04/26/26 08:40:00
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04/26 20:38 CDT MacKinnon leads Avalanche to 5-1 win and 1st-round sweep of LA
Kings, ending Anze Kopitar's career
MacKinnon leads Avalanche to 5-1 win and 1st-round sweep of LA Kings, ending
Anze Kopitar's career
By GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --- Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and an assist, Nicolas Roy
and Devon Toews scored in the third period, and the top-seeded Colorado
Avalanche swept the Los Angeles Kings out of the first round of the Stanley Cup
playoffs with a 5-1 victory in Game 4 on Sunday.
Cale Makar also scored and Scott Wedgewood made 24 saves as the Presidents'
Trophy-winning Avs advanced to face the winner of the heavyweight first-round
series between Dallas and Minnesota.
Colorado coach Jared Bednar praised his team's defensive acumen after holding
the defense-first Kings to five goals in four games, noting that his
high-powered lineup would probably prefer to emphasize offense.
"It's not as fun to commit on the defensive side and really dig in there and
spend a bunch of energy there to chip away at the game, but I think they bought
into the way we needed to play the LA Kings," Bednar said. "And that may change
a little bit for the next opponent ... but they did a heck of a job playing the
right way in order to win it."
Colorado also ended the 20-year career of Kings captain Anze Kopitar, who
announced his pending retirement in September.
The Slovenian center is the top scorer in franchise history and a two-time
Selke Trophy winner, and he was a star on the Kings' two Stanley Cup
championship teams in 2012 and 2014 before spending the past decade as their
captain. The Kings crowd repeatedly chanted "Kopi! Kopi!" in the final minutes
of the blowout, and he got standing ovations when he came out for his final two
shifts.
With a masterful four-game demonstration of the roster-wide talent on a team
ready to win it all, Colorado earned at least five consecutive days off before
the second round, and quite possibly more. The Wild and Stars are tied heading
to Game 5 on Tuesday.
"(A sweep) just shows that we stuck to the details this entire series," Makar
said. "I felt like they were pushing us at times, and we were able to weather
it. It's a good test for us. That's a stingy defensive team over there that has
a lot of offensive threats, and we found different ways to shut them down."
Joel Edmundson scored and Anton Forsberg stopped 27 shots for the Kings, whose
fifth consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs ended with their eighth
consecutive postseason defeat over the past two years and their seventh
straight first-round exit since hoisting the Cup 12 years ago.
Although interim coach D.J. Smith was able to extend his team's streak of
postseason appearances with a late surge into the last wild-card spot, Los
Angeles has not won a playoff round since raising the Stanley Cup for the
second time.
"We fought hard, there's no doubt about that, but they're the best team in the
league for a reason," Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. "We were in games,
but didn't ultimately get the job done. Proud of our effort."
After scoring 53 goals in the regular season, MacKinnon got his first goal of
these playoffs in the first period on a power play, ending the Avs' 0 for 9
start to the series with the man advantage. Colorado never trailed in Game 4,
putting it away with two goals in less than three minutes early in the third.
Although Los Angeles began the series by slowing down the powerhouse Avs and
even holding MacKinnon to one assist in three games, the Kings scored just four
goals while being pushed to the brink.
Makar glided past Taylor Ward early in the second period and fired a beautiful
wrist shot for the Conn Smythe Trophy winner's second goal in two games.
MacKinnon added an empty-net goal, giving him 57 goals in 99 career playoff
games.
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL
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