The Colorado Avalanche are in the layoffs, but still have one aim in the regular season, take the top spot in the West.
On Saturday night, the Avs kept pace with the Vegas Golden Knights, who defeated the St Louis Blues, 4-1, to remain four points back.
Devon Toews scored twice as the Avs won, 3-2, over the Kings, in Los Angeles.
“First meeting we had in the beginning of the year [the message] was we’re gunning for first,” Toews said. “That’s our goal, that’s what we expect, and we have three games left and we have a chance to do it. It started with these two games in L.A. here, putting ourselves in a position to be able to do that. We got to go one game at a time, but now we got the big one. We’re ready for it, we’re prepared, and it should be a fun one.”
Jonas Johansson made 16 saves in the win.
Sean Walker and Rasmus Kupari scored for LA.
“Obviously a great feeling to score my first NHL goal, and I got to give credit to Lias [Andersson] for his great pass,” Kupari said. “I got time to take that puck and kind of take a look where’s the hole. Yeah, it was great.”
Cale Makar also scored for Colorado.
“I take a lot of pride in being able to contribute whichever way,” Toews said. “Some nights it’s defensively, some nights it’s offensively, and I’ve been fortunate to be on the offensive side of it a little bit more this year with those opportunities playing with Nate and [Gabriel Landeskog] and Mikko [Rantanen] a lot out there.”
Calvin Petersen made 27 saves in the loss.
“We made a few mistakes, and against teams like that with their ability to score, they make you pay, but the character and the drive, there’s nothing there to question,” Los Angeles head coach Todd McLellan said. “Our guys showed up with it tonight and they pushed, they played hard to a man right through the whole lineup.”
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