Kings’ ‘B’ squad battles before falling to Avalanche

LOS ANGELES — The Kings faced a wide gap in talent but fell only narrowly to the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2, in interim coach D.J. Smith’s debut on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.

He replaced Jim Hiller, who was dismissed a day earlier. The Kings’ fortunes didn’t change much with his promotion and Matt Greene’s addition as an assistant, losing for the 11th time in 16 games.

Smith was dealt not only a tough hand, playing the NHL’s best team by nearly every encompassing measure, but also a short deck. The Kings’ injury list required a deep breath to read aloud.

They were missing Joel Armia (upper-body injury, IR), Quinton Byfield (upper-body injury, late scratch), Drew Doughty (lower-body injury, day-to-day), Kevin Fiala (broken leg, out for the season), goaltender Darcy Kuemper (illness, day-to-day), Andrei Kuzmenko (torn meniscus, out for the season), Trevor Moore (illness, day-to-day) and Jacob Moverare (personal reasons, day-to-day).

“The goal is obviously to win, I mean, that’s the best team in the league and they’re 100% healthy and they’re coming in here playing as good as they’ve played all year,” Smith said. “Our job was we weren’t going to just sit back and let them take it to us.”

The absences of Byfield, Moore and Moverare opened the door for three NHL debuts, those of Angus Booth, Kenny Connors and Jared Wright. Erik Portillo was also recalled to back up Anton Forsberg.

“The guys down in Ontario have done a good job. These three came up and they looked like NHL players,” Smith said.

Booth got a goal in his first game after Brandt Clarke opened the scoring. Forsberg was marvelous in net, stopping 36 of 39 shots.

Nathan MacKinnon’s line accounted for all four Colorado goals and nearly a fifth. He scored one and engineered another by defenseman Devon Toews. Gabriel Landeskog scored and had two assists to match the output of Martin Nečas, who also had a goal wiped away erroneously. Mackenzie Blackwood had 19 saves. Arturri Lehkonen left the game and did not return, and he will not play against the Ducks on Tuesday night.

“The MacKinnon line with Nečas and Landeskog were outstanding, dangerous the whole night, right from the get-go. They didn’t really let up the entire night,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Their goalie had a good night and shut them down a little bit, but they stuck with it and got a big goal in the third period to help get us a win.”

Despite a valiant effort by Forsberg, who made high-difficulty saves and faced twice as many shots as Blackwood at times, the Kings gave up the lead with 4:55 to play.

MacKinnon ran a three-man weave high with Toews and Cale Makar, then darted toward the net with Toews making a parallel cut to receive the puck for a go-ahead goal.

Nečas slathered on an empty-netter with two seconds left, getting one back from earlier in the game.

After Nečas was robbed of a goal by an inexplicable whistle – Bednar later said the referee simply had a bad view – the Kings took advantage, knotting the score 8:32 into the second period.

Anže Kopitar and Adrian Kempe maneuvered the puck deftly low in the zone, moving the puck high to Artemi Panarin and allowing the defense to get involved. Brian Dumoulin’s pass from high in the right circle found an activated Booth driving the net for a redirection and his first career goal. Booth had as many goals in one night in the NHL as he did in 43 games in the AHL this season.

“It’s a lot, to soak up the moment, I’m still just living it right now. Once everything dies down and I go home, I’ll really, I’ll really just be lost for words, like I am right now,” Booth said. “It was really special. Honestly, I don’t remember a whole lot from that goal, or even the game went really fast, it was a lot of fun.”

Kopitar set a screen for Booth and also factored into the Kings’ slicing their deficit in half with 2:40 to play in the first period. He won the offensive-zone faceoff after Samuel Helenius drew a penalty on Josh Manson, whom he later checked into the Colorado bench. The puck went to Clarke, who adjusted his angle and whipped a shot through a Corey Perry screen. Clarke’s eight goals are five more than any other Kings defender has scored this season.

The Avs had opened a two-goal lead by scoring at the 4:27 and 10:13 marks.

Brent Burns set up Landeskog’s one-timer from the high slot on the heels of a strong burst by MacKinnon, who had smacked a one-timer of his own in off the rush following Kempe’s errant pass at the offensive blue line.

“We played really hard, the effort was there. We were finishing checks. There was no shortage of effort, that’s for sure,” Dumoulin said.

The Kings will welcome the New York Islanders on Thursday, just before Friday’s noon PT trade deadline.