Avalanche, Kings players fight in first game of NHL season

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It didn’t take long for NHL players to drop the gloves on the first night of the 2025-26 season.

Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings players got into a scrap with 1:34 left in the first period on Tuesday night. Kings forward Warren Foegele took a huge hit from Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson near the benches. Foegele gingerly skated back to his teammates.

Seconds later, Kings winger Jeff Malott stepped up and started to fight Manson. Malott may have been the perfect guy to challenge Manson since his brother, Mike, is a fighter and coach in the UFC.

Malott and Manson battled for a few seconds before eventually hitting the ice. Officials broke up the fisticuffs soon after.

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Los Angeles and Colorado were scoreless in the first period, but it was the Avalanche who picked up the victory in the end. Martin Necas scored two goals and Nathan MacKinnon had two assists.

“I thought by the time [the] last seven or eight minutes of the first period, by the time we got there we started to play a little bit more assertive,” Avalanche head coach David Bednar told reporters after the game, via NHL.com. “[We] continued that in the second period and got better.”