Avs rout Kings, 9-3

In Denver, the Avalanche posted four goals in the first period on Wednesday night. They for good measure tacked  on another five goals over the final two periods in a 9-3 shelling of the Los Angeles Kings.

Nathan MacKinnon potted a hat trick and had five points in the win.

“I loved our first period,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We were the aggressors, we were on our toes, our forecheck was rolling. O-zone play, we were seeing what we talked about this morning, and what we wanted to do on the defending side of it, we were tight.”

Well, yeah.

Darcy Kuemper made 29 saves in the Avs win.

The Avs took a 4-0 lead into the middle frame.

LA’s Adrian Kempe, Alex Iafallo, and Phillip Danault scored essentially ‘so what goals’ in the drubbing.

“We didn’t have anything at the beginning of the night,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “We fell behind three and you can’t play that way against this team. We found some legs in the second, but then we made a lot of mistakes and it ended up in the back of the net. There’s no other way of painting it.”

Cale Makar added a single marker in the win, and four points on the night.

“Definitely not the performance you want tonight, especially at this time of year,” the Kings’ Anze Kopitar said. “But we’ve got to look at this one and correct stuff and make sure this is not going to repeat, because it is crunch time for our team.”

Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Valeri Nichushkin hit for doubles for Colorado.

“They came out strong and we didn’t match their intensity,” Kopitar said. “Next thing you know we were down 4-0. Obviously it was a start we can’t afford.”

Andre Burakovsky added a single marker to the tally sheet for the Avs.

MacKinnon finished off his trick in the third period to make the score, 9-2.

“I wanted to be done,” MacKinnon said. “I asked [Bednar],’ I’m like, ‘I don’t really want to. I’m good. I’ll play tomorrow [against the New Jersey Devils].’ I was just chilling, but good bounce and I just kind of whacked at it. I was blessed tonight, for sure.”

Jonathan Quick got the start fort for the Kings and did not make it out of the first period, he yielded three goals and made seven saves before getting the hook.

Cal Petersen made 19 saves in a mop up role.