skate

The best way to climb a mountain is one step at a time.

Especially when you’re wearing skates.

And the Kings will be wearing skates and staring at a very large mountain when they take the ice Sunday for Game 4 of their best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series with the Colorado Avalanche, a loss away from elimination.

“You’ve just got to start with the first one,” defenseman Mikey Anderson said after a fast-paced 45-minute practice Saturday. “You try to win the first one, and then reset and go from there.”

Since the Kings trail 3-0 a win in Sunday’s matinee at Crypto.com Arena will do little more than extend the series one game, sending the teams back to Denver. To advance to the second round, the Kings need to win four in a row against the team that posted the NHL’s best record in the regular season.

How big a mountain is that? Well, the Avalanche haven’t lost four in a row since October and the Kings haven’t won a first-round playoff series since 2014.

One step at a time.

“You just have to win one, that’s first off. And then the hardest one will be the next one,” Kings interim coach D.J. Smith said. “And then, you know, it’s just momentum changes. But you can’t think about that without winning one, and you can’t think about winning one without winning the first period.

“You’re up against it, but I don’t think you can think about winning the series. You just got to think about winning one game.”

The series has been a lot closer than the deficit would indicate. The Kings have won the battle of the special teams, with their penalty kill shutting out the NHL’s highest-scoring team on nine chances. They’ve also scored a power-play goal in each of three games and held Nathan MacKinnon, the league’s top goal-scorer, to one assist in three games.

MacKinnon didn’t even take a shot in Game 3, yet Colorado won 4-2 with two goals bouncing in off the skates of Kings forward Adrian Kempe and goalie Anton Forsberg while another was scored into an empty net.

“You still lose the game,” Anderson said. “This time of year doesn’t really matter. You can say it feels good, you do all these good things. But if you don’t win the game, it’s kind of it’s the only thing that matters right now.”

ings center Scott Laughton (21) checks Avalanche defenseman Sam Malinski (70) into the boards during the second period of Game 2 in Denver.

(Jack Dempsey / Associated Press)

Added forward Scott Laughton, “Sometimes you get the bounce, sometimes you don’t. You have to have a very-narrow minded focus. We’ve got to stick to the process.”

The Kings have only four goals in the series and have scored just once at even strength, so Smith scrambled his bottom two forward lines in practice Saturday in a search for speed in the offensive end. But he said he doesn’t plan any major changes for Game 4, adding the Kings just need to check harder, move the puck better and get to the net more.

“I think that the game plan is correct,” he said.

However the Kings have taken just 76 shots in the three games, making things far too easy for Avalanche goalie Scott Wedgewood, who has been brilliant.

“We’ve got to find ways to put the puck in the net, whether that’s crashing the nets, making the play for an empty netter. It doesn’t matter at this point,” said Kings’ captain Anze Kopitar, whose 20-year NHL career ends when his team’s season does. “We’ve got to find a way.”

Smith, who rallied the Kings into the playoffs after taking over for Jim Hiller with 23 games left in the regular season, is making his Stanley Cup playoff debut as a head coach. But he’s been in this position before. As an assistant with Windsor in the Ontario Hockey League, Smith coached a team that overcame a 3-0 deficit and went on to win the league title.

That was a big mountain. And they climbed it one step at a time.

“We’ve just got to play our best game one time, and then we’ll worry about the next game,” Smith said. “But we have to find a way to score more while playing the exact same defense.

“Is it hard? Yes. Are we going to give it everything we got? Yes. I think you’re going to see our best game in the series.”

VANCOUVER, Canada — Darcy Kuemper made 19 saves for his third shutout of the season and 39th of his career to lead the Kings to a 4-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.

Trevor Moore had a goal and an assist for the Kings, and Scott Laughton, Artemi Panarin and Quinton Byfield also scored. Mikey Anderson had a pair of assists.

The victory moved the Kings within one point of the Nashville Predators, who hold the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

One of the best stops by Kuemper, whose last shutout was on Dec. 6 against Chicago, came at the 10:43 mark of the first period when Teddy Blueger launched a blast from the slot and the goalie kicked out his right leg to send the puck soaring with the toe of his skate.

Kevin Lankinen made 34 saves for the Canucks, who lost their fourth straight game. Vancouver has been shut out five times this season, with four coming at home.

The Kings opened the scoring with Laughton’s power-play goal 17:34 into the first period. Stationed at the top of the faceoff circle, Byfield took a shot that hit the skate of Laughton as he jumped in front of the net, deflecting the puck in past Lankinen.

Byfield sealed it with an empty-netter with 2:24 left in the game.

Up next for Kings: vs. Utah at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.