LOS ANGELES — The Kings finished the regular season by circling the wagons, but after a 4-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena their campaign was circling the drain.
They fell to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avs for a third consecutive game, putting the Kings on the cusp of being swept for the first time in what looks like it will be a fifth straight first-round ejection from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Trevor Moore and Adrian Kempe each scored for the Kings. Andrei Kuzmenko played for the first time since Feb. 25 (meniscus surgery). Anton Forsberg made his third consecutive playoff start and fourth overall, making 19 of 22 saves.
Artturi Lehkonen scored a goal and assisted on another by Cale Makar after Gabriel Landeskog opened the scoring and before Brock Nelson added an empty-netter for Colorado. Scott Wedgewood stopped 24 shots.
With 4:03 remaining in regulation, Quinton Byfield drew a penalty, setting up a 6-on-4 power-play goal when Kempe deflected Panarin’s low-flying shot inside the right post for his first playoff goal after leading the Kings during the season.
Yet Kempe’s missed connection with Anže Kopitar in the neutral zone allowed Nelson to pickpocket the puck from Kopitar, hitting the vacated cage with 2:18 to play.
There would already have been no déjà vu with a third straight 2-1 final in the Avs’ favor, because Colorado scored a shorthanded insurance marker, 7:39 into the final frame.
Kempe fanned on a one-timer, sending the Avs in the opposite direction with numbers. Kempe hustled back, only to have Lehkonen’s pass for Logan O’Connor go off his skate and in for the Kings’ second own-goal of the evening.
Colorado went into the second intermission with a 2-1 advantage, the same score by which the Avs won Games 1 and 2 in Denver.
With 7:48 left in the second period, Makar, who was third among defenseman in scoring this season, recorded his first point and goal of the series. Drew Doughty’s rim-around was picked off easily by Lehkonen, who sent the puck from below the goal line to the right point for Devon Toews. Toews’ D-to-D pass found Makar, who walked the blue line past Alex Laferriere for a long-range snipe, top-shelf to the blocker side.
Earlier in the frame, Forsberg shut down Landeskog and Game 2 hero Nicolas Roy on an odd-man break, then at 5:55 the Kings tilted fortune in their favor, resetting the count at 1-1.
Byfield disrupted the Avs’ push through the neutral zone, setting up an interception by Laferriere, and then received the puck back along the right-wing wall. He heaved a backhanded centering pass to the rear post for a redirection by Moore, the Kings’ first goal of the playoffs from someone other than Artemi Panarin.
Moore’s celebration was delayed, as his immediate reaction was grabbing at his bloodied mouth. He had been high-sticked on the play, and the Kings got a 2-minute power play for the latter half of Manson’s double-minor penalty but did not convert.
Through 20 minutes, the Kings out-shot the visitors 12-7, drew the first penalty of the game and looked solid territorially.
They also trailed on the scoreboard.
The Avs lucked into the series’ first first-period goal, 5:29 after the commencing whistle. Landeskog netted his second goal in two games when he fired a magic bullet from just inside the blue line. It banked off the end boards and then a sliding Forsberg’s skate to give Colorado a 1-0 lead.
Game 4 is Sunday afternoon at Crypto.com Arena, where the Kings need a win to keep their season alive.
More to come on this story.