DENVER — Goals aren’t coming easy for the Colorado Avalanche midway through a nine-game homestand. Conveniently, one sufficed Friday against the Los Angeles Kings.

Calvin Petersen made 44 saves, but Mikko Rantanen broke through in the second period. Rantanen later gift-wrapped the empty netter in a 2-0 victory.

Rantanen found a seam midway through the game. He, Devon Toews and Ryan Graves wove around at the point, dropping the puck off for one another, until traffic built up in front of Petersen. Rantanen then fired it in.

Gabriel Landeskog had a goal disallowed late in the third period. He was shoved into the goaltender, but officials upheld the call on the ice with a different explanation. It was determined Landeskog redirected the puck with his glove.

The penalty kill went to work twice in the final 10 minutes. A Ryan Graves shot block helped preserve the lead.

“I think you only win if you defend the right way,” goaltender Philipp Grubauer said. “I think we’ve been doing a great job lately but we’ve got to stick with it.”

Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon went off on a 2-on-minus-1 as Petersen had vacated the net for an extra Kings attacker. Rantanen offered the puck up to MacKinnon, who scored.

“It’s a pretty easy decision there just to give it to Nate,” Rantanen said.

Grubauer made 18 saves in his fourth shutout of the season.

“Just because I face only 20 shots a night doesn’t mean it’s easy shots,” Grubauer said, adding that just because the shot count is low doesn’t mean he gets to put up an umbrella and relax.

The quality of Colorado’s scoring chances have been under scrutiny lately as they repeatedly outshoot opponents by a wide margin, but the score remains close. When he looks at Friday’s film, coach Jared Bednar expects to see a “pretty good mix of scoring chances and shot quality.”

Colorado’s Dan Renouf fought Los Angeles’ Matt Luff soon after Rantanen’s goal at center ice. It was a quick one, with Luff falling first.

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