Good news, Kings fans: No longer must you dread yet another first-round series against the Edmonton Oilers. Four straight first-round meetings against McDavid & Co., resulting in four straight early exits, had L.A. stuck in an all-too-familiar nightmare.
Now, for the bad news: The Kings get Colorado, instead.
It’s the matchup nobody wanted — and for good reason. The 2025-26 Presidents’ Trophy winners, fresh off setting a new franchise points record with 121, have looked unstoppable all season long, and they’ve got the jaw-dropping numbers to back it up.
The Avalanche finished the regular season 31 points ahead of the Kings in the second wild-card spot. They boast an otherworldly plus-99 goal differential, suffered just 16 regulation losses, boast three 30-plus goal-scorers, and are led by two players with 100-plus points (led, of course, by Nathan MacKinnon’s 127).
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But there’s something to be said for momentum, and the Kings have just that thanks to their sprint into the playoffs that saw an underachieving squad for much of the year finally click down the stretch. It started with the acquisition of Artemi Panarin. What followed was a series of deadline moves that took Kings fans on a week-long roller-coaster ride following the Olympic break. GM Ken Holland fired Jim Hiller and replaced him with D.J. Smith as interim, traded away Corey Perry, then brought in Scott Laughton in a bargain deadline deal, handed the crease to backup Anton Forsberg, and buckled up for a high-speed chase for a playoff spot to make sure Anze Kopitar’s last season wouldn’t end with the regular season.
Pillow fight or not, it was still an impressive feat.
What comes next is a mountain of a challenge, which will require the Kings’ best defensive play and the hot hand of the man in net if they’re to take down the mighty Avalanche.
It’s been more than two decades since these squads matched up in the playoffs. They met in back-to-back post-seasons in 2001 and 2002, with both series won by Colorado in seven games.
Here’s what you need to know about the series ahead.
HEAD TO HEAD RECORD
Avalanche: 3-0-0
Kings: 0-3-0
Avalanche X-Factor: Nazem Kadri
The 2022 Stanley Cup champ is back, thanks to a deadline trade that felt like a win for everybody. Kadri’s first stint with the Avalanche saw him reach hero status when, after tallying a career-high 87 points in 71 games, he came up clutch in the playoffs despite suffering a broken thumb in the Cup Final.
In a strange and unfortunate turn of events, Kadri was sidelined for the final few games of Colorado’s season this spring with a finger injury — his first time missing games since that thumb issue.
Colorado’s search for depth down the middle following Kadri’s departure in free agency was well-documented. The team he re-joined in March looks a little different than the one he left because of it. The Avalanche brought in Brock Nelson as a second-line centre last year, and found a winger for MacKinnon in Martin Necas after trading away Mikko Rantanen. There’s no doubting the top-six talent, led by MacKinnon and his league-best 53-goal output. And now the bottom six looks poised to do damage, too, thanks to Kadri slotting in as third-line centre. The rich got richer. Having a healthy Kadri back in the lineup opens up Jared Bednar’s lineup options to an enviable degree.
Kings X-Factor: Artemi Panarin
L.A.’s acquisition of Artemi Panarin from the Rangers in February and subsequent two-year extension made clear the Kings’ intentions not to fade into the background of the league but to contend, now.
It worked. While the addition of Panarin didn’t magically and singlehandedly turn things around, it served up a big boost on the scoresheet — he’s tallied 27 points in 26 games with the Kings. Can he reach another gear in the playoffs?
Considering the offensive firepower on the other side of this matchup, and the fact that the team is still without Kevin Fiala following his serious leg injury suffered during the Olympics, he’s going to have to. A well-timed scoring surge for winger Quinton Byfield, who reached a career-high in goals (24), bodes well for a strong playoff run to come, but there’s no doubt Panarin is the leader of this offensive force.
ADVANCED STATS
(5-on-5 totals from Natural Stat Trick)
REGULAR SEASON STATS
COLORADO STORYLINES
1. Get ready for the MacKinnon-Makar show
Unless he’s suiting up against your squad, watching Nathan MacKinnon in the playoffs is truly a beautiful thing. He consistently produces at more than a point-per-game pace in the post-season and can single-handedly take over a game. The thing about this roster, though, is that he doesn’t need to do it alone.
It truly is an embarrassment of riches to have both MacKinnon and Cale Makar on the same roster. Makar, who was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy when Colorado won the Cup in 2022, is made for playoff hockey. Should he get on a hot streak like he did during that 29-point run in ’22, watch out.
2. Presidents' Trophy: boost, or burden?
Here’s the thing about the Presidents’ Trophy: It rarely leads a team to the Stanley Cup. “Curse” is surely too strong a word, but looking down the list of franchises to earn the honour of being the winningest team in the regular season shows a trend of playoff losses that’s hard to deny.
The last team to hoist the Cup after winning the Presidents’ Trophy was the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks. The last team to do so in a full, 82-game season was the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings. The more recent handful of regular-season winners all ended in playoff disappointment — some more than others. Last year’s Winnipeg Jets were ousted in Round 2. Before that, the Rangers fell just shy of the Cup Final. The 2022-23 Boston Bruins suffered the biggest upset, having set a league record for the best season ever, only to be taken down by the upstart Florida Panthers. The last time Colorado won the award was in 2020-21. They were eliminated by Vegas in Round 2, but went on to win the Stanley Cup the following year. Will this season change the narrative?
3. Which goalie takes the lead?
In Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood, the Avalanche boasted the best goalie tandem in the league this year. Wedgewood, the presumed backup to start the season, has the edge in starts (43) and stats (31 wins, a .921 SV%, 2.02 GAA) over Blackwood (36 starts, 23 wins, .904 SV% and 2.51 GAA) and was the busier netminder down the stretch, which points to him likely getting the nod for Game 1. How head coach Jared Bednar navigates the duo from there will be interesting to watch. Blackwood started all seven of Colorado’s first-round games last year against Dallas, while Wedgewood has never started in the post-season.
LOS ANGELES STORYLINES
1. Who gets the crease? (And how long is his leash?)
Defence will be the top priority in an effort to shut down — or, at least slow down — Colorado’s lethal attack. And if ever there was a time to harness the playoff power of a hot goalie, now would be it.
Right now, it’s backup Anton Forsberg who appears likely to start Game 1. He backstopped the team down the stretch and really hit his stride, the team playing with confidence in front of him. He’s never started a playoff game, but that seems like it’s about to change.
Darcy Kuemper struggled mightily in his handful of starts as Forsberg took over, but his playoff experience speaks for itself — he backstopped the Avalanche to the Cup in 2022. Should an opportunity arise to stump his former squad, the script would write itself.
2. Kopitar’s last run
It’s the end of an era in L.A., as captain Anze Kopitar is set to hang up his skates at the end of the Kings’ season. The team fought to extend his tenure at least a few extra games, and all eyes will be on the veteran centreman to see if he can add to what’s been a prolific, Hall of Fame-worthy career.
And what a career it’s been. Two Stanley Cups, a pair of Selke Trophies, three Lady Byngs, and a decade-long captaincy that set the standard for what it means to be a leader in this league. The farewell tour isn’t quite closed yet.
3. Can the Kings find their footing on special teams?
Of all the eye-catching stats and accomplishments piled up by Colorado this year, perhaps the most surprising one is about their power play… because it’s not all that good. It may, in fact, be the lone (relative) weakness on this Avalanche squad.
Unfortunately for the Kings, that doesn’t appear to present a window of opportunity to exploit. L.A.’s penalty-kill unit has struggled all year and has actually worsened since Smith took over as coach. Considering the Kings’ penchant for shutdown defending, it’s a surprising weakness — and one that Colorado will surely look to exploit, if the Kings can’t clean things up.
