In Los Angeles, the visiting Colorado Avalanche edged the Kings on Saturday, 4-3, to keep pace with the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild who also won on Saturday.
Denis Malgin hit for a double in the win.
Alexandar Georgiev made 38 saves in the Avs win.
“Huge for our group,” Colorado defenseman Brad Hunt said. “It’s obviously been a very important road trip for us, and to keep moving that positivity forward is huge.”
Malgin and Alex Newhook scored in the second period to give the Avs a 2-0 lead.
“I felt like we had a couple of guys that played well and were there to chip in a couple of goals, get some depth scoring,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said.
Adrian Kempe scored his first of the game and Viktor Arvidsson hit off the power play to end the middle frame whit the two teams tied, 2-*2.
“Two unlucky bounces on the goal, but not much we can do about that,” Kempe said.
LA dropped to 45-25-10 and cannot finish higher than third in the Pacific.
“Obviously we would like to win more games, especially against playoff opponents that we could play, and haven’t done that the last couple of games, so that’s obviously frustrating,” Kempe said. “But I think we feel like our game is there, which is a good thing.”
LA is also looking over their shoulders at the Seattle Kraken who closed in their third spot.
“We’re not happy about it at all,” Los Angeles forward Quinton Byfield said. “We definitely want go into the playoffs with some wins, and we had a lot of big games that we lost. We’re definitely upset.”
Hunt scored with less than two minutes gone in the third for a 3-2 lead to Colorado.
Malgin hit his double at 6:18 pf the third for a 4-2 advantage to the Avs.
Kempe scored his double 26 seconds later for the 4-3 final.
Pheonix Copley made 19 saves in the loss.
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