A Taxing Return

DENVER —  Of the 16 teams that made the NHL playoffs, only the New Jersey Devils and Montreal Canadiens scored fewer goals this season than the Colorado Avalanche, which won its eighth consecutive division championship behind the league’s best defense and the goaltending of Patrick Roy.

But you’d have a hard time convincing the Kings, buried again by the Avalanche offense Saturday in a 5-3 loss in Game 2 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series in front of a sellout crowd of 18,007 in the Pepsi Center.

While opening a 2-0 series lead, the Avalanche has scored nine goals against a King team that set a club record with a 2.29 goals-against average.

Of course, the injection of Peter Forsberg into the Avalanche lineup has added much-needed firepower to an offense that set regular-season franchise records for fewest goals scored and number of times shut out.

Forsberg, who had two assists Thursday night in his first game since May 9, contributed three more points Saturday, among them a second-period goal that erased a 3-2 deficit and spelled the beginning of the end for the Kings.

Winless in their last eight road games, the Kings were outscored, 3-0, in the last 28 minutes 55 seconds, former King Steven Reinprecht scoring the game-winning goal on a redirection with 3:15 to play in the second period.

Joe Sakic also had three points for the Avalanche, among them two goals, and Chris Drury scored an insurance goal with 11:15 remaining.

The Avalanche, which averaged 2.59 goals during the regular season and was shut out 10 times, outshot the Kings, 38-31.

“If you give up [almost] 40 shots, that team’s going to score goals,” King defenseman Aaron Miller said. “They’re the best defensive team in the league and we scored three goals in each game. That’s got to be enough for us to win, and it hasn’t been because we’re giving up too many scoring chances.

“It’s something we’re going to have to fix. We’ve got to bear down. Obviously, we’re going to have to play a low-scoring, checking game to beat them.”

The Kings, who overcame deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 in their 4-3 loss in Game 1, erased a 1-0 lead Saturday and led, 2-1, after scoring on their first and fifth shots against Roy, Adam Deadmarsh and Mikko Eloranta netting the goals.

Jason Allison’s first goal in seven games gave the Kings a 3-2 lead with 11:17 to play in the second period, but Forsberg scored on a rebound less than 21/2 minutes later, pulling the Avalanche even.

The 43rd playoff goal of his career was the first of any kind for the six-time All-Star since April 30, when he helped the Avalanche to a 4-3 victory over the Kings in Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal series.

The Swede was sidelined for the last 11 months after emergency surgery to have his spleen removed in May and four other surgeries on his ankles and left foot, but returned to the lineup just in time to cause the Kings fits.

“I thought he was good the first game too,” Miller said, “but he was even better today. He’s one of the guys we have to stop, but they’ve got a lot of guys like that.”

One is Reinprecht, the forgotten man in the February 2001 trade that brought Deadmarsh and Miller to the Kings and sent All-Star defenseman Rob Blake and Reinprecht to the Avalanche.

After scoring a goal in Game 1, Reinprecht put the Avalanche ahead to stay Saturday, charging down the slot and redirecting a pass from Sakic out of the air and between the pads of King goaltender Felix Potvin.

“By no means do we want to get into these kind of up-and-down games,” King center Bryan Smolinski said. “We’ve got to tighten up on their better players. We’ve given them too much space, and obviously it shows on the scoresheet.”

It shows in the results too.

Like last season, the Kings opened the playoffs on the road and returned home with only two losses to show for their travels. They rallied to win four consecutive games and eliminate the Detroit Red Wings last season, overcoming a 2-0 series deficit for the only time in their mostly forgettable playoff history.

“Last year’s last year,” Potvin said, “but of course we feel good coming back home. But we would have liked to have won here.”

With a spotty defense, however, it was too much to ask.