The Colorado Avalanche swept the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, earning some time off before the next round begins.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Avs still didn’t know who they would play next or when. They had Monday and Tuesday off, then practices on Wednesday and Thursday before another rest day on Friday. They found out Thursday night, when the Minnesota Wild knocked out the Dallas Stars in Game 6. Minnesota will come to Denver for Games 1 and 2, with dates and times still to be determined.

“It¶¶Òõap weird not knowing the next game,” Avs center Brock Nelson said Thursday after practice. “I mean, you’re programmed to kind of have the next one for what has it been, 86 games? To have a little break is nice at the same time, just given the nature of our last couple months and how tight it was post-Olympics.”

Colorado played 27 games after the 2026 Winter Olympics concluded — only San Jose and Tampa Bay also played that many. The Avs are one of the older teams in the tournament, so this little respite could be quite helpful if the club can make a deep run.

It’s rare to get this much time off — it could end up being eight or nine days between games, but the 2022 team had two similar breaks after rolling through Nashville in the opening round and Edmonton in the Western Conference Final.

What are the players up to this week? For the guys with kids, it’s a chance to lock in on ‘Dad Mode’ for a few extra days than normal.

“Just integrate with the home life. The wife’s usually running operations so try to help,” Wedgewood said. “Woke up with the kids, had breakfast, went on a walk with the dogs, did a bike ride, did a little routine at home and then played with my kids more. Always gonna take advantage of that.”

Youth hockey games and practices, swim lessons, gymnastics classes, even just picking up and dropping off the kids at school can be an added bonus.

“Get to a couple of the kids’ activities, a nice date night with my wife,” Nelson said. “Just doing a couple things that we’ve haven’t been able to do the past couple of weeks. It¶¶Òõap nice to get away and recharge. I think everyone is still in a good mindset and we’ll try to prepare and be feeling as good as you can for Game 1, whenever that may be.”

A few players went to the Nuggets game on Monday night. There was some golfing earlier in the week as well.

Nazem Kadri saw the Nuggets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 5, but otherwise just enjoyed his first extended downtime in Denver for a while after returning to the Avs before the trade deadline.

“I think the first couple days, you just try to enjoy the work you put in and reflect on the series a little bit, rest your body up and kind of detach your mind away from the bubble that you’re in during the playoffs,” Kadri said. “I think the closer we get to Game 1, you start to lock in and refocus. But first couple days, a whole lot of nothing – just enjoy some time with the family.”

Kadri said he’s been watching as much of the Minnesota-Dallas series as he can to do his own pre-series scouting. Jack Drury said he was watching Game 5 at dinner, but may watch more intently Thursday night.

Avs coach Jared Bednar is certainly watching, but is agnostic about how much his players are keeping up.

“We have guys that can tell you every play that happened in last night¶¶Òõap games and then other guys probably didn’t watch at all,” Bednar said. “For some guys, it helps. For other guys, it¶¶Òõap not important to them … I’m not going to tell them what to do, as long as they know what they’re doing when it comes to game time and they’re playing at their best.”

For Wedgewood, the window for watching other NHL playoff games has at times conflicted with bedtime for his two young daughters.

“My daughter will let me know there is a goalie on the TV every two seconds,” Wedgewood said. “It¶¶Òõap ‘daddy, daddy, daddy.’ No matter what goalie it is, that¶¶Òõap daddy.

“I would like to maybe watch a little more of it, but at the same time, when I have time off, I don’t want to be to sitting on my couch doing nothing when I’ve got time that I don’t normally get with my family.”

The Avalanche acquired the veteran in a trade with Toronto sending a conditional fifth-round draft pick in 2026 and a conditional first-round selection in 2027 to the Maple Leafs in exchange for Roy. It was a welcome move for Roy, who has fortified Colorado’s third line in conjunction with captain Gabriel Landeskog and Nazem Kadri, who was acquired by deadline trade the day after Roy.

“You go from definitely not making the playoffs to obviously the first team in the league and a team that’s pulling out every stop to win the Cup this year, so I’m really happy with how it turned out,” Roy said. “As a hockey player, that’s exactly what you want … Since I’ve gotten here, my goal has been to contribute in different ways, and I was able to do that in the first round (of the playoffs). Hopefully, I can do that again in the second round.”

In the Avs’ sweep of the Kings in the opening round, head coach Jared Bednar called Roy’s play “amazing.” Roy tallied points in three of the four games, including the OT winner in Game 2, an assist in Game 3 and another goal in Game 4. Roy’s plus/minus for the series was plus-five in an average of 12.87 minutes of ice time per game.

Those contributions came as a winger on the third line, a position that Roy played some previously when he was with Vegas from 2019 to 2025. A natural center, Roy’s versatility is part of what made the 29-year-old attractive to Colorado in the trade market. The deal to bring back Kadri, who was a key piece of the Avs’ 2022 title run, affirmed the fact that Roy would play winger while Kadri would be the center on Colorado’s new-look third line.

For most of the season, that third line was winger Victor Olofsson, center Jack Drury and winger Parker Kelly. Olofsson was dealt to the Flames as part of the Kadri trade, while Drury and Kelly are now part of Colorado’s fourth line along with Logan O’Connor, who missed most of the regular season due to injury.

Adding firepower for a Stanley Cup run

Bednar said the experience of Landeskog, Kadri and Roy was a key factor in Colorado’s sweep of Los Angeles, but the coach left the door open for a possible line shuffle heading into the second round against

“We’ll see who we are playing, and we’ll pick our lines based on (matchup),” Bednar said. “(Roy) is a responsible, defensive player, and that type of offense and the way he created it (against the Kings) can be repeated against any opponent. That was a favorable matchup for us — we had three veteran guys, all that have won a Stanley Cup, playing against a younger third line. They won that matchup, and that’s a big reason why we won that series.”

Roy was part of the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup team in 2023, when he registered 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 22 playoff games. He said he’s leaning on that experience in these playoffs as he continues to develop chemistry with Kadri. Both of those players aren’t just rentals for this season’s Stanley Cup run — Roy is under contract while Kadri is under contract

“I love the versatility of (Roy) taking faceoffs on the right side, and we can mix in a few extra plays in that regard,” Kadri said. “He protects the puck really well down low, he’s a great forechecker, he’s got some good vision too. And obviously he’s a big body around the net and he creates some havoc and chaos down there. It’s been fun to play with him and I think there’s already some chemistry there.”

Defenseman Cale Makar says Roy’s play since making his Colorado debut on March 6 has helped the third line bring “a consistent presence” on both ends of the ice. In 15 regular-season games with the Avs, Roy — a fourth-round pick by Carolina in 2015 who is of no relation to former Avs goalie Patrick Roy — had five points (three goals, two assists).

“(Roy and Kadri) find areas to get the puck to the net, which is great, and they read off each other really well,” Makar said. “It seems like they think about the game similarly.”

The Roy and Kadri trades were aimed at increasing Colorado’s depth and firepower on its latter lines, and thus taking some production pressure off the top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Artturi Lehkonen.

Necas, who played with Roy in 2019 on the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers team that won the Calder Cup, said that goal has already been achieved.

“He’s still really good with the puck, just like he was (when we played together in Charlotte), and he’s a really good two-way player,” Necas said of Roy. “We’ve got more depth now, and you need that in the playoffs … When the top line isn’t clicking, we need other lines like the third one to contribute, and that’s what we did in the first round. We have to keep that going and (Roy) is a huge part of that.”

But there was Artemi Panarin, architect of three extra-man goals in the first three games, collecting the puck along the left wall with the desperate Los Angeles Kings on the power play and hoping to find another opening to give his club a much-needed advantage in the first period of Game 4. Ten seconds later, Panarin was in hockey hell.

He had through every inch of ice covered. By the end, Lehkonen had boxed him into a corner, using the blue line and the Avalanche bench to trap the talented Russian.

Lehkonen knocked the puck away from Panarin for a second time and then was able to will it out of the defensive zone as Quentin Byfield arrived. Two Kings were still standing while Lehkonen lay on the ice, but the job was done, the puck was out of danger and a message was sent.

The Kings might have been the team down 3-0 in this series, but the Avs were still prepared to check Los Angeles into an early offseason.

“I thought we just came out and we wanted to bring our best effort,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said after a 5-1 victory gave the Avs a series sweep. “We knew they were going to come. I felt we weathered the storm early on and obviously getting one on the power play in the first, that can kind of calm the nerves a little bit and settle us in.

“It¶¶Òõap not easy to close a team out, especially in their building, a desperate team. But I thought we did a good job and settled in nicely to the game. Everybody contributed. We did what we needed to do.”

After it was over, Los Angeles coach D.J. Smith did not hide his admiration for what Colorado accomplished in the series. Smith and the Kings were huge underdogs. They determined they had one chance to sling their stone and knock Goliath down.

It involved checking and hitting the Avs into frustration, into making mistakes that would help the Kings find an opening to prolong the series. For nearly four full games, the Kings were happy with how they stuck to the game plan, proud of the effort it required to keep the high-flying Avalanche close.

In the end, it didn’t work. Goliath did not flinch.

“They didn’t make a lot of mistakes that a lot of teams make,” Smith said. “We stayed with, especially in our building. We stayed with it, and a lot of times, teams will crack when they don’t get the offense. They’ll crack, and they’ll start to cheat. And they didn’t.

“Given them credit. It’s not offense. They have offense. They have lots. But it’s how they check and how well they defend.”

Smith noted that his team had one breakaway in the series, and it came shorthanded. The closest thing to an odd-man rush was a partial 2-on-1.

It’s hard to get through one NHL game without allowing those types of chances. The Avs suffocated the Kings for much of the four games.

When the Kings found a push, Scott Wedgewood was the final source of frustration. Wedgwood made exactly 24 saves in every game, a statistical oddity but also another theme. The Avs held the Kings to 25 or 26 shots on goal in every game. No matter how hard the Kings checked or pushed, they ended up back in the same spot.

Los Angeles never scored back-to-back goals at any point in the series. The Kings led for 3 minutes, 21 seconds, in a game where they kept the Avs off the scoreboard for more than 56 minutes, yet still lost, 2-1, in overtime.

“I think all season we were pretty solid so I think that gave us confidence,” Avs star Nathan MacKinnon said. “But that’s kind of our main focus, just playing really good defensive hockey. We felt like we were close. I thought (L.A. goalie Anton) Forsberg played really well … But, for us, that’s our main focus. That’s just what we’re preaching. On the bench, that’s what we’re preaching. I feel like that’s how you win — good, sound, defensive hockey.”

Checking first opponent off the list

By the end of the series, the Avs’ best players outplayed the Kings’ top guys. Wedgewood was just a little better than Forsberg at first, then definitively by the end. And the Avs’ depth, an obvious advantage entering the series, was better by orders of magnitude.

Colorado’s third line combined for seven even-strength points in the series. The Kings’ entire team combined for six, and none from the bottom-six forwards. There are plenty of other stats that would illustrate how a series was both close on the scoreboard but never in doubt for the Avs.

But there was also Lehkonen. Devon Toews scored Sunday afternoon to give Colorado a 4-1 lead with 13:59 to play. It was the club’s second goal in fewer than three minutes — a clear point where the Kings had finally relented and the Avs pounced.

Seconds later, after Toews’ goal, there was Lehkonen relentlessly forechecking a Kings defenseman in the Los Angeles zone. Even when this game and this series were in hand, Lehkonen couldn’t turn off the engine that defines how valuable he is at this time of year.

The Avs knew they had to check to win this series. Lehkonen didn’t stop, even after the job was done.

“I like the adaptability from our group,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “I like the fact that we’re committed to it. I think we’re really committed to it throughout the lineup. We might not score as much as if we want to just open it up and go, but to me it¶¶Òõap still winning hockey. I think our guys understand that. This series should help our guys understand even more so that we don’t need to score four or five a night in order to win hockey games. We can do it a different way as well.”

With 2:21 to go in the second period Sunday at Crypto.com Arena, Nathan MacKinnon’s sweetest shot of No Kings Day in Los Angeles — a 5-1 Avalanche rout — led with a shoulder instead of a stick.

As the Avalanche defended a 2-1 lead, the leading scorer in the NHL took a series worth of low blows, high blows, late blows, early blows, fast blows and slow blows out on Kings defenseman Brian Dumoulin.

When Dumoulin entered the offensive zone with the puck, Nate Dogg got his bite back. The fastest forward on the ice and leading scorer in the NHL picked up speed as he prepped to meet the Los Angeles defender at the blue line.

In an afternoon of little statement moments for the Avs, that one spoke volumes. Ride his back. Chop at his legs. Jab at his ribs. Poke at his face. Just know this, if you’re a Dallas or Minnesota defender: No. 29’s taking names. And keeping receipts.

“I think it’s a hungry group, inspired group,” captain Gabriel Landeskog opined to TNT after the sweep. “We just know what we want to do.”

Cup or bust, kids. it’s more fun, of course, on the nights when Nate The Great busts out. Nova Scotia’s shooting star was a Halifax Hammer in Game 4 — over nearly 18 minutes of ice time, the Avs forward collected two goals (his first of the series); three points; a power-play goal (!); one helper; two hits; two blocks and a dozen wins via the face-off draw on 14 attempts.

Given hindsight and an ice pack, a 4-0 series sweep turned into a nice, physical tune-up for the battles to come. More importantly, though, Colorado-L.A. was over with quick enough for everybody in burgundy to rest up for the main event.

The Avs now await the winner of a Stars-Wild series tied at 2-2 as of Sunday afternoon. It’ll be stunning if the battle between the NHL’s second-best and third-best squads doesn’t go the full seven. After all the extracurriculars MacKinnon received over a week of tussles with the K.O. Kings, it’ll be nice to watch two other franchises try to beat one another up.

Everybody took a dip on the chippy side Sunday. As the first intermission loomed, the Kings’ Joel Edmundson clubbed Cale Makar late, and the mild-mannered defender was heated enough to chicken-wing Edmundson with a high elbow before the horn sounded.

About 5:40 into the second stanza, Makar got his payback, bringing the dangle and the dagger. He ducked and weaved around his defender at the right faceoff dot, forcing Kings winger Taylor Ward to play catch-up. Hail Cale finished with a nifty wrister that beat Anton Forsberg top shelf for a 2-0 lead that more or less clinched the Avs’ first Stanley Cup Playoff series sweep, and first opening-round series sweep, since 2022 — the last time Colorado won the Cup.

“I thought this series against the Kings was a good test for us,” Landeskog reflected to TNT. “It was tight. It was hard. It was a good series for us.”

It was brief — which might have been the most important thing, given Los Angeles’ propensity to goon it up. Because once the Avs had snatched a 1-0 lead, the Kings clearly preferred to dance than skate.

With 2:02 left in the first, the Avs’ fourth line snapped. And retaliated. Los Angeles enforcer Jeff Malott lit the fuse when the 6-foot-5 forward shoved Colorado’s 5-9 defender Nick Blankenburg after the whistle. Avs forward Chris Drury butted in to defend his teammate, knowing full well his roster was down a D-man with Josh Manson scratched. The cage match turned into a group scrum when another of the Kings’ big uglies, 6-6 Samuel Helenius, threw a punch at Parker Kelly. That swing drew a 10-minute misconduct penalty and an Avs power play to end the stanza.

Staring at both elimination and Anze Kopitar’s retirement, the Kings brought a desperate look from the jump. Over the first nine minutes, the Avs were outhit 7-2 and outshot 6-2. Goaltender Scott Wedgewood and a friendly post were the only two things keeping the hosts off the board. In a run of six saves over the opening 12 minutes, three on the Kings’ power play, Wedgie’s sweetest might have come 90 seconds in, when he turned away a Cody Ceci slap shot and stopped a point-blank rebound wrister by Scott Laughton.

Wedgewood, meanwhile, kept the Avs out front early and late in the second period.

Keeler: Avalanche goalie Scott Wedgewood is on an NHL Playoffs run Colorado hasn’t seen since Patrick Roy

With 17:51 left in the stanza, the 33-year-old spread-eagled to turn away Jared Wright wrister and two more Ceci looks down low with flailing, octopus arms. With 5:14 to go and the Avs clinging to a 2-1 cushion, Wedgewood drew a snow angel in the crease, sliding on his back to stone Scott Laughton's stabbing attempts.

Having endured the adrenaline rush at the outset, Colorado finally broke the ice on two fronts with 6:47 to go in the opening frame — notching the first power-play goal of the series and initial goal of the postseason for MacKinnon.

The visitors' opening tally with the extra man, coming after an 0-for-9 start on the power play, was almost how Avs faithful would've drawn it up. Landeskog, camped near the net, passed back to Nazem Kadri at the right face-off circle. The Colorado veteran turned left and shifted the biscuit from his circle to the other, where an open MacKinnon had space cleared to fire by Necas crashing the post.

Nate Dogg cocked his stick back and fired a video-game-perfect one-timer past Forsberg for a 1-0 Avs lead. Yet his second shot of the day, the one that turned Dumoulin into Artemis II, left the deepest mark. And the loudest message.

The Los Angeles Kings put forth a valiant effort, but they were never able to hit and defend their way to enough offense, and the Avalanche finished off a four-game sweep Sunday afternoon with an 5-1 victory in Game 4 at Crypto.com Arena.

Nathan MacKinnon scored twice and added an assist, while Scott Wedgewood made 24 saves to finish the series with just five goals allowed in this opening-round series of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Avs will now likely have quite a bit of time off. They await the winner of the Minnesota-Dallas series, which is tied at 2-2 and has already had two overtime games.

“I think that we played the way we needed to win the series,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “When you’re gameplanning for L.A., this is a team that defends really well. They are stingy. They’re going to make it hard on you to create offense in all situations. For me, it just kind of means you’ve got to do the exact same thing. You have to commit to your defending and help that sort of transition you into your offensive game.

“It’s not easy to create chances. It was not easy to capitalize on chances, but what we did do is we stuck with our gameplan and what we’ve been preaching all year on the defensive side of things.”

This was an incredibly tight series, with space and scoring chances hard to come by at times for both teams. But the Avalanche also proved it can play suffocating defense and the Kings rarely threatened with enough offensive vigor.

Colorado trailed for a total of three minutes, 21 seconds in this series.

“That¶¶Òõap just the game we can play,” Avs defenseman Brent Burns said. “We don’t really think about the other stuff. It was a tight series. Wedgie was huge.

“It was four tight games against a good team. Every inch was earned.”

MacKinnon scored his first goal of the series to give Colorado the lead. The Avs had not scored on the power play in the first three games, but MacKinnon scored 16 seconds after Brian Dumoulin went to the penalty box.

Gabe Landeskog collected a pass from Nazem Kadri along the goal line to the left of goalie Anton Forsberg. He sent it back to Kadri on the flank nearest him. MacKinnon, who had set up in the slot, slipped into some open space in the far faceoff circle and then ripped a one-timer from Kadri through Forsberg at 13:13 of the opening period.

Cale Makar made it a 2-0 lead with a great individual effort. Kings forward Scott Laughton tried to knock the puck out of his own zone, but Makar corralled it near the right point. Taylor Ward, playing for the first time in this series, tried to pressure Makar but that went very poorly for him.

Makar went around Ward with relative ease, and still snapped a shot past Forsberg while Ward had one arm wrapped around him at 5:48 of the middle period. It was Makar’s second goal of the series.

Colorado dominated much of the second period, but couldn’t find a third goal to really open this game up. Instead, Joel Edmundson got Los Angeles on the board with only the Kings’ second 5-on-5 goal of the series at 13:43 of the middle frame.

It was a long shift for the Avs, and Edmundson found a hole in the defense by cutting in from the left point just as Adrian Kempe brought the puck out from behind the net and found him. Before that goal, only six players on the Kings had registered a point in this series.

When it was time for the last stand from the Kings, the Avs finally found some space and made the home side pay. Nic Roy scored on the rebound of an Artturi Lehkonen shot at 3:13 of the third period. Sam Malinski passed Lehkonen into a rush chance while the Kings were set up in their defensive structure — the type of chance that has been near impossible to find in this series.

Los Angeles was gifted a power play shortly after the Roy goal, but the Avs had more chances to score shorthanded and then Devon Toews put this one to bed at 6:01 of the period. A Malinski pass to Landeskog led to another easy zone entry, and then a MacKinnon pass set up Toews trailing the play for a bullet from the top of the left circle and his first goal of the series.

“I thought it was our best game of the series,” MacKinnon said. “Overall, both ways. It was tough. The overtime game, the one-goal games — it was a sweep, but they played really well. They made it tough on us.”

MacKinnon put one in the empty net with 5:38 remaining. In the end, The Black Parade was a short, painful march to the end for the Kings.

The Kings had seven players collect a point in this series. The Avs had 10 guys with at least one in this contest.

This was Anze Kopitar’s final NHL game. One of the best centers of his generation, Kings fans serenaded him one more time with chants of “Thank you Ko-pi” as the final minutes ticked away.

Now, the Avs will rest up and wait. A much stiffer test awaits in the second round.

It’s Scott Wedgewood’s net right now. It’s Scott Wedgewood’s world. If you’re Avalanche coach Jared Bednar, why the devil would you ever change a horse that’s got the NHL eating its dust?

“If a guy keeps winning,” Eddie Olczyk, the TNT hockey analyst and former NHL forward, told me before the Avs punked the Kings in Game 3 of their best-of-seven Stanley Cup Playoffs series, “(then) there’s no reason, in my opinion, to make any changes.”

Especially when the guy between the pipes is rewriting Colorado’s history books. Of the 12 guys who’ve logged at least 200 postseason minutes in front of the net for the burgundy and blue, no one over their initial four playoff appearances with the Avs has posted a lower goals allowed average (1.17 GAA) or a higher save percentage (95.2%) s than Wedgewood, a career journeyman.

Heading into Sunday’s Game 4 in Los Angeles, The Wedgie Train is 3-0 this postseason with a 1.28 GAA. Perspective: Saint Patrick Roy went 2-1 with a 2.33 GAA and a shutout in his first three Avs postseason starts. Grubauer was 2-1 with a 2.24 GAA. Alexandar Georgiev? 2-1 with a 3.03 GAA. Jose Theodore? 3-0, 2.92 GAA. Darcy Kuemper? A 3-0 record, 1.62 GAA.

“It’s fun. You always want an opportunity. That’s kind of been my whole career, right?” Wedgewood told The Post’s Corey Masisak late Thursday night after Colorado’s 4-2 victory. “Just kind of hoping for an opportunity and (to) be used and find a home. And (I) had one in Dallas, then I go here, and it’s just been smooth sailing since I got here.”

The only swell in the seas up ahead? Wedgie’s workload. After Thursday evening, the No. 41 in your program and No. 1 in your heart had made five starts since April 13. That was the most he’d logged over an 11-day stretch since last Oct. 21-31 — a rare early-season dip that saw Wedgewood drop three of five decisions while the Avs were off to a 7-1-4 start.

Last Sunday was the 33-year-old’s first career postseason start. Every step forward is another step deeper into uncharted waters. Only right now, it feels as if the only force on Earth that can stop WedgieMania is Bednar.

“This guy looks like he’s putting his name on the circuit,” Kings boss D.J. Smith said of Wedgewood after Game 3, “as a big-time goalie.”

One who’s looking bigger by the day. had a better shot-stopping rate than Wedgewood’s 94.7%. According to NaturalStatTrick.com, the Avs’ goalie went into Friday morning ranked fourth among NHL stoppers with 55-plus minutes of playoff action in “high-danger” goals allowed average (0.64) and fifth in percentage of “high-danger” shots saved (90.5%).

Wedgewood hasn’t seen a lot of stinkers  — save for the starts, he joked to me once, that involved him wearing those cursed Quebec Nordiques throwbacks. Yet the stats also say a fresher Wedgie has been a better Wedgie, by and large: With a day’s rest during the regular season, the Avs’ 1A goalie option put up a 5-3-3 record, a 2.22 GAA and a 90.7% save clip. With two days’ rest, he was stellar — 9-0-1 with a 1.34 GAA and a 94.5% stop rate. With three or more days off between appearances, Wedgewood went 17-2-2 with a 2.24 GAA and a 91.8% save percentage.

There’s also the matter of the blonder half of Avs’ Lumber Yard, Mackenzie Blackwood, who was the organization’s presumed No. 1 net-minder before injuries and inconsistencies dogged his year.

Blackwood is younger (29) than Wedgewood and has more career playoff starts (seven to Wedgie’s three) under his belt. The longer the Avs remain in the postseason, the more likely it becomes that you’ll need your 1b goalie at some point.

With a 3-0 lead in this series, would it be smart for Bednar’s long-term plans to give Blackwood a cameo on Sunday, just to shake off the rust? Or salve his ego?

“Nah,” Olczyk replied. “Your main focus right now for the organization, without question, is putting the best lineup and the best combination and pushing the right buttons that give your team a chance to win and have success. If that means pulling a guy or not playing (a guy), and that goes for skaters, too — when your name or number get called, you’ve got to be ready.

“And it’s hard. It tests a lot of things under the umbrella. And when you get asked to step in, you go in, you play.”

In Game 3, Wedgewood saw 26 shots. He’s faced 76 attempts this postseason and turned away 72 of them. That’s the most he’s faced over a three-game stretch in at least a month.

“There are hypotheticals,” Olczyk continued. “(If you play) a couple of overtimes, you win, and (if Wedgewood faces) 78 shots, and you turn around and play the next day …  in this series though, you have a few extra days off (before Game 4).”

When I floated the idea of giving Blackwood some game time to Eddie, he sunk it. Actually, he sort of laughed. Hockey dudes are a superstitious lot. Wedgewood is hot. And you never mess with a heater in April, May or June until the fire dies out.

The first big test of how it’s worked for him is likely coming Sunday afternoon at Crypto.com Arena. Josh Manson missed the Colorado Avalanche’s practice Saturday, and coach Jared Bednar said he’s unlikely to play in Game 4 against the Los Angeles Kings. The Avs lead the best-of-seven series 3-0 and will attempt to sweep the Kings and advance to the second round.

“(Manson) is sore. So, I’d say he’s unlikely for tomorrow,” Bednar said. “Then we’ll just keep evaluating him every day after that.

“Putting a timeline on players this time of year is kind of guesswork. They’re willing to play through a lot and they’ve worked so hard through the offseason, regular season to get to this point, nobody wants to miss time.”

That would mean a playoff debut for Blankenburg, a 27-year-old defenseman who joined the club on March 4 from the Nashville Predators. An undrafted free agent after a four-year career at Michigan, Blankenburg was in the midst of his best NHL season before the trade.

When the Avs added Blankenburg, he was understandably excited to join a Stanley Cup contender. But it also meant a change in roles. He had 21 points in 49 games for the Predators, but would be No. 7 on the Avs’ depth chart when everyone was healthy.

His first chances to play with the Avs also came during a rare stretch when Bednar decided to go with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. It was, in part, to get Blankenburg some game action. But it’s not easy for a defenseman to just get a handful of shifts in any game, let alone for a new team.

“I think there was a little bit of struggle in the beginning, just trying to learn the systems,” Blankenburg said. “The last little bit was just kind of me feeling more confident in the system and my own abilities, and just trying not to think too much. Anytime you get a chance to play in with a new group, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get.”

Blankenburg averaged a little more than nine minutes per game in his first contests with the Avs. Then he went back to being a healthy scratch for two weeks.

Injuries and rest gave Blankenburg a chance to play the last nine games of the regular season. He averaged 13 minutes per night. By the last few games, he looked much more like the guy who was a sneaky underrated player in Nashville.

“We need him to be solid defensively,” Bednar said. “He’s perfectly capable of coming into our system and being a responsible defensive player and helping us move the puck out of the (defensive) zone and into the offensive zone. That¶¶Òõap what we expect from all of our D. Anything he can add beyond that is a bonus.

“What we’ll miss with (Manson) is that big, shut-down (guy), being able to close plays out quickly with the size and physicality, being hard at the net-front — all the things he brings. It¶¶Òõap a loss, for sure, but I feel good about the option we have in coming into the lineup and being able to help us.”

Manson has been a physical defensive stalwart for the Avs this season. The 79 games he played in the regular season were his most since 2017-18. He’s delivered a few of the biggest hits in this series against the Kings.

Blankenburg is a very different type of player. The expectations will be different, but his play in the last games of the regular season were a cause for optimism.

“There’s excitement, obviously. A little bit of nerves,” Blankenburg said. “It’s a great opportunity. Just stick to my game and who I am as a person and as a player, and kind of let the rest take care of itself. Just not putting too much pressure on yourself, try to enjoy the moment and not take anything for granted and just have fun.”

It had been a lean few years — three seasons without a playoff berth — but the Kings clinched a spot in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs four years ago Sunday. A couple of weeks later, they left Edmonton with a 3-2 series lead and came home for Game 6 against the Oilers.

Los Angeles had found a solid group of younger players to help Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick — the core four of the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup champions — return to relevance. Even more importantly, the Kings had arguably the best collection of prospects in the sport. The Athletic in Feb. 2022.

The bridge from the Cup champs to the next contender was built. Los Angeles had the opportunity to be one of the most successful franchises in the 2020s. It was all right there.

And then … it wasn’t.

The Kings will try to extend their season Sunday afternoon at Crypto.com Arena, but the Colorado Avalanche have built a 3-0 series lead. The Avs could complete the sweep in a series that has featured plenty of textbook checking and defensive play from the Kings, but just four goals and two that weren’t desperation 6-on-4 tallies.

What has transpired over the past five seasons for the Kings is a cautionary tale for many NHL teams. Ready to move on from the franchise legends who carried you to new heights? Ready to start a rebuilding process? Ready to begin the climb back after said rebuilding process?

Study what the Kings have done. Analyze the missteps to determine what was a bad process, bad results, or just bad luck.

Los Angeles did not win Game 6 in 2022. Or Game 7. That was Brown’s last game before retirement.

Quick began the next year with the club but was traded before the deadline. If the Avs win Sunday, it will be Kopitar’s last NHL game.

Los Angeles has made the playoffs for five consecutive seasons. That is not an insignificant accomplishment. But the Kings are one loss from five straight first-round exits. They have won just five playoff games (5-17) since leaving Edmonton after a Game 5 overtime win in May 2022.

A bridge that fell apart

The problem is the Kings never took the next step. They have plateaued in the mushy middle of the NHL — the worst place to be for long-term designs of winning a Stanley Cup. Four straight first-round losses to the Oilers, but even if the Kings had won one of those series, none of those teams were considered serious contenders.

What happened? A lot has gone wrong, but in the simplest terms … that No. 1 group of prospects didn’t pan out.

Two of the Kings’ top 20 prospects from Feb. 2021 have played in this series against Colorado — Quenton Byfield and Mikey Anderson. Byfield and Alex Turcotte were once two of the very best prospects in the sport, and Kings fans envisioned a Byfield-Turcotte-Kopitar center depth chart that would terrorize teams.

Byfield is a really good NHL player and young enough to maybe still become a great one. Turcotte had major injuries and hasn’t become more than a fourth-line center. Guys like Arthur Kaliyev, Tyler Madden and Akil Thomas did not develop as planned.

What’s worse is the names on that list who aren’t playing for the Kings: Brock Faber, Gabe Vilardi, Jordan Spence and Sean Durzi. Kevin Fiala is a good NHL player, and the Kings miss him in this series after he was hurt at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

He is not a franchise cornerstone player. Faber, who was traded to Minnesota along with a first-round pick for Fiala, has become one for the Wild. Pierre-Luc Dubois was a disaster in Los Angeles, and the trade to get him from Winnipeg, which included Vilardi at the front of a huge package of assets, was another large misstep.

This Kings team is definitely worse than the past four. They won just 22 games in regulation — only the 32nd-place Vancouver Canucks won fewer. They extended the playoff streak only by the grace of the NHL’s point system and 20 overtime losses.

If the Kings do not win four straight games, this will be the 12th consecutive season without a playoff series win. The last time it happened, Brown went to retrieve the Stanley Cup from Gary Bettman for the second time in 2014.

Where do the Kings go from here?

Kopitar will be tough to replace for myriad reasons. Fiala and Adrian Kempe will be 30 next year. Artemi Panarin is here and signed for two more years. He’ll be 35 next year. Doughty will be 37.

Byfield, Anderson, Brandt Clarke, and Alex Laferriere are all quality NHL players … who would be great complementary core pieces to the 2-3 superstar level players needed to be a true Cup contender.

The days of Doughty and Panarin being those players is over. The Kings’ prospect pool .

Will the Kings be able to lure any stars in the near future? How would they build a trade package big enough to deal for one?

Would a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series in 12 years consider a second rebuilding process? That is venturing into Buffalo and Edmonton pre-Connor McDavid territory.

Should the Kings have cashed in Kopitar or Doughty during the rebuilding process? That’s tough to say — they did the thing every franchise with aging stars wants to do.

They built the bridge. It just fell apart before they could cross it. And now they’re left with more questions than answers, and possibly needing yet another bridge.

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals are in similar spots now. The Avalanche will be there some day too.

Some of what went wrong for the Kings is obvious. A lot of it is tougher to diagnose, but other NHL teams should absolutely try to so they know which types of mistakes to avoid in the future.

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. “That¶¶Òõap 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.

“It¶¶Òõap just more plays. We keep stressing that,” Byfield said. “Playoff hockey obviously it¶¶Òõap 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.”