Postgame Notes & Quotes Los Angeles Kings 7, Colorado Avalanche 1 Thursday, March 22, 2018
Anze Kopitar registered four goals for the first time in his career, matching the Kings record for most goals in a game last reached by Luc Robitaille on Nov. 25, 1993 at Quebec. Kopitar recorded his fourth career hat trick and first since Feb. 12, 2016 at New York Rangers.
Nathan MacKinnon extended his point streak to a career-long 14 games, the longest active streak in the NHL and third-longest this season behind Taylor Hall (19) and Patrik Laine (15). It’s the longest point streak by an Avalanche player since Paul Stastny’s 20-game run in 2006-07.
Mikko Rantanen extended his point streak to eight games, matching his career-long streak set earlier this year (Dec. 12-29). He also became the fourth Finnish player to register 80 points in a season (Jari Kurri, Teemu Selanne, Olli Jokinen) and the fifth Finnish-born player to reach the mark (Tomas Sandstrom was born in Finland but represented Sweden in international competition).
MacKinnon (9g, 12a) and Rantanten (7g, 14a) each have 21 points this month, tied for the league lead in scoring in March.
Nikita Zadorov recorded a career high 15 hits, an Avalanche record and the most by any NHL player in a single game since 2005-06.
The Avalanche was 1-for-2 on the penalty kill, just the ninth time Colorado has surrendered a power-play goal at home in 2017-18. The Avs are 107-for-116 (92.2%) on the penalty kill on home ice, the top-ranked PK unit in the league.
Drew Doughty finished with a +4 plus-minus rating, which matches a career high last achieved on Oct. 26, 2017 at Montreal.
Los Angeles extended its road point streak to nine games (6-0-3) and recorded a season-high seven goals.
Jake Muzzin notched his seventh career game-winning goal, putting him in a tie for sixth (Mark Hardy) in franchise history for game winners among defensemen.
Colorado LW Gabriel Landeskog On Regrouping For Saturday’s Game: “I think I’ve seen a lot of good response games from our group and I’ve never seen us take anything for granted and I don’t think that was the case tonight either. I just think we got outworked. We didn’t execute, pucks didn’t bounce our way and we got outworked.”
On Staying In The First Wild-Card Spot: “That’s a positive but I think at this point, we’re not really looking at where we are going to finish. I mean, we got eight games to go and we know it’s just going to get harder from here. No one is going to hand you the points. Yeah, we are going to reset and get ready for Saturday.”
Colorado LW Blake Comeau On Tonight’s Game: “It just wasn’t our best game tonight. I feel like after they got that second one, we got a little bit deflated and we didn’t do a good job of answering. You know, they are a good team, a big physical team, and they don’t give up a lot. I liked our start, like you said, but not a lot we can take from this game. We’ve been pretty good as of late. We’ll chalk this one up as a game where we just weren’t our best and get ready for the next one.”
On Their Special Teams Tonight: “That penalty-kill goal was deflating. [It was] bouncing around a little bit and came out to (Los Angeles C Anze) Kopitar. He had a wide-open net. I thought our power play moved it around in the first couple of power plays. You know, maybe at the end there it wasn’t our best but our special teams has been pretty good all year so that’s just another area we have to clean up and I think everyone knows we’ll do it in our next game.”
Los Angeles C Nate Thompson On Los Angeles C Anze Kopitar’s Perfomance: “I think if you watch this game he does so many other things all over the ice that makes him one of the best players in the league, if not the best player in the league. Keep shooting, stay hot. In that case, it’s one of those things where when he is touching the puck, it’s going in and it’s one of those nights for him. We are all happy for him because he’s usually a guy that is dishing the puck, he’s usually a pass-first kind of guy, but he can score goals too apparently. You guys watched it tonight, so it was a pleasure to watch.”
On Tonight’s Game: “I think they came out pretty hard the first five minutes, they scored the first goal but I thought we settled in, we kind of played our game. We played our road game where we play our team game where we buy in. I thought we played a pretty complete game all the way through.”
Los Angeles C Anze Kopitar On His Performance: “I just felt all night that the puck was kind of following me around. You just really want to make the most of it. I got a couple of scoring opportunities and you really want to cash in, and I guess it worked out for me tonight.”
On The Playoff Race: “I’m not thinking about that. Honestly, we are coming in here and we are a point behind these guys in the standings and that’s all we are thinking about. It wouldn’t have mattered if we won 2-1, it would have been just as special for us. Right now we are in the position where we have the control in our hands, and if we take care of our business we are going to make the playoffs.”