Avalanche-Kings Series Preview.

 1C Colorado vs Los Angeles 2WC

We are back with another Playoff preview here on the ETEH Blog in 2026, so today we are looking at the 3rd Series that was locked in the Western Conference playoff picture, as we're going to be looking at the President Trophy Champs and Central Winner Avalanche take on the 2nd wildcard LA Kings, as the Avalanche who had a superb start to the year and finished the year quite well are many teams favorites for the Cup and are going to start out by taking on a Kings team who snuck into WC2 after a hot finish to the year and will be looking to get their first series win since 2014.

History of Rivalry Between teams in playoffs:

Now if you look at the history of these two teams playing in the playoffs, they have not had many playoff battles in their franchise history as they haven't played in the postseason in over 20 years, so this will be a very interesting matchup, the first time these two played in a series against each other was back in 2001 where en route to their Cup Win they would take down the LA Kings in 7 games and then the year after in 2002 the Avalanche had another strong series once again beating them in 7 games and these two teams haven't played in the postseason since, so it will be interesting to see if the Av's remain undefeated against the Kings in the postseason or if LA winds up winning their first ever postseason series against Colorado.

Season Series Record: 

Colorado 3-0-0 13-5+8

Los Angeles 0-3-0 5-13-8

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Each teams X-Factors: Panarin vs Wedgewood

Next we go over to the two teams X-Factors in my opinion for this series and the two X-Factors in my eyes are Kings in-season acquistion Artemi Panarin and surprising Av's starter Scott Wedgewood. Now for the Kings they were semi buyers at the deadline trying to improve as they lost Fiala and had quite a lackluster offense all season long and a month out of the deadline they went out and acquired Panarin from NYR and since arriving in LA Panarin has been great having 9 goals and 27 points in 26 games, now with the style of play the Kings play I think Panarin's play may change the series for him because if he can get them a extra goal or two and carries his success from the regular season I think the Kings may have a chance, while for the Avalanche surprisingly Wedgewood has become the teams starter as Blackwood was inconsistent and had injuries at the start of the year and Wedgewood took the starting job and ran with it, having a 31-12 total record with a SV% above .920 and a nearly 2.00 GAA, now he only has limited Playoff experience and has never been a playoff starter, so if he plays like he did in the regualr season then the Av's should have no problem but those are my X-Factors.

Which teams are best at 3 Positions:

Offense: now when it comes to which of these two teams has the better offense, I think it is pretty obvious here who has the better offense, now I do think both teams have decent offense with good players but if you look at the two teams top to bottom Colorado definitely has the advantage offensively as their depth at this point is unmatched, their Center depth is stacked with Roy, Nelson, Kadri and MacKinnon and the Kings are still missing one of their best offensive weapons in Fiala, so in my opinion it is a no brainer that the Avalanche have the better offense.

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Defence: on the defensive side of the puck I feel there isn't even any debate on who has the better defense here as well as I feel top to bottom the defensive edge has to go to Colorado, now the Kings still have a few good defenders but most of them are aging veterans like Doughty and Dumoulin, now they also have a few younger players like Clarke and Anderson but I just think with the top 4 and defense in general the Avalanche can throw out there the advantage must be in Colorado's favor.

Goaltending: while in net I feel it is a lot closer then the offensive or defensive side as I feel they stack up pretty well, for Colorado Wedgewood is the starter and last year he was Colorado's backup but as we mentioned before Wedgewood was thrust into the starting job and ran with it having some really good games, and then for LA with Kuemper not playing well Forsberg toward the end of the year took the reigns and ran with the starting job as well, but both of these guys have never been a playoff starter, so I am going to give Wedgewood and the Avalanche the edge in net because he has been the starter longer but that position is really hard to give a advantage to. 

Biggest on Ice Matchup: Colorado's offense vs Kings Defense 

So when it comes to the biggest matchup in my eyes in this series for the Avalanche and Kings, I would have to go over to the teams base stats as I think the biggest on ice matchup has to be Colorado's offense going up against LA's suffocating defense, now in the regular season the Avalanche were running the best offense in the NHL and can score from anywhere, they can score from anywhere as they have a stellar top 6, great bottom six and some great offensive defenders (like Makar), so they have maybe the most potent offense but they are going up against one of the most suffocating defense's in the NHL and that is LA who had the 8th ranked defense in the NHL and come playoff time have a defense that can suffocate opposing offenses, so I feel whichever team is able to win this matchup will have a strong chance to win this series.

Predictions:

Now when it comes to my predictions for this series, I feel this one should go one way but may go another way, now as I mentioned before I feel the Avalanche have the better team top to bottom as they have the advantages in all the categories so you would think it would be a slam dunk the Avalanche would win but they have the President Trophy curse on them this year and typically the President Trophy winner doesn’t get very far in the playoffs, now with all of that taken into consideration I am going to say Avalanche in 6 as I do think they are the better and “should” be able to win this series but LA has upset a President Trophy winner before and I have a gut feeling I may be wrong on this pick, so we shall wait and see but at least for now I have Avalanche in 6.