Colorado Avalanche at Los Angeles Kings: Gametime

The Colorado Avalanche travel to Los Angeles to take on the struggling Kings. Colorado is 3-1-1 in their last five and are sixth in the West with 24 points.

The Colorado Avalanche are coming off of a nice 4-3 OT win on Sunday in Anaheim. A nice Southern California vacation and it’s back at it tonight against the Kings.

Though the Avs are sixth in the West, they are just two points out of second. The Nashville Predators look to be running away with the Western Conference this season, already off to a 31-point start.

All three of Colorado’s top line scored goals in the game, highlighted by Mikko Rantanen‘s blast from between the circles off of a perfect dime from Nathan MacKinnon. Rantanen ended the night with 3 points to extend his league lead over Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and linemate MacKinnon.

Again and again, the MacKinnon line shows us why it’s the best in hockey and it’s not even really close. As long as the trio can stay healthy, they may be on-track to put up historic numbers.

From the defensive side, Philipp Grubauer stopped 30 of 33 for that all important save percentage north of 90% (Grubauer was .909, for the game). The Avs brought the defensive toughness we’ve been waiting to see with Nikita Zadorov and Erik Johnson doling out big hits. If not for so many turnovers (sound familiar, Nuggets?), the Avs defense would grade out much higher.

Still, Colorado found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and none too soon, as they were 1.5 seconds from heading to a shootout.

On the other side, the once-proud Kings are struggling to find wins, coming in dead last in the Western Conference with 15 points. While it’s early and the Kings are still talented, there has to be concern in La La Land for the play of their beloved hockey team.