How can the Kings pull off a win against Avs?
The Stanley Cup playoffs are famously unpredictable, to the point where every year you can bank on at least a couple first-round upsets. Every now and then, though, a matchup seems so lopsided that not even the most daring of prognosticators would pick the underdog. That’s what we have with the current series between the Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings. Everyone and their mother is picking the Avalanche, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone picking the series to go longer than five games.
Then again, who are we to doubt the capricious will of the hockey gods? After all, Kings fans themselves remember sneaking into to postseason as an eighth seed in 2012 and going on Cinderella run to the Cup. These Kings are not those Kings, however, so they’ll have to discover their own formula for upsetting the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avalanche.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed what it will take for Los Angeles to topple mighty Colorado.
Tyler Yaremchuk: D.J. Smith had the comment after last night’s game where he was like “They’re not going to score just two goals every game.” If we want to give that series a little bit of love, and I know if there are any Kings fans watching they’re just going to be rolling their eyes going “Here’s the Kings hater Tyler chiming in,” but L.A. needs to find a way push a little bit here and generate some offense. I don’t think they can go and try to play these games and go “We’re going to try to beat Colorado 2-1 tonight.” You’re just not.
Carter Hutton: I also think the factor of the way Scott Wedgewood is playing, you’ve got to make it very, very difficult on a little bit of an undersized goalie with traffic and making it hell for him. Just trying to sit back and grind out wins, I just don’t think it’s going to be effective against the Colorado Avalanche. It’s not that I’m trying to hate on the Kings, I just look at their backend and their speed and there’s really no way for them to move the puck. They don’t have a lot of puck-moving defenseman to beat guys up ice and generate offense, so I really think this is going to be a big challenge for the L.A. Kings.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…