Avalanche escapes Kings to sweep Southern California road trip – The Denver Post

LOS ANGELES — Tired legs still led to two points.

The Avalanche wasn’t nearly at its best through a consecutive-night stretch but used strong goaltending and timely goals to finish 2-0 on its Southern California road trip.

The Avs capped their SoCal sweep with a 4-1 victory on Thursday against the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto.com Arena. Western Conference-leading Colorado, despite being outplayed through the first two periods, extended its points streak to 11 games (10-0-1).

The Avs (27-8-3) finished 5-0 in an exhausting seven-day stretch.

“We were not good through two periods, even just the simplest tasks, plays, breakouts, regroups — we were not moving the puck efficiently. We were beating it up,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “And to me, that’s a sign of fatigue. Didn’t look like we had a lot of energy. I could tell from our bench, we had a lot of guys that were fighting the puck. It looked like we were low on energy and it’s understandable.”

A night after goalie Pavel Francouz made 34 saves in a 2-0 victory against the Ducks in Anaheim, goalie Darcy Kuemper made 40 saves against the Kings. The Avs got goals from forwards Mikko Rantanen (power play), Kiefer Sherwood and Nicolas Aube-Kubel — the latter seconds after Colorado killed off L.A.’s fifth power play.

Defenseman Devon Toews added an empty-net goal in the waning moments of Colorado’s eighth win in the last nine games against the Kings.

“We knew it was going to be a tough one coming into it,” Bednar said of Thursday’s game that included the club’s second consecutive-night stretch in less than a week. “Lots of travel, road games, but we found a way. We got great goaltending from start to finish, which gave us a chance. We found a way to play with the lead. Even when it was ugly, we got some timely goals.”

The Avs, who finished 1-of-1 on the power play and 4-for-5 on the penalty kill, took a 3-1 lead at 4:11 of the third period after killing Aube-Kubel’s high-sticking minor. Seconds after Aube-Kubel was released from the penalty box, forward Logan O’Connor gained possession of the puck and spotted Aube-Kubel in the neutral zone. He skated in on a breakaway and beat goalie Jonathan Quick with the wrist shot.

“Trust me, in that box I was praying, hoping they don’t score on that. And then luckily, when I got out the box I got a breakaway,” Aube-Kubel said.

Kuemper improved to 9-0-1 in his last 12 appearances — his new career-long streak without a regulation loss. He is 14-1-1 in his last 19 games.

“We played a lot of hockey lately and maybe our legs weren’t fully there. But I thought we did a good job of doing what we had to, to defend,” Kuemper said. “We’re used to having the puck for long stretches of time. And that wasn’t really the case tonight. But we found a way to win a different style, and that’s really important.”

The Avs, who went 7-1 against the Kings last season, only mustered 15 shots through two periods in their first meeting against L.A. in 2021-22. The Kings had 34 shots to that point and deserved to have the lead. But Colorado was on top 2-1, thanks to Kuemper and goals from Rantanen and Sherwood.

Rantanen redirected a Nathan MacKinnon shot from the point past Quick at 9:43 of the first period, and Sherwood lasered a slap shot past Quick 3:06 into the second.

The Kings, who had lost their two previous games, cut the deficit in half with a power-play goal from captain Anze Kopitar at 8:58 of the middle frame.

Footnotes. Avs defenseman Kurtis MacDermid, who played the last four seasons with the Kings, was honored during the first media timeout. … Colorado’s scratches were forward Valeri Nichushkin (COVID) and defensemen Ryan Murray (injury) and Bo Byram (personal leave). Forward Darren Helm is on injured reserve. … Colorado will take Friday off ahead of Saturday’s late afternoon home game against the Montreal Canadiens. The Avs will take a club-record 14-game winning streak at Ball Arena into that game. … The Avs again donned their dark home uniforms. Either the Ducks or Kings requested to wear their road white sweaters and Colorado was not required to bring both sets.

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