Makar lifts Avalanche over Kings, Colorado takes 3-0 series lead

Colorado did more than take a 3-0 series lead. It kept turning pressure into consequences, and that is the sharper measure of a championship team than any lucky bounce alone. Cale Makar scored the go-ahead goal in the second period, Scott Wedgewood stopped 24 shots, and the top-seeded Avalanche beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-2 at Crypto.com Arena to move to the brink of the second round.

The Avalanche again found goals from across the lineup. Gabriel Landeskog opened the scoring, Artturi Lehkonen added a short-handed goal, and Brock Nelson sealed it with an empty-netter late. Makar’s tiebreaking strike gave Colorado the edge it needed in a game that was tight on the scoreboard but not on the larger pattern. The Avalanche won despite being outshot 26-23, and they controlled 58.5% of the faceoffs, a reminder that sustained puck possession and defensive detail often set up the breaks that decide playoff nights.

Los Angeles had its moments, but not enough of them. Trevor Moore and Adrian Kempe scored for the Kings, and Kempe’s goal came on the power play, yet Anton Forsberg allowed four goals and could not keep the home team from falling behind 3-0 in the series. The announced crowd of 18,145 watched the Kings push late, but Colorado handled the final stretch and left Los Angeles with no margin left in the best-of-seven opening round.

The loss also deepened an ugly postseason trend for the Kings. Los Angeles has now dropped seven straight playoff games dating to last spring, and a defeat in Game 4 on Sunday would eliminate the Kings for the fifth consecutive first-round series. The franchise has not won a playoff round in six consecutive tries since its Stanley Cup title in 2014, a drought that has grown harder to ignore as each season ends in the same place.

There is also the emotional weight of Anze Kopitar’s final season. The Kings captain announced in September 2025 that 2025-26 would be his last NHL campaign, and another early exit would send one of the era’s defining players out on a frustrating note. For Colorado, the story is the opposite: different names keep delivering on different nights, Nathan MacKinnon still has not scored in the series, and the Avalanche keep finding ways to win anyway. That is how a contender builds the conditions for puck luck, by forcing mistakes, winning faceoffs, and staying dangerous long after the first chance has passed.