up big when we needed him. Again, just comes down to a couple bounces, couple plays. They find a way to capitalize. So, watch it and figure out if we can change a few things and try and get better going into Game 2.”

NOTES: Wedgewood (33 years, 248 days) became the third-oldest goaltender in NHL history to earn a win in his first career playoff start, behind Curtis McElhinney in Game 3 of the 2019 Second Round (35 years, 343 days) and Les Binkley in Game 1 of the 1970 Quarterfinals (35 years, 306 days). … Panarin became the 13th player in Kings history to score a power-play goal in his playoff debut with the franchise. The only other player to achieve the feat in the past decade is Andrei Kuzmenko (2025).