The Colorado Avalanche laced up their skates for a hockey game and a UFC fight broke out.

This bitterly fought 2-1 overtime victory over the Los Angeles Kings should’ve been staged inside a steel cage rather than on a sheet of ice. Nicolas Roy put the visitors out of their misery with a hard-working goal in the extra period.

Ugly happens when your NHL playoff foe is a royal pain in the arse. Rather than sticks, the Kings should carry clubs. Or maybe nunchucks.

Yes, there are toothless wonders who might applaud this bar brawl of a game as old-time hockey.

My belief? It was a bush-league attempt by the Kings to eradicate anything resembling a test of skill.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present Exhibit A in my case: Kings fourth-line hack Jeff Malott’s cynical effort to rattle the brain of Cale Makar with a sharp elbow directed at the head of Colorado’s all-star defenseman.

The enduring images of this no-holds-barred and poorly policed game will never hang in a museum. But the videotape should be sent directly to the NHL’s Department of Player Safety.

As a generational talent, Makar takes home a $9 million annual salary, and he’s worth every penny. Malott is paid $775,000 to muck up the beauty of this sport.

Hey, everybody has a job to do.

But when Malott goes head-hunting, he deserves a call from the league office for a stern lecture, if not a one-game suspension.

“There were big hits. We gave some. We took some, too,” said Colorado coach Jared Bednar, who believes Kings’ effort to knock the stuffing out of the Avs only ratchets up his players’ competitive intensity. “It’s all right. That’s what is going to happen this time of year. You’re playing a big, strong physical team.”

This knock-down, drag-out playoff tussle could be considered a work of art only if you love the sound of breaking glass. And that happened in the second period, when rowdy fans behind the Los Angeles bench shattered a pane of glass, causing dozens of jagged pieces to rain down on the visitors.

I’m surprised the Kings didn’t chew the shards while the crack Ball Arena maintenance crew took nearly 20 minutes to perform meatball surgery and replace the glass.

“The second period felt like it was three hours long,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said.

Through two games of this best-of-seven series, isn’t it already obvious?

L.A. would much rather trade punches than shots on goal with the Avalanche.

These Kings stink at putting the biscuit in the basket, so they resorted to putting an elbow upside the head of Makar.

Malott, whose brother Mike throws punches for a living as a UFC fighter, gave Makar a cheap shot late in the first period.

No penalty was called by on-ice officials who had already abdicated their responsibility to police the game.

Only minutes earlier, third-line L.A. center Scott Laughton took advantage of a scrum near the Avalanche goal by taking Makar to the ice, then used his body weight in an attempt to squish the all-star defenseman like a bug.

These Kings are clowns.

In Game 1, L.A. forward Adrian Kempe rabbit punched Makar in the back of the head.

Notice a pattern developing?

According to the Kings’ rude and crude calculus, their only shot at beating the Avs is to beat them up.

Heck, Los Angeles coach D.J. Smith admitted as much after Colorado came away with a 2-1 victory in the series opener when he vowed the Kings would get more physical with the most skilled team in the NHL.

Although the strategy is as crude as a caveman, it’s not like Smith has much choice. With the best days of prime-time players Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty behind them, the Kings are over the hill and sliding toward irrelevancy.

So give credit where it’s due. Although Colorado goaltender Scott Wedgewood was rock solid, the Kings skated through the sludge of a scoreless tie to get a power-play goal on a wrist shot by Artemi Panarin a little over 13 minutes into the third period.

With the clock ticking anxiously toward the final horn, Landeskog came up big with a clutch goal with only 3:35 remaining in regulation.

This brand of physical hockey is going to leave a mark, not to mention welts and bruises, on Colorado players. That’s why the long, bumpy road to the Stanley Cup is so physically taxing and mentally draining.

The last thing Nathan MacKinnon or Martin Necas need is a long playoff series against an inferior team whose only real strategy seems to be to inflict as much pain on a legit championship contender as Malott and his ham-fisted teammates can deliver.

The Avalanche need to put these L.A. Bozos out of their misery before somebody important wearing a burgundy and blue sweater gets hurt by some clown’s cheap shot.