LOS ANGELES — The Kings faced a wide gap in talent but fell only narrowly to the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2, in interim coach D.J. Smith’s debut on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.
He replaced Jim Hiller, who was dismissed a day earlier.
Smith was dealt not only a tough hand, playing the NHL’s best team by nearly every encompassing measure, but also a short deck. The Kings’ injury list required a deep breath to read aloud.
They were missing Joel Armia (upper-body injury, IR), Quinton Byfield (upper-body injury, late scratch) Drew Doughty (lower-body injury, day-to-day), Kevin Fiala (broken leg, out for the season), goaltender Darcy Kuemper (illness, day-to-day), Andrei Kuzmenko (torn meniscus, out for the season), Trevor Moore (illness, day-to-day) and Jacob Moverare (personal reasons, day-to-day).
The absences of Byfield, Moore and Moverare opened the door for three NHL debuts, those of Angus Booth, Kenny Connors and Jared Wright. Erik Portillo was also recalled to back up Anton Forsberg.
Booth got a goal in his first game after Brandt Clarke opened the scoring. Forsberg was marvelous in net, stopping 36 of 39 shots.
Nathan MacKinnon’s line accounted for all four Colorado goals and nearly a fifth. He scored one and set up another by defenseman Devon Toews. Gabriel Landeskog scored and had two assists to match the output of Martin Nečas, who also had a goal wiped away erroneously. Mackenzie Blackwood had 19 saves.
Despite a valiant effort by Forsberg, who made high-difficulty saves and faced twice as many shots as Blackwood at various points, the Kings gave up the lead with 4:55 to play.
Nečas slathered on an empty-netter with two seconds left, getting one back from earlier in the game.
After Nečas was robbed of a goal by an inexplicable whistle, the Kings took advantage, knotting the score 8:32 into the second period.
Anže Kopitar and Adrian Kempe maneuvered the puck deftly low in the zone, moving the puck high to Artemi Panarin and allowing the defense to get involved. Brian Dumoulin’s pass from high in the right circle found an activated Booth driving the net for a redirection and his first career goal. Booth had as many goals in one night in the NHL as he did in 43 games in the AHL this season.
Kopitar, who also factored into the Kings’ slicing their deficit in half with 2:40 to play in the first period. He won the offensive-zone draw after Samuel Helenius drew a penalty on Josh Manson, whom he later checked into the Colorado bench. The puck went to Clarke, who adjusted his angle and whipped a shot through a Corey Perry screen. Clarke’s eight goals are five more than any other Kings defender has scored this season.
The Avs opened up a two-goal lead, tallying at the 4:27 and 10:13 marks.
Brent Burns set up Landeskog’s one-timer from the high slot on the heels of a strong burst by MacKinnon, who smacked a one-timer of his own in off the rush following Kempe’s errant pass at the offensive blue line.
More to come on this story.
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