LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Kings are searching for answers and running out of time to find them.
For a third consecutive game against the NHL’s best team in the regular season, the Kings felt good Thursday night about how they played. For the third consecutive game, the Colorado Avalanche defeated them.
The Avs have not blown the doors off this team like many pundits predicted, given the chasm between the two clubs in the final NHL standings. They have beaten the Kings at their own game, combating a physical, defense-first brand of hockey with a better version of it.
“We keep saying we’re right there, but I think each guy, including myself, we have to give a little bit more,” Kings center Quentin Byfield said after the Avs won 4-2 in Game 3. “We’re doing the right things, but we just have to dig in a little more.”
Colorado has allowed four goals in three games. Two of them have been at 4-on-6 because the Kings pulled their goalie late in the game while on the power play.
Scott Wedgewood was one of the NHL’s great stories in the regular season, and he’s kept it rolling in his first three career Stanley Cup Playoffs starts.
“I don’t think we’re creating enough Grade-A chances on Wedgewood,” Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. “He has played well, but statistically, they’re one of the best teams in the neutral zone. For us to beat them, we have to wear them down in the D zone, make them tired, and score goals that way. We haven’t done that enough.”
Doughty is right. The Avs have created more than 60% of the high-danger scoring chances in this season, according to Natural Stat Trick at 5-on-5. That’s the second-most in this postseason so far, behind only Montreal.
Despite Los Angeles’ best efforts to make this a low-event series, Colorado leads the playoffs in both total high-danger scoring chances (34) and chances per 60 minutes (14.09). The Avs are still getting a lot of the chances they want.
The Kings are not. So the search for solutions continues.
“Get some O-zone shifts, get the next line out there still in the O-zone,” Doughty said. “Thatap what they do to us. They come at us with flurries of three great shifts in a row and then the game goes back to neutral and then they do it again. We need to get more of those flurries on them.”
Byfield, who has been the Kings’ most dangerous player when they’re not on the power play, had a similar message.
“Itap just more plays. We keep stressing that,” Byfield said. “Playoff hockey obviously itap physical, you’re chipping a lot of pucks out, but we can be connected a little bit more, breaking it out, coming out as a unit and being a little bit more connected.”
Kings coach D.J. Smith answered a question after Game 3 about his team’s lack of 5-on-5 offense. They have scored once at even strength in three games. He felt the analytics would say the offense generated on Thursday would be a big number.
It was not. The Kings generated 1.55 expected goals at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick. Los Angeles’ total for the game in all situations was 2.59, which is the ninth-lowest by any team in the playoffs so far. It was an improvement from Game 2, when the Kings accumulated the third-lowest (2.02), even with the contest needing overtime.
So the Avs have pulled a Kings on the Kings, and now the Kings want to be more like the Avs to beat the Avs.
“We gave up the lowest goals against of any team,” Wedgewood said. “We’re detailed. We take pride in our D zone. Guys are blocking shots, doing what they need to do. And I think growing that throughout the season is going to pay off in the playoffs like it is right now.”
