The Avalanche have the Los Angeles Kings on the brink of elimination.

Colorado defeated the Kings 4-2 in Game 3 on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena, building a commanding 3-0 series lead. Gabe Landeskog, Cale Makar, Artturi Lehkonen, and Brock Nelson scored for the Avs, who didn’t trail at any point in this game.

Scott Wedgewood made 24 saves, including all 12 he faced in the first period, to win his third consecutive start. Colorado is the only team in the Western Conference with an opportunity to sweep, joining the Eastern Conference’s Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes.

They could end the series on Sunday in Game 4 in an early 2:30 p.m. MT scheduled start.

Landeskog scored the opening goal on perhaps the most fortunate bounce of the series thus far. Landeskog, from long range, shot the puck. It missed the net, bounced off the end boards, and came right back to the blue paint. Before Nazem Kadri could get a stick on it, Anton Forsberg inadvertently tracked back and kicked it in off the post with the bottom of his skate blade.

The tally from Landeskog, his second of the series, came just 5:59 into the first period. It was the earlier goal, by far, in any of the three games in this series.

Colorado carried that lead into the intermission despite getting outshot 12-7. Both teams looked to be creating more offense than the opening period in the games at Ball Arena.

At 5:55 of the second period, the Kings responded to even the score. Trevor Moore was the scorer on a play that began with a Brett Kulak turnover in the neutral zone.

Just as Moore tallied his first of the series, he took a high stick from Josh Manson that drew blood. What would’ve been a four-minute double minor was reduced to two minutes because of the goal. The Avs killed off the ensuing Kings power play. They finished XX-for-XX on the penalty kill.

It didn’t take long for the Avs to respond. Makar got his first of the series off a beautiful play along the blueline. He walked the line and fired a wrister through traffic that hit the back of the net before Forsberg knew where it was at 12:12.

The goal came while the Avs were in the middle of a line change. Lehkonen held the puck behind the net as some of the Avs skated to the bench. He then fed it low to high to Devon Toews. And he sent it to Makar while Lehkonen got stationed in front of Forsberg to set up a screen.

Lehkonen later added his goal, which came shorthanded on a 2-on-1 play. Kulak was called for an interference penalty at 6:30 of the second period, giving Los Angeles its third PP of the night with an opportunity to even the score.

Instead, Lehkonen skated it out of the zone with O’Connor to his right, while Kings forward Adrian Kempe was the lone Kings skater back trying to defend. Lehkonen sent a pass to O’Connor, but before it got to him, it bounced off the skate of Kempe and slid right past Forsberg, doubling Colorado’s lead to 3-1 at 7:39 of the period.

L.A. later got another penalty with just over four minutes remaining. They pulled their goalie to play 6-on-4 and it took just 16 seconds to tally a power-play goal.

Panarin’s point shot was perfectly placed on the stick of Kempe at the doorstep, and he redirected it past Wedgewood to make it a one-goal game. The Kings finished 1-for-4 on the power play, but it wasn’t enough.

Nelson’s empty-netter followed suit to put the game away.

The Avalanche aren’t scoring a whole bunch of goals, but they are playing arguably the best structured defense we’ve seen from this core in a long time.

For all the deserved praise we’ve given the Kings for defending well through three games, the Avs have matched it and more. There’s something really special about winning three one-goal games (if you remove the empty netter), and in two of those games, it never felt like the game was ever in danger of getting away.

And even in the game they trailed, the Avs quickly responded after the opening Kings goal in the third period to tie it up, and once again sat in the driver’s seat the rest of the way before winning in overtime.

L.A. had just one high-danger scoring chance at 5-on-5 in a third period that they were chasing the entire time.