Kings’ A-game still not enough to beat Avs
The Los Angeles Kings showed up for their first home game of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs. In Game 3 against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday, they outshot the Avs for the first time in the series. They got offensive contributions from their top players, such as Artemi Panarin, Adrian Kempe, and Alex Laferriere. And yet, despite their best efforts, they couldn’t pull out the victory, losing 4-2 to Colorado and falling into an 0-3 hole in the series.
At this point, the Kings are probably asking themselves what they have to do to get a win in this series. They can probably claim they got unlucky, as a couple of the Avalanche’s goals were the products of fortunate bounces, but it’s clear that the mismatch this series appeared to be initially has become reality. Maybe Los Angeles can extend the series with a Game 4 win, but it appears they’ll soon have to tip their cap to the better team and go back to the drawing board this summer.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether the Kings have run out of ways to compete with the Avs.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Colorado being up 3-0 on L.A. is anything but surprising, Hutts. I look at that game, a 4-2 loss in Game 3, and a game in which L.A. might’ve been the better team, but I think that just illustrates that even L.A.’s A-game isn’t good enough to beat Colorado’s B-minus-game. It’s 4-2, the Kings outshoot them, they outchance them, they score on the power play. (Anton) Forsberg made some incredible saves even is his statline’s not great. The Avs are just in a different class. This was never going to be close for me.
Carter Hutton: This is what we expected. I think we called it yesterday when we put our bet in, we took the puck line, we knew this was going to happen, so we’ve got to pump our tires when we can get it. This is a team that capitalizes on their chances. The Kings are on a power play, there’s a turnover, (Artturi) Lehkonen beats Panarin up the ice. I know he’s been on the ice for the power play, but the effort back on that backcheck is just not winning hockey. The Avs are just way to fast.
It’s key plays for me. When I look at (Cale) Makar having a quiet night, and I know they kind of highlighted on the broadcast last night, (Jared) Bednar’s in his ear, and then the next shift he goes out there and he walks the blue line and he justs sifts a missile through a crowd, finds the back of the net. It just felt like they’re almost toying with them. It feels like they’re playing with their food a little bit and they’re trying to find their game and see what patterns are going to work, because the next matchup, they’re going to have to come flying. Admirable for the Kings making a push, but we’re getting what we expected in this series.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Friday’s episode here…