The Colorado Avalanche and the Los Angeles Kings meet in NHL action from the Crypto.com Arena on Thursday night.
The Colorado Avalanche will look to build on their four-game win streak after a 2-0 win over Anaheim last time out. Nazem Kadri leads the Avs in scoring with 51 points including a team-high 36 assists while Gabriel Landeskog has 37 points and Cale Makar has 37 points with Landeskog logging 14 goals and 23 assists while Devon Toews has a team-best +32 plus/minus rating. Makar has 16 goals and 21 assists while Mikko Rantanen has a team-high 20 goals as well as 46 points of his own and Nathan MacKinnon has 40 points with 9 goals and 31 assists this season. Darcy Kuemper has gone 17-5-1 with a 2.72 GAA and a .908 save percentage this season in goal for Colorado.
The Los Angeles Kings will look to bounce back from a 6-4 loss to Tampa Bay last time out. Anze Kopitar leads the Kings in scoring with 35 points including a team-high 23 assists and 12 goals while Alex Iafallo has 11 goals, logging 24 points while Adrian Kempe’s point total is at 24 with a team-high 17 goals of his own. Jonathan Quick’s gone 11-9-4 with a 2.53 GAA and a .915 save percentage this season between the pipes for the Kings while Cal Petersen’s gone 8-6-1 with a 2.74 GAA and an .899 save percentage.
Colorado is 8-1 in their last 9 games played on no rest and 9-0 in their last 9 games when their opponent allowed 5 or more goals in the previous game while the over is 5-1-2 in their last 8 games against the Pacific division. Los Angeles is 5-1 in their last 6 games played on 1 day’s rest and 4-1 in their last 5 when their opponent scores 2 goals or less in the previous game while the over is 5-0 in their last 5 games as an underdog.
I get why you could look at the under here with the Avs on the back-to-back, but playing on consecutive nights hasn’t been much of an issue for Colorado. The thing is that the Avs have a tendency to play in a lot of close games and high-scoring games as well and I think with some tired legs, we could see some extra chances for the Kings that they may cash in on. Either way, I’m seeing at least 7 goals or more here, so give me the over in this one.