Kings can’t keep up with league-leading Avalanche

DENVER — The Kings took the ice in Colorado and came away with the same realization the rest of the NHL has faced this season – the Colorado Avalanche are practically unbeatable on their home ice.

Nathan MacKinnon scored the 399th goal of his career, Brock Nelson had a goal and an assist, and the league-leading Avalanche won their eighth game in a row, beating the Kings, 5-2, on Monday night.

MacKinnon added an assist to go with his NHL-leading 32nd goal this season. Jack Drury, Cale Makar and Martin Necas also scored and Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 23 shots for the Avs (29-2-7), who have won 14 consecutive games at home and are 16-0-2 this season at Ball Arena.

Colorado has points in 28 of its last 29 games and is 10-0-1 in its last 11 to continue its historic start to the season. Colorado reached 65 points in 38 games, second fastest all-time to the 1929-30 Boston Bruins.

Corey Perry scored and Joel Armia added a short-handed goal for the Kings (16-13-9), who have lost seven of nine (2-5-2). Anton Forsberg made 21 saves.

“You’re always going to make some mistakes. We made our mistakes, not that many,” Kings coach Jim Hiller told NHL.com. “They’ve got a team that can finish, they showed us that. Overall, we will take that hockey game in this building. Night after night I would expect that we’d win more than we’d lose if we did.

“Here’s the positive for me. Over the last few games, we look a little bit more like we’re playing a little freer, a little looser. We look more dangerous. We’ve got more speed coming through the neutral zone. So, there’s lots of things to like from a big picture. In the end, we’ve got to win games, but if we can play like this, then we’ll win games.”

The Kings carried the play for the first nine minutes of the game, outshooting Colorado 6-1, but the Avalanche capitalized on a turnover. Ross Colton stole the puck from Alex Turcotte inside the Kings’ zone, passed it to Drury as he skated over the blue line, and Drury’s shot trickled through Forsberg at 9:24 of the first period.

The Kings tied it with a power-play goal early in the second period when Perry deflected a pass by Kevin Fiala past Blackwood 5:15 into the second period.

Necas put Colorado back in front later in the second. He passed the puck to Landeskog at the left post, who then put a shot on net that slid along the goal line to the right post and Necas tapped it in at 13:21.

The Kings had a couple of scoring chances after that, but the Avalanche struck next when Joel Kiviranta fed Nelson as he entered the offensive zone, and Nelson’s snap shot beat Forsberg over his left shoulder with 2:30 left in the second.

Blackwood came up with a save on Adrian Kempe’s short-handed breakaway late in the second period, but the Kings got within a goal when Armia skated the length of the ice, toe-dragged it around the stick of Makar to change the angle, and beat Blackwood with a wrist shot through his pads at 4:58 of the third.

“I feel like I didn’t get pressured that much, and I just saw lane and tried to take it,” Armia told NHL.com. “I think we played pretty good. We had a lot of chances to score but just didn’t.”

It was the NHL-leading seventh short-handed goal of the season for the Kings.

Forsberg came off for an extra skater with 2:26 remaining and MacKinnon scored an empty-netter with 1:37 remaining. Makar added another goal with 45 seconds to go to seal it.

“I thought we played well. I thought we kept their top guys to minimal chances. I thought we played them really strong,” Kings forward Adrian Kempe told NHL.com. “Only [scoring] two, obviously, it’s tough winning games. We’re struggling scoring, so it’s obviously frustrating. Everything else I thought was clicking pretty well tonight.”

UP NEXT

The Kings host Tampa Bay on Thursday at 4 p.m.