The Kings weren’t able to transport their home-ice voodoo or recent offensive spike to Colorado on Thursday, but the weekend will bring them home for a back-to-back set against the Toronto Maple Leafs and San Jose Sharks.
They’d scored 20 goals over their four-game win streak and 37 across a 10-match stretch that saw them come up with nine victories, seven coming at home. But on Thursday, they struggled to generate chances, much less score in a 4-0 loss to the Avalanche, who have now won 12 of 14 games and 11 straight at home.
The Kings have one more home win than the Avs but half a dozen fewer road victories, as the Kings persisted in their manic swings between playing at Crypto.com Arena and competing in seemingly any other edifice.
“We’ve got to figure out our road game before we go into the playoffs,” Kings center Quinton Byfield told reporters in Denver.
“Like I said, we’ve been brutal on the road,” he added. “I don’t know what happened, to flip-flop from last year, but we feel comfortable at home. These are some big points that we need to [get] here, and, going home, we feel confident about that.”
The Kings lost no ground to Edmonton – the heavily depleted Oilers were spanked 6-1 Thursday by the typically unremarkable Seattle Kraken – and remained up two points in their quest to secure home ice in the first round against their archrivals.
Toronto is in a battle of its own, sitting atop the Atlantic but with two teams within one point of the division lead, as both Florida franchises breathe down the Leafs’ collective necks. The Tampa Bay Lightning will enter the weekend with 89 points to Toronto’s 90 and the same number of games played, while the defending champion Florida Panthers are sitting on 89 points with a game in hand on Toronto.
Former captain John Tavares has lit up the scoreboard with 11 points during his active five-game surge. Current captain Auston Matthews accumulated 23 points in his previous 18 outings. The potential prize of this summer’s free-agent class, Mitch Marner, has six points in his past three appearances and 18 in his last 15.
Toronto last took the ice against the Kings’ opponent on Sunday, San Jose, falling 6-5 in Thursday’s shootout despite William Nylander’s second consecutive two-goal game. The Sharks won two or more games in succession for just the sixth time this season after beating the battered Boston Bruins five days earlier.
William Eklund leads the Sharks in overall scoring while No. 1 overall pick Mackin Celebrini tops them on a per-game basis, thriving against NHL competition in what would have otherwise been his sophomore season at Boston University. Former King Tyler Toffoli sits third on the leaderboard of the NHL’s worst team by record, but one that’s beaten the Kings in two of three meetings so far this season by an aggregate count of 11-4.
Toronto at Kings
When: 4 p.m. Saturday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: FDSNW
San Jose at Kings
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: ESPN