9/30 Preview – Edmundson In, Kuemper Off First + Game 1 Preparation, Power-Play Challenge, TNT Broadcast

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (0-0-0) @ Colorado Avalanche (0-0-0)
WHAT: 2026-27 NHL Regular Season, Game 1/84
WHEN: Wednesday, September 30 @ 7:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Ball Arena – Denver, CO
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: ESPN – VIDEO: ESPN LA 710, ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The LA Kings begin the 2026-27 regular season in Denver, as they visit the Colorado Avalanche for their season opener.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings went winless against Colorado last season, posting an 0-7 record against the Avalanche between the regular-season and playoffs. Forward Alex Laferriere led the way with four points in four games in the postseason, while forward Adrian Kempe had an assist in all three regular-season games he played against Colorado.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings travel to Denver with a couple of lineup decisions to be made, as they hit the ice off of a 6-2 win in the preseason finale versus Anaheim.

Darcy Kuemper was the first goaltender off this morning, which points to him getting the start tonight between the pipes. Kuemper has started the season opener in back-to-back seasons, including a defeat on Opening Night last season against Colorado. Kuemper, a Stanley Cup champion with the Avalanche in 2022, has a 5-4-2 lifetime record against the Avalanche, with a .904 save percentage and a 2.55 goals-against average.

Based on practice alignment over the last couple of days, here is tonight’s projected Kings lineup –

Panarin – Byfield – Kempe
Zuccarello – Turcotte – Laferriere
Moore – Haula – Laughton
Lee – Helenius – Armia

Dumoulin – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Anderson – Ceci

Kuemper
Forsberg

The Kings had decisions to make on defenseman Joel Edmundson (undisclosed, day-to-day) and forward Corey Perry, who just returned to the group yesterday after taking some time away for personal reasons. Both players took the morning skate today. Edmundson will play, per Peter Laviolette, while Perry was on late, alongside Erik Gustafsson, pointing towards him not being in the lineup.

AVALANCHE VITALS: Colorado lined up with an 11/7 look during their final practice before today’s game, with forwards Logan O’Connor and Zachary L’Heureux placed on injured reserve.

Per Bailey Curtis of DNVR Avalanche, here’s how Colorado lined up during yesterday’s skate –

No L’Heureux or O’Connor.

Lehkonen – MacKinnon – Necas
Landeskog – Nelson – Kadri
Schwartz – Svechkov – Hughes
Kelly – Roy

Toews – Makar
Kulak – Malinski
Manson – Burns
Juulsen https://t.co/mmbnumIJS4

— Bailey Curtis (@baileyycurtis) September 29, 2026

Colorado forward Nathan Mackinnon was the only forward in the NHL last season with 50 goals and 100 points, while defenseman Cale Makar was one of three NHL blueliners with at least 20 goals and 75 points. Forward Martin Necas scored four goals in three games played against the Kings during the 2025-26 regular season, including two goals in the season opener in Los Angeles last season.

Storyline Of The Day – Let’s Get To It!
The last road game the Kings played was in this building. The last game they played in any building came against Colorado, a Game 4 defeat at home. Not something that was forgotten.

“When you get swept, it’s a little bit embarrassing and you want to come back and get the season off to a strong start,” forward Trevor Moore said this morning.

They led by a goal late into the third period in Game 2 back in April at Ball Arena, but a late goal against forced the game into overtime, as they ultimately fell short in a 2-1 defeat.

In some ways, that loss is still on their minds. In other ways, it’s a brand-new opportunity to try and build something different. Whether it’s motivation or not, whether it’s unrelated, it’s a chance to show that things are different.

“I remember that series pretty well, that’s a lot of the same players too,” defenseman Brian Dumoulin said. “We know their players, they know ours, just a new coach. It can go about game plan, but it’s just about puck battles, handling momentum, handling your own emotions. Both teams going to be ready to go. It’s going to be a fun game to play in, just stay poised and confident and handle the swings of the game.”

What is the same is the opponent, for the most part. Colorado made some offseason moves, but the names you know are still there. Nathan MacKinnon atop the depth chart up front. Same for Cale Makar on the blueline. A very strong group of players behind those players, led by Martin Necas, Devon Toews and Brock Nelson. A timeshare between the pipes with Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood.

From a scouting perspective, with Head Coach Jared Bednar also still leading the way, it creates something to go off of for the Kings. Their opponent might not be exactly the same in every way. But they figure to do a lot of the same things that made them the NHL’s best team in the regular season last time around. It doesn’t make it any easier to beat them, but it provides a baseline you don’t get with every team.

“I think early on, in the games like this, you can always go back,” Peter Laviolette said. “It’s the same coach, most likely a lot of the same systems. There are some pre-scouts that we can pull from preseason, but mixed lineups and not having everybody the same as they might start the season in a lineup, it’s always a little bit different. I do think that when you’ve got a coach that’s down the road with the identity of a team, you can pull from last year’s playoffs and this year’s preseason games and come up with where you think that they might be, certainly enough to feed your team some information.”

With the Colorado prep comes the Kings’ own preparations, which are important as they continue to grow in comfort with the way they want to play this season under Laviolette.

It’s a balance, for sure. You can’t just ignore what the opponent is doing because you’re trying to master your own concepts. You also can’t go so far down a rabbit hole of trying to plan for one opponent that you wind up getting away from your own identity. It’s a balance. A give and take. Something Laviolette is trying to effectively execute for tonight’s Game 1.

“I always think it’s important to do what we need to do in order to be successful, but you do want the information on their d-zone coverage, you do want the information on their breakouts or whatever it might be, their power play, their penalty kill system, what to look for,” he added. “I think that there’s information that your team and your players can find useful to help you be successful inside of your system. I do think pre-scouts are important but I think the way that you play the game is equally or more important.”

3 To Watch For –
– There are a lot of questions to be answered for the LA Kings here in Game 1.

Let’s focus on a big one – the power play.

The Kings are facing a Colorado penalty kill that led the NHL last season at just shy of 85 percent. In the 2026 playoffs, the Kings hung in games in Denver thanks to pair of power-play tallies by forward Artemi Panarin, which was the only source of offense the Kings had at Ball Arena. Goes to show how important the man advantage is, especially within tight games.

If you ask forward Mats Zuccarello, he identified three keys to what he believes is a successful power play – movement, patience and retrievals.

“Retrievals is good [and important],” Zuccarello said. “I think patience, in terms of dragging them to you, using the 5-on-4 to the best advantage. We’re all different, but someone who likes really quick passing, I think sometimes you take away the room and stuff with that and it’s more room for error. I think retrievals, patience and movement [are three keys to an effective power play].”

The Kings put lots on display as they moved the puck in the preseason finale on Saturday. Against Colorado, it’ll be a much greater, and more important, challenge.

– With the trip to Colorado comes an adjustment to the altitude. It’s not anything new or anything that you can control. It’s simply something that exists with this building.

For Laviolette’s perspective, he doesn’t necessarily want his players to change anything in order to accommodate. It’s maybe being aware of certain things towards the end of a shift, but at the end of the day, it’s not anything the Kings are making changes to try and combat, beyond doing their best to keep shifts shorter.

“Yeah, I mean it’ll be short, if you can keep the shifts to 35, under 40 seconds, I think you’re better off,” Laviolette said. “It’s when you get caught out there for a minute or so [that you get in trouble].”

– Lastly, a reminder that tonight’s game is a national broadcast on TNT.

The Kings have two national broadcasts in their first three games. Friday’s trip to San Jose will be the first local broadcast of the season on ABTV, with the John Kelly / Jim Fox partnership set to do the season debut. Tuesday’s home opener next week will be broadcast nationally on ESPN, before the local broadcast schedule really kicks in the bulk of the way home.

The regular season is here! What a test off the bat, as the Kings get the best team in the NHL from a season ago. No easing in for Peter Laviolette and the crew. 7 PM Pacific as the first game gets underway!