The Colorado Avalanche are back to being the team to beat

Tonight was one of the few games remaining on the Colorado Avalanche schedule that would be considered a legitimate test of their rising status as a true Stanley Cup-contending team. They hosted the Los Angeles Kings, winners of nine of their last 10 games and one of the few teams feeling as good about their play lately as the Avalanche.

This Kings team is viewed as a defensive juggernaut because they allowed the second-fewest goals and shots on goal per game. They struggle to score and their road record coming into tonight was a mess with only 14 wins in 37 games, but the Kings have been exceptional so this was a meaningful test of Colorado’s new-look lineup.

How would the Avs hold up against a team that puts a vice grip on clubs through the neutral zone and doesn’t allow them to play with speed?

Uh, well, if I was shaking a magic 8 ball and asking, the response would be, “They kicked ass.” The Kings did basically none of those things tonight as the Avs peeled them apart at 5v5 and on special teams.

What’s more concerning for the Kings and encouraging for the Avalanche is the lineup balance that got them to the 4-0 result of tonight’s matchup. The Kings have struggled to score most of this season and that continued tonight. It turns out the Avs are pretty good defensively themselves but with the added bonus of having a slew of 20-goal scorers to throw at opposing teams.

Colorado’s top line led by the NHL’s leading scorer, Nathan MacKinnon, failed to score at 5v5 again and the Avs still won this comfortably. The scoring started in the second period when Logan O’Connor was the recipient of some classic Cale Makar brilliance. Just 1:32 later, the Brock Nelson-centered second line went to work with passes that broke down the Los Angeles defense and Martin Necas scored on a pass off the end boards from Sam Girard.

Just like that, the Avs grabbed hold of the game and never looked back. The Avalanche power play, the NHL’s best since the team traded Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes, went to work and scored on two of three attempts. Necas got his second of the game and Jonathan Drouin added one in the third period to make the game 4-0.

From that point, we saw the Kings have their best offensive surge of the game, but it didn’t matter. Goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood erased all mistakes made with a 22-save shutout and the Avs had a thorough, multi-layered beatdown of a team that people are trying so hard to talk themselves into being a serious contender this year. I wasn’t buying it before, I’m certainly not buying it now.

I am buying stock in this Avalanche team, though. Now, if you’re thinking, “AJ, you didn’t think the Kings were a legit contender before the game tonight so why would you use it as a data point in building a case for why the Avs are a contender?” I would say stop it, that puts a dent in the narrative I’m trying to build here. I’d also say this is Colorado’s sixth win over potential playoff teams over the last 19 days.

The Kings are a good team trying to be great. They walked into Denver with a ton of confidence. The Avs dispatched them with relative ease. It wasn’t a complete domination, but at no point before the score got to 3-0 did the Kings take over the pace of play for an extended period of time.

In fact, it was the complete opposite. The Kings spent the entire first half of the game trying to slow down what the Avs were doing. It’s never a good sign when your energy is expended trying to stop the team from doing what it does best instead of putting that energy into doing what you do best. The Avs were dictating the terms this game was played on and that has become a familiar sight through this course of them winning 12 of their last 14 games.

The Avs loading up on center depth before the March 7 trade deadline has allowed them the type of lineup balance that is so frequently lauded in Dallas with a deep Stars forward group that can beat you in lots of ways. We’ve repeatedly seen exactly that from this Avalanche group as they have gone 8-1-1 since the club added Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle down the middle.

This isn’t the Avalanche teams of the last two seasons. They aren’t running out J.T. Compher, Lars Eller, Ryan Johansen, and Casey Mittelstadt down the middle. They aren’t pretending that Yakov Trenin can handle the center job in a playoff series. They have real, true-blue centers to take on the rigors of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the results have so far been outstanding.

Los Angeles got a heavy dose of Avalanche territorial dominance from someone other than MacKinnon and friends when the Jack Drury-led fourth line not only scored a goal but completely locked down the Kings. That line allowed zero scoring chances, zero high-danger chances, and only one shot on goal in 7:25 of 5v5 time together.

This is a team built to win in every style. We’ve seen them win the high-scoring game, the low-scoring game, the games against playoff teams, the game where they blow the third-period lead and have to grind out a win, the comeback win, and the games where they don’t even play all that well but still comfortably win.

This isn’t as deep and talented a team as their 2022 Stanley Cup-winning team, but that club went 16-4 en route to a championship. Let’s be real. That isn’t a fair standard to try to live up to, but this team continues to show it is no longer a one-trick pony. This is the type of team you watch and don’t relegate them to background noise because they are capable of something spectacular on any given shift. This is a hockey team that demands attention and focus to be fully appreciated.

I can promise you one thing: This is a team that has the attention of everyone else vying for the Stanley Cup this year. More and more it no longer looks like the Avs can be trapped in a series against a bad matchup.

It looks like everyone else is trapped with the Avs.