Avalanche finally breaks one open, sweeps the Kings in 4 games

Corey Masisak, The Denver Post on Apr 26, 2026

Published in Hockey

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LOS ANGELES — Eventually, the dam did finally break.

The Los Angeles Kings put forth a valiant effort, but they were never able to hit and defend their way to enough offense, and the Colorado Avalanche finished off a four-game sweep Sunday afternoon with an 5-1 victory in Game 4 at Crypto.com Arena.

Nathan MacKinnon scored twice and added an assist, while Scott Wedgewood made 24 saves to finish the series with just five goals allowed in this opening-round series of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Avs will now likely have quite a bit of time off. They await the winner of the Minnesota-Dallas series, which is tied at 2-2 and has already had two games need overtime.

This was an incredibly tight series, with space and scoring chances hard to come by at times for both teams. But the Avalanche also proved it can play suffocating defense and the Kings rarely threatened with enough offensive vigor.

Colorado trailed for a total of three minutes, 21 seconds in this series.

MacKinnon scored his goal of the series to give Colorado the lead. The Avs had not scored on the power play in the first three games, but MacKinnon scored 16 seconds after Brian Dumoulin went to the penalty box.

Gabe Landeskog collected a pass from Nazem Kadri along the goal line to the left of goalie Anton Forsberg. He sent it back to Kadri on the flank nearest him. MacKinnon, who had set up in the slot, slipped into some open space in the far faceoff circle and then ripped a one-timer from Kadri through Forsberg at 13:13 of the opening period.

Cale Makar made it a 2-0 lead with a great individual effort. Kings forward Scott Laughton tried to knock the puck out of his own zone, but Makar corralled it near the right point. Taylor Ward, playing for the first time in this series, tried to pressure Makar but that went very poorly for him.

Makar went around Ward with relative ease, and still snapped a shot past Forsberg while Ward had one arm wrapped around him at 5:48 of the middle period. It was Makar’s second goal of the series.

Colorado dominated much of the second period, but couldn’t find a third goal to really open this game up. Instead, Joel Edmundson got Los Angeles on the board with only the Kings’ second 5-on-5 goal of the series at 13:43 of the middle frame.

It was a long shift for the Avs, and Edmundson found a hole in the defense by cutting in from the left point just as Adrian Kempe brought the puck out from behind the net and found him. Before that goal, only six players on the Kings had registered a point in this series.

When it was time for the last stand from the Kings, the Avs finally found some space and made the home side pay. Nic Roy scored on the rebound of an Artturi Lehkonen shot at 3:13 of the third period. Sam Malinski passed Lehkonen into a rush chance while the Kings were set up in their defensive structure — the type of chance that has been near impossible to find in this series.

Los Angeles was gifted a power play shortly after the Roy goal, but the Avs had more chances to score shorthanded and then Devon Toews put this one to bed at 6:01 of the period. A Malinski pass to Landeskog led to another easy zone entry, and then a MacKinnon pass set up Toews trailing the play for a bullet from the top of the left circle and his first goal of the series.

The Kings had seven players collect a point in this series. The Avs had eight guys with at least one in this contest.

MacKinnon put one in the empty with 5:38 remaining. In the end, The Black Parade was a short, painful march to the end for the Kings.

This was Anze Kopitar’s final NHL game. One of the best centers of his generation, Kings fans serenaded him one more time with chants of “Ko-pi” as the final minutes ticked away.

Now, the Avs will rest up and wait. A much stiffer test awaits in the second round.

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