The Colorado Avalanche are surging at the right time, but their 10-game home winning streak will be tested when they host the equally hot Los Angeles Kings on Thursday in Denver.
Colorado (44-25-3, 91 points) is 11-1-1 in its past 13 games overall and 15-4-1 over the past 20, and sits in third place in the Central Division with nine games remaining. But Los Angeles (40-21-9, 89 points) is 9-1-0 in the last 10 games to move into second place in the Pacific Division.
The Kings are five points behind the first-place Vegas Golden Knights in the Pacific Division but have played one fewer game. Thursday represents a chance to climb the standings and extend their winning streak to five games.
“I think it’s just a bunch of guys in unison,” Los Angeles winger Trevor Moore said. “The ‘D’ are playing awesome. The forwards are helping the ‘D’ out. You know, when we’re all playing together, we’re a really hard team to beat.”
Los Angeles wasn’t busy at the trade deadline earlier this month but added forward Andrei Kuzmenko, who has two goals and two assists in 10 games with his new team — all four points coming in the last three games. He has boosted the power-play unit, which is 6-for-23 (26 percent) since his arrival from the Philadelphia Flyers, well ahead of the team’s 16.6 percent figure for the season.
“It looks a lot better, doesn’t it, with Kuzmenko?” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “Whether we score it or not, can we all agree that it looks a lot more dangerous?”
Los Angeles is winning despite not having a player in the top 50 in the league scoring. Adrian Kempe leads the team with 58 points (29 goals, 29 assists), Anze Kopitar has 57 points (18 goals, 39 assists) and Kevin Fiala has 50 points (28 goals, 22 assists).
The Avalanche have two players in the top 10 in scoring in the NHL, including league leader Nathan MacKinnon with 107 points (29 goals, 78 assists). Cale Makar has 82 points (27 goals, 55 assists) as he looks to become the first defenseman to have a 30-goal season since Mike Green did so for the Washington Capitals in 2008-09.
Colorado’s Artturi Lehkonen is third on the team in scoring with 43 points, including a career-high 27 goals. Valeri Nichushkin has 19 goals and 11 assists in just 34 games, and Martin Necas has eight goals and 14 assists in 23 games since coming over in the trade that sent Mikko Rantanen to Carolina.
Necas has 77 points overall (24 goals, 53 assists) in 72 games.
The trade-deadline acquisitions of forwards Necas, Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle have spurred Colorado’s recent winning run, giving the Avalanche depth that was lacking earlier in the season. Coach Jared Bednar also has been able to reduce MacKinnon’s ice time.
MacKinnon still averages 22:43 of ice time, tops among NHL forwards.
“It’s really nice,” Bednar said of easing MacKinnon’s workload. “I get criticized for that over the years, of playing that line too much or whatever, but it’s a results-oriented business. You do what you have to do to win hockey games.
“I don’t care if it’s October, November, December because playoffs aren’t made in April. They’re made every segment the whole year, and you got to meet those numbers or things get infinitely more difficult.”
–Field Level Media
