Avalanche vs. Kings, Game 78: Lines, Starting Goalies & How to Watch

It’s been a struggle for the Colorado Avalanche against the Los Angeles Kings this season. On Saturday night, they will get one last chance to solve them. It turns out, they might be catching the Kings at the right time.

Once the hottest team in the league after the trade deadline, the Kings have fallen back a bit, losing four of their last six games. They’re now in danger of starting the playoffs on the road.

The Avalanche, meanwhile, have won six of their last seven games to move themselves into first place in the Central Division.

With Mikko Rantanen getting his 50th goal on Thursday night, the only big milestone left to catch is for him to hit 100 points. He currently sits at 98.

There was some hysteria on Thursday when people took Bednar’s comments of Cale Makar having “no timeline” as being out “indefinitely.” I wasn’t so sure about that. Yesterday, Bednar said he considers him to be “day-to-day” and they are just trying to make sure he’s healthy for the playoffs. He is not expected to play, but we won’t know until the team hits the ice for warmups.

The Avalanche did not hold a morning skate on Saturday afternoon, but expect Alexandar Georgiev to start against the Kings. It’s too big of a game to start anyone else. Expect either Jonas Johansson or even Pavel Francouz to start on Sunday against the Ducks. Francouz is on the trip and appears to be the closest player to returning.

Pheonix Copley is expected to start for the Kings. There is an NBA game taking place at Crypto.com Arena at 1 PM, so they’ll have to change the building over for the game tonight. That means the ice may not be fantastic.

Expected Colorado Avalanche Lines

Evan Rodrigues – Nathan MacKinnon – Mikko Rantanen

Denis Malgin – J.T. Compher – Valeri Nichushkin

Andrew Cogliano – Lars Eller – Logan O’Connor

Matt Nieto – Alex Newhook – Ben Meyers

Defense

Devon Toews – Samuel Girard

Bowen Byram – Jack Johnson

Kurtis MacDermid – Erik Johnson

Goalies

Alexandar Georgiev

Jonas Johansson

Expected Los Angeles Kings Lines, per LAHockeyNow.com

Quinton Byfield-Anze Kopitar-Adrian Kempe

Trevor Moore-Phil Danault-Viktor Arvidsson

Alex Iafallo-Blake Lizotte-Arthur Kaliyev

Carl Grundstrom-Rasmus Kupari-Jaret Anderson-Dolan

Defense:

Vladislav Gavrikov-Drew Doughty

Sean Durzi-Matt Roy

Sean Walker-Jordan Spence

Goalies:

Pheonix Copley

Joonas Korpisalo

Special Teams

Colorado Avalanche Power Play: 24.9%, 5th in NHL

Colorado Avalanche Penalty Kill: 79.1%, 16th in NHL

Los Angeles Kings Power Play: 25.2%, 3rd in NHL

Los Angeles Kings Penalty Kill: 75.3%, 24th in NHL

How to Watch

TV: ESPN+, Altitude TV

Radio: Altitude Sports Radio 92.5

Game Time: 8:30 PM MST