LOS ANGELES – The problem for the Los Angeles Kings on Friday was not that they kept the arena lights on for as long as possible before Edmonton Oilers’ morning skate, but that they turned them on for the game.
With the glow of the stage and the crackling of Crypto.com Arena for the first playoff game for the Stanley Cup in Los Angeles in more than four years, the Kings were not ready when the lights came on. Showtime belonged to the Oilers, who scored twice in the first six minutes and embarrassed Los Angeles 8-2 to take a 2-1 lead in the first round series.
Edmonton’s advantage is more than one game.
Including the Kings’ 6-0 disassembly in Edmonton on Wednesday, the Oilers made two touchdowns in two games and won a dozen goals in total. And Connor McDavid has just one of Edmonton’s 17 goals in the series. Think about it for a minute. Sixteen goals have been scored by other Oilers.
Evander Kane scored a hat-trick on Friday, and Zack Hyman and Ryan Newgent-Hopkins scored twice. The Oilers chased Kings starter Jonathan Quick in the middle of the second period, and Edmonton starter Mike Smith was close to perfect after his hand in the third period in Game 1 gave Los Angeles a 4-3 victory.
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The teams are on different trajectories. Game 4 is Sunday.
“I don’t believe much in transferring momentum,” said Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. “I think you need to get things back on track. We expected a boost from them. Of course, you know, a lot of hits on the net from all angles and all sorts of things, but I thought we were a little stubborn and persistent and a little patient with our game, and we hit when the time came.
“I feel a real spirit in our group – people who work hard for each other. It’s a fun group to stand behind tonight. “
Yes, these Oilers may finally be different from the teams that largely squandered McDavid’s first six seasons while winning just one playoff series. Of course, no Edmonton coach has used esprit de corps to describe his team.
“Everyone is needed,” McDavid said simply when asked about his contribution to the full range.
“Just finding ways to win games is all that matters at this time of year,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter what it looks like or what happens. I think we did a good job, playing well, playing hard, being physical. They repulsed today and I decided we responded well. “
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Seven seasons and nearly 700 points under McDavid, the Oilers are trying to win only their second series of playoffs since 2006. Naturally, this has created quite a lot of baggage. The weight gets heavier every time the Oilers lose a series. Sometimes there is a feeling that the weight increases with the match, as when they lost the first match on Monday.
But the funny thing about luggage is that everyone has it from somewhere. Lucky are the few who are unburdened by disappointment and failed expectations. Kings don’t carry suitcases on their backs like McDavid and Leon Dreisytle, but their bags can start to feel heavy.
As an organization, the Kings have not won a playoff game on home ice since lifting the Stanley Cup against the New York Rangers in 2014. This remarkable achievement came with several free passes. Ask fans in Toronto and Vancouver how much suffering a triumph for the Stanley Cup would cost.
To be honest with the Kings, a young team that has evolved since recovering and returned to the playoffs perhaps a season or two earlier than expected, they have neither the pressure nor the expectations Oilers face to win soon.
But the Kings lost all three home playoff games by losing 4-1 in the first series of the San Jose Sharks in 2016 and scored 0-2 at the then Staples Center, while being swept away by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2018. Friday was the return of playoff hockey in los angeles.
And the Kings team, trying to learn how to win, was largely reworked, but with a few key reservations from more prosperous times, was embarrassed by the Oilers for a second straight game. Edmonton took a 5-0 lead in the middle of Game 3.
Maybe the arena staff, apparently under Kings’ instructions, shouldn’t have kept Crypto.com dark and the nets hidden when the Oilers went out for their morning skating a few minutes before their official start time at 11:30 a.m. Friday. The Kings take morning skating at their training base in El Segundo, near the LAX airport, and it is common for visiting NHL teams to get on the ice early when they are not used by the home team.
Maybe the kings lost their watch in El Segundo. The extra 15 minutes of skating and drilling may have burned a little more Oilers energy. Instead, Edmonton jumped to LA in the beginning.
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Skating four on four – thanks in large part to Brendan Lemieux of the Kings, who shows the same respect for opponents as his father – McDavid and Drysight played a perfect match to score 1-0 at 3:50.
When Trevor Moore executed a penalty with a stick hold at 5:46, Oilers’ deadly powerful game took just 23 seconds to make it 2-0, McDavid made another brilliant pass from the side of the goal to hit Hyman behind Quick. .
Smith managed 19 shots from the first period – the Kings fired from everywhere, but generated little quality chances – but the Oilers finished the race before the game was 30 minutes away. Kane recorded two rebounds around Hyman’s great solo effort, all within three and a half minutes to make it 5-0 early in the second period.
And after goals later in the frame of Anse Kopitar and Philip Dano at least brought the audience back to LA, the Oilers scored three more at the end of the third, two from the Nugent-Hopkins and a third from Kane.
“Every time you can walk into someone’s building and jump on them, I think it’s huge,” McDavid said. “It simply came to our notice then. But I thought they had a great first period, to be honest. We made some good plays and we stayed there for a while in the first one and I thought that our game would develop at the beginning of the second one. ”
Woodcroft said he expects the Kings, after losing heavily on Wednesday, to do their best in Match 3.
“And we were ready for that,” he said. “I thought we were surgical, taking advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. I thought they were running around a bit to try to get physically with us. We coped well. We made more games than them and eventually won tonight.
“What I enjoy most as a coach is to see how all the people in our team contribute and bring this type of effort and intensity. Because it was quite noticeable. “
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