In Denver, Sean Walker scored to give the Los Angeles Kings a 1-0 lead on Thursday night.
The Avalanche responded with five unanswered goals in a 5-1 win.
The victory clinched the West title for the Avs and it secured the President’s Trophy as the best in the NHL this season.
“It feels good,” the Avs’ Mikko Rantanen said. “We achieved the first goal we had this year, to get the home-ice advantage for the whole playoffs, and we checked the one box. Everybody knows what the next box is, so we have to start working on that. I believe in this group. Our goal is to go all the way to the end.”
Jonas Johansson made 21 saves in the win.
Tyson Jost struck for two goals including the game-tying marker to get the Avs’ offense rolling.
“It’s awesome, feels good,” Jost said. “First place, it’s something we’ve been going for the whole year. It was a goal we set in training camp.
“It’s an awesome group of guys, this is an awesome regular season and there’s much more ahead of us, so it’s exciting. I’m happy to be contributing and I can’t wait for playoffs.”
Andre Burakovsky also scored for Colorado.
“When you play a period like that and they get one late, it’s frustrating and you go back into the dressing room and you think, ‘Holy smokes, what do we have to do to get one here?'” Jost said. “Our team stuck with it. Once we got one, the floodgates started to open and we just kept pouring it on. A great job by our team to stick with it.”
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Joonas Donskoi also scored in the Colorado win.
“I love the way we finished the season,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “I love the way guys dug in, guys stepping into different roles, different guys chipping in every night. We won some ugly games, we won some games where we played real well. There were a lot of contributors most nights.”
Troy Grosenick made 38 saves in the loss.
“There was a point where we really believed we could be a team that was going to push for [the playoffs], and then it slipped away on us and the belief system slipped away,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said. “We have to sit back and review everything.”
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