R1, G1 Preview – Managing The Moments + G1 Lineup Notes, Kempe’s Playoff Prowess, Special Teams, Smith on G1

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs get underway this afternoon, as the Kings visit Colorado for Game 1 of their opening-round matchup.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Colorado went 3-0-0 in the 2025-26 regular-season series. Forward Adrian Kempe led the Kings with three points (0-3-3) against Colorado during regular-season play. Defenseman Brandt Clarke scored in the most recent game between these two teams, in Los Angeles on March 2, while forward Joel Armia scored when these teams met in Colorado earlier this season, a shorthanded goal.

KINGS VITALS: With the afternoon puck drop, the Kings did not hold a morning skate in advance of today’s game.

Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith did not declare a starting goaltender for today’s game. Should Anton Forsberg get the nod, he would be in line for his first career Stanley Cup Playoff appearance, coming off a 5-1-0 month of April. Should the Kings turn to Darcy Kuemper, he started all six playoff games for the Kings last season and won a Stanley Cup championship with Colorado in 2022.

Below is how the Kings lined up during yesterday’s practice day at Toyota Sports Performance Center –

Panarin – Kopitar – Kempe
Moore – Byfield – Laferriere
Armia – Laughton – Wright
Malott – Helenius – Joseph
Kuzmenko – Turcotte – Ward

Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci
Moverare

Forsberg/Kuemper/Copley

Suppose it ultimately remains to be seen if the King deviate from this group at all, but should it hold, forward Jared Wright would be in line to play in his first ever NHL playoff game, with the fifth line plus defenseman Jacob Moverare likely to miss out for Game 1. Pheonix Copley is on hand as the emergency third goaltender, behind Kuemper and Forsberg.

AVALANCHE VITALS: Colorado enters the playoffs on a three-game winning streak and a six-game point streak, having ended their regular-season schedule with a 2-0 win over Seattle on Thursday evening.

Per Evan Rawal, here is how Colorado lined up during yesterday’s practice –

#GoAvsGo practice lines today…

Lehkonen – MacKinnon – Necas
Kelly – Nelson – Nichushkin
Landeskog – Kadri – Roy
Colton – Drury – O’Connor – Kiviranta – Bardakov all in green.

Top 6 Kelly is a go.

— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) April 18, 2026

Colorado is led offensively by forward Nathan MacKinnon, who led the league with 53 goals scored this season. Defenseman Cale Makar ranked third among all NHL defensemen in scoring this season with 79 points. Forward Martin Necas joined MacKinnon as two of eight players in the NHL with 100+ points this season, making the Avalanche the only team in the NHL with multiple 100-point scorers.

Storyline Of The Day – Managing The Moments
Colorado is going to get theirs.

There are going to be times in this series where the Avalanche absolutely surge. And it’s not going to be for one shift. It’s going to happen multiple times. Those surges could break teams. It can’t break the Kings.

“You have to manage when they really take over a game and limit that to shorter periods, rather than have it carry over, shift after shift,” Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith said. “Someone’s got to go out there and have a good shift and stop it. Let’s be honest, we’re going to have to have some guys play outside of their comfort zone. We have to have some guys outperform maybe what they are. That’s what has to happen for teams to knock off a President’s Trophy winner.”

Everyone is aware of it and they’re not feeding any BS about it. This isn’t a “if we just play our game, it won’t happen” scenario. They understand that it will, regardless, against this team.

It’s a conversation within the room that these moments within games will happen and a huge determining factor in this series will come down to how the players handle those moments. Can they steer through the storm, long enough to make the play that pushes back the other way, settling the game down? That’s a massive focal point beginning with today’s Game 1.

“There’s going to be moments where we’re going to feel like they’re down our throats and they’re dominating us,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “If we can weather that storm and just reset, forget about what had just happened, I think we’ll be just fine.”

That word Doughty used came up from multiple players. Reset.

When the Colorado momentum comes at you like a……well……Avalanche, the Kings want to try and find reset opportunities to slow games down and get back going in the right direction.

It’s much easier said than done, especially when you look at the depth on the other bench. There isn’t a line you can take a shift off against. MacKinnon/Kadri/Nelson down the middle is as deep as you’ll find, with a fourth line of proven veterans as well, whoever winds up on it. It’s a tough task but it’s the task the Kings have. They have their gameplan and they’ll do their best to execute, when those moments inevitably come.

“We talked about [yesterday], resets,” forward Quinton Byfield said. “Playoffs are just a lot of highs and lows and we’ve always got to be on the same page. There’s going to be times they push possession for a little bit and it’s just what we can do to just slow it down, reset and get back to what we can do.”

Composure will be key in those situations. It comes down individuals not letting those moments overwhelm them, become too big for them. You can gameplan all you want, strategize all you want and the Kings have. But in those moments, with elevated pressure and intensity, the players on the ice have to execute. Can’t just be one guy either. The Kings will especially need their defensemen to elevate into the group they were showcased as in the summer, a playoff-built group, which is not the group we’ve seen this season.

It’s a veteran group on the backend specifically. How those six, as well as whatever forward lines are out there, can calm things down in the moment where it feels like the game is about to go over the edge, that will play a big part this afternoon.

“Sometimes it comes on the individual that goes on the ice,” Doughty added. “If I go out there and get a puck on my stick, I can calm things down with making a great breakout pass or slowing the game down, or whatever it could be. Sometimes, it comes down to that, but as a whole, it’s just, who cares what just happened, let’s just go get on the forecheck, get pucks to the net and do the same things we always do.”

3 To Watch For –
– If the Kings are going to steal Game 1, forward Adrian Kempe will probably play a big part in the heist.

Few players have scored as Kempe has in the playoffs over the last four seasons. While the Kings have been overrun by Edmonton on the whole, it certainly hasn’t been a lack of effort from number nine. He’s led the Kings in playoff scoring in four years running, with 15 goals and 29 points in 24 postseason games played.

Among all NHL skaters with at least 10 games played over the last four postseasons, Kempe’s 1.71 goals per/60 in 5-on-5 situations is second best in the league. Leads all skaters with at least 20 games played. Simply put, he’s been tremendous in the playoffs, elevating his game when the going gets tough. That’s the kind of guy you want at the top of your lineup.

“I don’t know what it is, I’m just excited for playoffs,” Kempe said. “High stakes out there, I get very excited for games like this. You get a little nervous before the game and all that kind of stuff and then you try to pick your game up a little bit and just go out there and play. Not sure if that’s why I’ve had success in playoffs in the past couple of years, but just trying to play a little bit harder, a little bit better, a little bit less risk in my game and just try to go to that little bit more.”

Tonight will be the first time Kempe has squared off with Colorado in the postseason, so we’ll see how he can translate his success into this series. He has certainly been a driving force for the Kings in the past and they will need him to be in this series as well.

– I think that special teams represents a real opportunity for the Kings to try and steal a game on the road.

Since D.J. Smith took over, the Kings are third in the NHL in penalties taken per/60. For the season as a whole, Colorado is tied for fourth in the league in net penalties, mean drawn versus taken, at +27. Opportunities could be limited, but within that is perhaps a chance for the Kings to win an area of the game.

The Kings power play got a large bump when Artemi Panarin game in but has faded a bit of late. When asked about the top unit, Panarin has a plan of attack.

“I think we’ve got to shoot the puck, shoot the puck from up top, probably, and try having three guys down by the net for rebounds,” Panarin said. “Especially in playoffs, it’s hard especially to make a great play right away. Everyone is going to be nervous a little bit, so we’ve got to start simple. I actually prefer being simple. I feel like when you shoot it, you have five shots on a power play, then you recover the puck and they can’t break it out, you probably have a better chance to score.”

Simplicity. Panarin really runs the show from the left side and one thing about him is his stick is always in a shooting position. When he receives the puck, shot is always an option, as is a pass. Maybe he looks to try and get more pucks into those areas for guys like Alex Laferriere and Anze Kopitar, or Adrian Kempe crashing down, to get on the end of.

If Colorado has one weakness on paper, it’s their own power play, ranking 27th for the season as a whole. The Avalanche are ranked number one in the NHL on the penalty kill, but as you’ll recall, the Kings ranked second in the NHL on the PK two seasons ago and barely cracked 50 percent in the playoffs. For the Kings, a heavy underdog, special teams should at least serve as a small opportunity. Find a way to win on special teams and you make the job a little bit easier.

– Lastly, sharing this quote from D.J. Smith in advance of his first game behind the bench as a Head Coach for an NHL Playoff game. He’s been there as an assistant in Los Angeles and Toronto and he’s won a Memorial Cup in Oshawa. It all helps prepare him, though this is a different animal, certainly.

“I was there with Toronto as an assistant coach and I mean some big games, Toronto, the pressure of the Game 7 in Boston and, and we played against Ovechkin in my first year with Matthews there, when we made the playoffs there. So, you’ve been a part of it, not as a head coach, but I can say this, you can draw back on big pressure moments, whether it’s gold-medal game in the World Championships, three Memorial Cups. Those are pressures, they are one-game moments. Is it the NHL? No, but you’re going to learn and this is going to make me better. My job is to make sure that I can make the right decisions, in the right state of mind to allow our players the best chance to win. We think we have a game plan that’s going to help us. If we’ve got to make an adjustment, I’ve got to make it, but I’ve got to be the common ground for these guys that gives them the answers and pushes them to the next possible thing that we may need.”

Kings and Avalanche, Game 1! A matinee to kick things off, first afternoon playoff game for the Kings since the 2010’s. Broadcasts will be available in-market with local and national feeds. See what we got here!