The Colorado Avalanche got dragged into a defensive slog Wednesday night with the Los Angeles Kings, but having more world-class players than the other team works in those types of contests, too.
Mikko Rantanen had a natural hat trick and an assist, Nathan MacKinnon extended his NHL scoring lead to its greatest margin of the season and the Avs shook off another slow start to grind out a 4-2 win against the Kings at Ball Arena.
“Our guys don’t need too much to make a goal,” said Avs goalie Alexandar Georgiev, who only needed to make 13 saves. “Amazing game by Mikko. He managed to find them out there. An incredible effort overall by everybody.”
There weren’t many great chances in the first half of the third period, but MacKinnon dug the puck out of a scrum along the right wall and got it to Rantanen, who made a move to slip by a Kings defender and scored at 10:01 of the period to break a 2-2 tie. He scored again into an empty with 1:59 left to seal it.
Rantanen now has 12 goals this season, which puts him in a five-way tie for the NHL lead. He has eight of them in the past five games.
“I always try to play the same way, not change too many things,” Rantanen said. “Sometimes you just get in the right positions in the right time. … Like I said when I was not scoring as much, you go through a cold stretch and feel like nothing is bouncing your way. Then you have these stretches where you don’t even feel like you played that well, but you get to the right spots and the puck is going in.”
MacKinnon’s three points improved his NHL-best total to 33 in 17 games. He has five more than Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov. After Rantanen’s four-point night, he and Cale Makar are tied for third with 25 along with Carolina’s Martin Necas.
Colorado’s dominance after the first period in recent outings has been led by the offense. The Avs didn’t find a ton of offense in the middle 20 minutes, but they did something for only the third time in franchise history.
Los Angeles went the entire second period without a shot on goal. The other two instances where the Avs pitched a shutout on the shot clock were both against the Arizona Coyotes — Feb. 16, 2015 and Mar. 11, 2023.
The Kings had one glorious chance. Kevin Fiala got behind the Avs and in alone on Alexandar Georgiev, but he put his shot off the right post.
It wasn’t just that Los Angeles didn’t have any shots on goal. The Kings only had eight shot attempts in the period, and 38 in the game — the second-fewest Colorado has yielded this season.
“Just super smart hockey,” Georgiev said. “Just played super solid, and played a lot in their end. That helps too.”
Colorado did put 13 shots on net in the period, and eventually two of the best players in the world were able to create something out of nothing. Makar put a long breakout pass between two Kings defenders, springing Rantanen for a breakaway and he did not miss.
The Avs’ string of slow starts continued. Adrian Kempe scored twice in the opening period for the Kings.
Kempe’s first came 32 seconds in. He put a weird-angle shot on net from along the goal line, then beat everyone on the Avs to the rebound. It was the first not-great goal that Alexandar Georgiev has allowed in his past four starts.
Los Angeles scored against Colorado’s top line, but the Avs’ big guns got that one back at 3:40 of the period. Artturi Lehkonen pounced on the rebound of a Rantanen shot. MacKinnon got the Avs into the offensive zone and set up the Rantanen shot.
Kempe struck again at 15:51, but Georgiev had no chance at this one. Anze Kopitar, who entered the game as the active leader in points against Colorado, collected his second assist of the night by finding Kempe wide open for a one-timer.
This was expected to be the last game before reinforcements arrive for the Avalanche. The team expects Valeri Nichushkin to be fully reinstated from Stage 3 of the NHL-NHLPA player assistance program in time to make his season debut Friday against the Washington Capitals. Avs coach Jared Bednar also intimated that Jonathan Drouin and Miles Wood could be ready to return from injury as well.
“We’re all excited to add guys back in the lineup, especially the caliber of players that are coming back,” Bednar said. “I’m more excited about the way our team has been playing the last half dozen games. We add more guys, and as long as we don’t change anything when it comes to the points we’ve been hammering home, we’re going to add some offensive firepower.”
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