LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Kings hope being back at Crypto.com Arena helps turn things around for them against the Colorado Avalanche when the Western Conference First Round best-of-7 series moves to California.
The Kings trail in the series despite each game being tightly contested. Colorado has won each game 2-1, Game 1 coming down to the final minutes in regulation while Game 2 needed overtime.
“Hockey’s so close and night to night, you win by a goal, lose by a goal. We’ve done that all year,” Kings interim coach D.J. Smith said. “If you look at those first two games, it’s a group that’s checking, that’s playing together. We haven’t maybe had some bounces but that’s the kind of game you can win with.
“Other than a few games I think we look the same every night. That’s a testament to the guys and how they’re digging in. Now maybe just have a little more confidence at home with the puck, but you can’t forget the style of play that we’re playing.”
The Avalanche haven’t been their usual high-scoring selves, but they’ve found ways to get enough. The Kings will get the last change now, and the Avalanche will adjust accordingly.
“It’s going to depend on what they want to do and what they’ve seen. We monitor all of our matchups at home and how they’re going. I didn’t have any tight matchups for either of our two home games. I look at Game 1 and (Nathan) MacKinnon played against (Quinton) Byfield, he played against (Anze) Kopitar, he played against all three of their ‘D’ pairs,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said.
“Every one of our lines hit the ice against all four of their lines and some of our numbers look good, some we’d like to improve. We have to just monitor and see what D.J. wants to do with his matchups on the road and if we have to try to work away from them, we will. If we’re comfortable with them, then we’ll just go play.”
Teams that take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-7 series have an all-time series record of 209-4 (98.1 percent).
