The Los Angeles Kings believe they have a plan heading into Game 2 of their Western Conference first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night in Denver.<\/p>\n
After averaging 20.1 hits during the regular season, the Kings delivered 49 during the 2-1 loss to Colorado in Game 1 on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles coach D.J. Smith believes they can turn it up a notch, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be more physical,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to hit the D more, and I expect that in the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kings played their type of game in the first matchup on Sunday, holding the high-scoring Avalanche without a goal through the first half of the game and pulling within one with 2:22 remaining. Still, they couldn\u2019t get a second puck past Scott Wedgewood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the kind of game you can expect playing the Kings,\u201d Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tight-checking team. What\u2019d they play, 50-something one-goal games and low-scoring games? I\u2019m comfortable with that. I think our team\u2019s comfortable with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado is comfortable with Wedgewood guarding the net as well.<\/p>\n
He led the NHL in save percentage (.921) during the regular season and has limited the opposition to one goal or fewer in his past five starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was fantastic,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cDid everything he needed to do. Obviously, bigger stakes, more emotion, but played the exact same way that he\u2019s been playing for us all year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kings missed two opportunities to score into a wide-open net during the game, crucial wasted chances against a team that led the NHL with 3.63 goals per game during the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we can outscore them,\u201d Los Angeles defenseman Mikey Anderson said. \u201cWe\u2019re comfortable in the low-scoring games, so we\u2019ve got to try and keep it tight, try and give them the least amount as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado got its first goal on Sunday from the top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Artturi Lehkonen and Martin Necas, but its second goal came from the fourth line of Logan O\u2019Connor, Joel Kiviranta and Jack Drury.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor did not have a goal in 13 regular-season games, but he could sense his line was gaining chemistry heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, our game translates well to the playoffs,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of simplicity and muck it up and just wear teams down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kings scored their lone goal while on the power play and with their goalie pulled to create a two-man advantage. They\u2019ll need to be even sharper on the power play come Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, the Avalanche had just the 27th-best power play during the regular season, one spot better than the Kings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it\u2019s special teams or whatever, we\u2019ve just got to bear down a little bit more on our chances,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think we can get more pucks to the net and, again, I think we\u2019ve just got to be a little meaner offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson realizes the difference between a win and a loss could come down to a friendly bounce or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey found a way to capitalize,\u201d Anderson said of Colorado in Game 1. \u201cSo, we\u2019ll watch it and figure out if we can change a few things and try to get better going into Game 2.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Kings believe they have a plan heading into Game 2 of their Western Conference first-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-557006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116440061154280188","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}