Los Angeles (dpa) – Kiefer Sherwood scored his first goal in almost three years, Mikko Rantanen scored a power-play goal and the Colorado Avalanche stayed hot Thursday night with a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Devon Toews also scored for the Avalanche, who have won five straight games and been 10-0-1 in their last 11. Darcy Kuemper made 40 saves as Colorado won their second straight game after losing Anaheim 2-0 on Wednesday.
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Anze Kopitar had a power play goal and Jonathan Quick made 23 saves for the Kings, who have lost three times in a row.
Los Angeles will play 10 of its next 11 on the road, returning home on February 15 against Edmonton in a game postponed from December amid cross-border travel concerns.
Sherwood made it 2-0 after 3:06 of the second period and turned for a wrist shot on a loose puck in the right circle to score his first goal of the season. He hadn’t scored since March 26, 2019, when Sherwood was a rookie with the Ducks — he’d gone 38 games in the last four seasons without finding the back of the net.
Kopitar brought the Kings back on goal 2-1 on the power play at 8:58, coolly hitting an open net after Kuemper took himself out of the game while trying to cut the angle for Alex Iafallo. Of Kopitar’s leading 36 points this season, 12 have come from the power play, where he has four goals and eight assists.
Aube-Kubel left the box at the right time, collecting Logan O’Connor’s stretch pass to score with a breakaway and restore the two-goal lead at 4-11 before the third.
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Toews got an empty net with 1:35 left.
After his three-game scoring streak ended in Wednesday’s 2-0 win at Anaheim, Rantanen bounced back midway through the first period to tap Nathan MacKinnon’s shot on the power play for a 1-0 lead. Rantanen has recorded five goals and two assists in his last five games.
The penalty for Los Angeles allowed a goal for the fourth game in a row. Drew Doughty had a chance to clear the puck, but his weak attempt was kept in the zone, preventing the Kings from making a line change. This group was eventually worn down by Colorado’s dangerous first power play unit.
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Kings C Quinton Byfield, the 2020 draft pick, made his season debut. Byfield was due to have the team come out of training camp before breaking his ankle in a preseason game on October 5 and his return was further delayed after testing positive for COVID-19 in late December.
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NOTES: Colorado is 15-1-1 in its last 17 games. … Rantanen also had an assist that gave him five goals and three assists in his last five games. … Avalanche D played Tyson Jost in his 300th career game. … Kings D Mikey Anderson played in his 100th game.
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