Adrian Kempe and Phillip Danault scored two goals each for the Los Angeles Kings in a 5-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night in Denver.
Anze Kopitar had three assists, Gabriel Vilardi scored and Joonas Korpisalo made 28 saves for the Kings, who won their season-high fifth game in a row.
Evan Rodrigues and Nathan MacKinnon scored and Alexandar Georgiev stopped 26 shots for the Avalanche, who have lost four of their past five games (1-3-1).
The Kings scored on their first shot to take a 1-0 lead at 8:37 of the first period.
Los Angeles defenseman Matt Roy chipped the puck up the wall in his own zone to Kopitar, springing him loose on a two-on-one with Kempe, who scored with a one-timer off Kopitar’s feed.
Vilardi extended the lead to 2-0 at 17:10 of the first period.
Kopitar dug the puck out of the corner and made a short pass to Vilardi at the bottom of the left circle. Vilardi stopped the puck, rotated his feet and scored nearside from a sharp angle.
Rodrigues scored on a deflection to cut the gap to 2-1 at 14:59 of the second period.
Kempe netted his 32nd goal of the season with a backhand from the slot 24 seconds into the third period to make it 3-1.
The Avalanche capitalized on their third power play when MacKinnon scored with a wrist shot to make it 3-2 at 4:24.
The Kings answered 15 seconds later when Danault scored with a deflection in front of the net off a faceoff to make it 4-2.
Danault scored the 100th goal of his NHL career and his 18th of the season with the net empty to make it 5-2 with 2:35 remaining.
Kevin Fiala recorded his 46th assist of the season on Danault’s first goal, but he was limited in the third period after making knee-to-knee contact with Colorado’s Andrew Cogliano in the second period. Fiala leads Los Angeles with 68 points.
–Field Level Media
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