It was absolutely the right score after regulation. The Colorado Avalanche decidedly outplayed the host Los Angeles Kings for two periods and had a one-goal lead. The Kings really, really outplayed the Avs in the third period and got the goal back.
Overtime? With the way Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty had it going for the Kings to that point? No, it didn’t look good, and it wasn’t.
Your final: Kings 2, Avs 1, but, hey a point in L.A. isn’t a bad result at all for an Avs team that keeps sneaking up on people.
Doughty fed Kings teammate Dustin Brown for a wide-open rush down the left side and he beat valiant Avs goalie Semyon Varlamov to the far post for the game-winner, not long into the 3-on-3 OT.
The Avs, in fact, never possessed the puck in the Kings’ zone in the overtime, the continuation of a trend that started pretty much as soon as the puck dropped to start the third period.
The Kings willed their way to this win, which put them atop the Western Conference. The Avs played a great first two periods, really, taking the lead in the second on Gabe Landeskog’s bottle-knocker of a wrist shot past Jonathan Quick, who had just tussled with the captain previously.
The Avs outshot the Kings 21-14 through two periods and, aside from a flurry here and there from the top line led by Kopitar, pretty well held them in check. Their skating was strong, defensive positioning good, pretty much everything was looking like this could be a win – and maybe a decisive one.
Wrong. The Kings really amped up their forechecking pressure and just kind of hemmed in Colorado from the third on. Los Angeles was finally rewarded, when Alec Martinez beat Varlamov with a screened shot from the point after Avs D-men Tyson Barrie and Patrik Nemeth got too careless with the puck.
The Kings almost won it in the dying seconds of regulation, when a deflected Doughty shot clanged off the crossbar.
With Kopitar winning seemingly every faceoff in the third and OT, the Kings always seemed to have the puck. That’s why this is still a very good team, one with a core of players that have a couple of Stanley Cup rings on their fingers. The shots were 11-11 in the third, but that’s deceptive. The Avs really didn’t get much in the way of a good scoring chance.
Still, a point’s a point. Now it’s on to Glendale, Arizona, home of the last-place Coyotes, who are on a point pace below that of the Avs’ atrocious squad of last year.
The Avs need to put that third behind them, learn from it, and get those two points in Glendale. They do that, and it’ll be a merry Christmas to all wearing a Colorado sweater.
