Kings’ DJ Smith bluntly sums up Avalanche series

The Los Angeles Kings are out of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Nathan MacKinnon scored twice for the Colorado Avalanche to help his team advance to the second round. As for Los Angeles, they head to the offseason after a fifth consecutive first-round exit. Interim head coach DJ Smith’s future is among the things this team has to figure out.

Smith took over midseason after the firing of Jim Hiller. What his status is for the 2026-27 season certainly remains to be seen. For now, though, the focus is on analyzing what went wrong against the Avalanche. Smith’s immediate thoughts were extremely straightforward, though.

“Ultimately, I think at the end of the day, we probably lost this series to a really good hockey team,” the interim Kings head coach said, via DNVR Avalanche.

Los Angeles played some close games early in this series. In fact, both of the first two games ended with scores of 2-1. However, Los Angeles could not contain the Colorado offense for long. The Avalanche scored nine goals over the last two games of this series to complete the sweep.

As mentioned, this is the fifth straight first-round exit for Los Angeles. They have not made it out of the first round since 2014. Anze Kopitar led the Kings to the Stanley Cup that year, defeating the New York Rangers in five games.

Los Angeles has a tough offseason ahead of them, especially with Kopitar retiring from hockey. Changes are coming in Los Angeles after this series defeat. The extent of those changes will be seen over the course of the next few months.