Devon Toews, then Cale Makar. Then Devon Toews from Cale Makar.

The Colorado Avalanche’s top defensive pairing picked up the scoring slack in the absence of Nathan MacKinnon and set the pace in a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.

Makar had a goal and an assist for the second straight night.

“Every time he was on the ice, something was happening,” coach Jared Bednar said. “He was dynamic.

“Toews was equally impressive tonight. A little more understated approach to the game, but just smart, intelligent hockey.”

The Avalanche allowed the host Kings to creep closer on both nights of the back-to-back, but held on to win each by the same score.

Colorado fell to third place in the West Division for a matter of hours, but pulled ahead of the Minnesota Wild by a point after the victory. The Avalanche have a game in hand.

It was the first NHL multigoal game for Toews, who donned the alternate captain’s ‘A’ with MacKinnon sidelined for the second straight night. He said it was the first time in his career he’s worn it.

“It wasn’t expected. I take a lot of pride in that,” Toews said. “It was a huge honor for me to be able to wear that. We’ve got 15 guys in that room that can wear that in any given night.”

On the opening goal, a J.T. Compher pass wound up in the skates of Los Angeles’ Rasmus Kupari. Toews relieved him of it and went in, putting the puck over the glove of Cal Petersen (27 saves) 4:46 into the game.

Cale Makar then scored his jersey-matching eighth of the season on the power play, a bomb through traffic.

They collaborated on the third goal. Makar circled along the boards before sending it across the zone to Toews.

Sean Walker sneaked behind the Avalanche and scored from close range to make it 2-1. Kupari’s first career goal came with two seconds left in a power play and closed the lead to 3-2 early in the third period.

The Avalanche spent a good part of the final 20 minutes trying to get the puck as far away from goaltender Jonas Johansson (16 saves) for as long as possible.

“We were just trying to protect the middle and not give up anything,” Andre Burakovsky (two assists) said.

They didn’t, and left Los Angeles with a sweep.

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