Presidents’ Trophy-winning teams have had some issues in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in recent years. The Colorado Avalanche were that club this regular season and haven’t so far had any problems in leading the Kings 2-0 in their Western Conference series. It shifts to Los Angeles for Game 3 tonight, with a 10 p.m. ET puck drop, and it’s obviously desperation time for the hosts. I have a single-game parlay and am up two units on NHL plays this week in parlays.
DraftKings same-game parlay (-109)
If you would have told a Kings fan/backer that their team would have held the high-powered Avalanche to a pair of goals on their home ice in each of the first two games of this set, I guarantee you stated person would have taken that in a heartbeat expecting a 2-0 series lead. Alas, the Kings only managed one in each – and Tuesday’s game even got to overtime.
The Kings have now played a whopping 34 overtime games this season, obviously including playoffs, which is an NHL record. Los Angeles has lost 21 of them, with Tuesday’s coming on a Nicolas Roy goal via deflection in the crease. But the team is doing well to make this a physical series and clogging center ice.
“We’ve got to win a game and keep taking a piece of them and keep playing physical and give ourselves a chance to keep lengthening the series,” interim coach DJ Smith stated.
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The 2-0 deficit certainly isn’t on goaltender Anton Forsberg in his first-ever playoff series as a starter, as he has stopped 64 of 68 shots and has been lights-out since the start of March to steal the No. 1 job from Darcy Kuemper.
The two Kings goals have both come on the power play from midseason trade addition Artemi Panarin. He has become the eighth player in franchise history to score a goal in his first two career playoff games with the franchise. Andrei Kuzmenko was the last to do so in 2025. Panarin is +195 to find the net tonight. He tries to join Daryl Evans (1982) as the only players in franchise history to score in each of his first three playoff games with the club.
So it’s nice that L.A. has found some success with the man advantage, especially as Colorado had the league’s best penalty kill during the regular season at 84.6%, but if you can’t find the net at 5-on-5 in the playoffs you have little chance of winning because there are fewer penalties called in the postseason. That stated, the Kings got a second-period penalty shot Tuesday, but Quinton Byfield was stopped by Scott Wedgewood.
No doubt that Wedgewood is the series MVP thus far, having stopped 48 of the 50 shots he’s faced. Not bad for a guy who had never started in the postseason before and who platooned with Mackenzie Blackwood during the regular season. On Tuesday, he became only the second Avalanche goaltender to make a save on a penalty shot in playoff franchise history. He joined Philipp Grubauer in Game 5 of the 2019 first round.
“We’ve had breakaways, we’ve had clean looks and there’s other nights when you’d score five, right, and this is what the playoffs is about,” Smith stated of his Kings. “It’s hard to score, it’s hard to get pucks to the net. You say it all year, that’s why you’ve got to play it that way, because when you get here, you can’t just turn it on and off.”
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Tonight, Wedgewood can become the first goaltender in Avalanche/Nordiques history to earn a win in each of his first three career playoff starts. The Avs have to be thrilled leading 2-0 considering likely Hart Trophy winner and regular-season goals champion Nathan MacKinnon has been held only to an assist thus far; he is still the +105 anytime goal-scoring favorite for Game 3 and is tied for the team lead with seven shots. MacKinnon’s 28 road goals in the regular season were tied for the NHL lead. Superstar blue-liner and reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar doesn’t have a point but is -550 for at least one here.
Two of the three guys who factored in on Tuesday’s winning goal — Roy and Nazem Kadri — were in-season trade acquisitions. It marked the first time in team history that two players acquired midseason went on to factor on the same OT goal in the subsequent postseason. Gabriel Landeskog, who scored the tying goal in Game 2, is one away from becoming the seventh player in team history with 30 career playoff goals and is +360 to find the net.
Colorado is 17-2 in playoff series when taking a 2-0 lead since relocating to Denver before the 1995-96 season. Los Angeles is 3-12 in postseason series when facing an 0-2 hole.
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Pick: The Kings won six of their final seven regular-season games, with the only loss coming in a shootout. It’s a must-have game Thursday, and we cash simply getting to OT even at 3-3. Hard to imagine an eight-goal outburst after watching the first two. Check out other expert picks in the SportsLine daily newsletter.
