From the NHL city nearest the Canadian Rockies to the front yard of the American Rockies, the Kings left Calgary for Colorado on their mountainous two-step of a road trip.
They fell 2-1 in Calgary, in a game wherein they didn’t get their first shot until more than 11 minutes into the match and immediately surrendered a two-on-one rush against. That was a microcosm of an effort in which the Kings had little fire against the Flames for much of the night.
“We just didn’t show enough emotion,” Kings coach Jim Hiller told reporters. “We gave them two, they could have had more. We gave them more opportunities than two, but handed them two.”
The Kings were held in the clash early by goalie Darcy Kuemper, whose performance Hiller compared to the 3-0 shutout win in Nashville on Nov. 4 wherein Kuemper allowed the team to find its footing.
“He was giving us a chance. He did that in Nashville in the first period,” Hiller told reporters. “He held the fort to try and get us to get our legs under us, it just took too long. Then, we gave them those two glorious chances, and we can only ask him to do so much.”
Hiller also credited Samuel Helenius, who engaged in his first NHL fight in just his second game with the big club, with sparking some intensity in the back half of the contest. It was the second straight game with a fighting major for the Kings, who lead the NHL with nine this season. Four Kings have dropped the gloves a total of six times in their past seven games.
While the Kings have been unabashed when it comes to throwing hands, they’ll need to use those same mitts to display some skill against the Avalanche. Colorado has soared on the attack but flown too close to the ground defensively overall this season.
Of the dozen players with 20 or more points – a quarter of which wear burgundy and blue – only two do not have positive plus-minus ratings, Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen (0) and Cale Makar (-7). The Avs’ results have been erratic, too, sandwiching a five-game win streak between funks of four and three games, respectively, and most recently winning three of four outings.
Something of a crisis appeared to be brewing in the Colorado net, but they’ve gotten more stable netminding of late. Alexandar Georgiev has won his last two decisions and may have played his best game in a tight loss to NHL-topping Winnipeg right before that. Justus Annunen has won four of his past five decisions.
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Makar, at various points, has led the league in scoring this season. If he were to win the Art Ross Trophy, he would be the second defenseman in history to do so and the first since Bobby Orr won his second scoring title in 1975. He’ll have to contend with, among others, Rantanen (currently 10th) and Colorado captain Nathan MacKinnon, who leads the NHL currently after finishing second behind Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov last season.
Kings at Colorado
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Ball Arena, Denver
TV: TNT, truTV, Max