Kings' narrow loss to Avalanche places them in 2-0 series deficit

Despite the Kings doing many of the exact things they needed to do to pull an upset, Gabriel Landeskog tied the game with 3:35 remaining in the third period and Nicolas Roy’s overtime winner gave the Colorado Avalanche their second straight 2-1 win over the Kings and prevented Los Angeles from stealing either of the first two games in Denver.

“We played two good games. Tonight [was] better than the first,” interim head coach D.J. Smith said. “We had every opportunity. Got a lead with three [minutes] or whatever to go, and you gotta be able to close it out.”

For a game with only three goals, the evening was wildly high-event and entertaining, featuring 11 penalties, huge hits, a failed penalty shot attempt and most notably, a roughly 20-minute delay to replace a broken glass panel behind the Kings’ bench.

Amidst all that chaos, the Kings only managed that single goal, which came after a strange deflection off a linesman during a power play placed the ensuing faceoff back in the offensive zone, on what would have otherwise been a successful Colorado clearance.

They stayed in the game thanks to Forsberg’s performance and the shot-blocking in front of him. They even held the lead for a few minutes in the third period, but lost another close game like so many others this season.

“I mean, that’s hockey,” Forsberg said. “It’s not a different game compared to the regular season. It’s still one goal. Today they got it.”

Also like so many other games this season, the Kings found themselves repeating the language they’d used throughout the year. At numerous points during this season, Kings players and coaches emphasized that the team was hanging around and wasn’t far away from turning their close losses into wins.

They eventually did so enough to get into the playoffs, but after this game, that sentiment returned.

“I think confidence wise, we’ve hung in there with them for two games, and we’ve been competitive,” forward Trevor Moore said. “I think we could have won either [game]. So obviously that’s a good sign.”

That concept of being “right there” was a feeling that pervaded Jim Hiller’s time behind the bench this season, and now they need to find wins even more urgently than they did then. Two more losses will end their season, and they’ll need to win at home after a season in which their home record was far worse than their road record. But in the playoffs, home-ice advantage can be completely different.

“This team is playing hard. We gotta find a way to win, though,” Smith said. “Yeah, they’re a good team, but we just got to do what we do. We played two good games here, I expect that we’ll be better at home.”