KINGS MORE THAN A HAPPY-TO-BE-HERE TEAM
L.A. deserves its series lead — and the chance to finish the Oilers Thursday
Someone forgot to tell the Los Angeles Kings they should have been satisfied with just making it to the Stanley Cup playoffs this season.
But after defeating the Edmonton Oilers 5-4 in overtime in Game 5 to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series Tuesday, the Kings are now just a victory — or as Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft would put it, an Edmonton non-win — from advancing to the second round.
Game 6 is Thursday (8 p.m. MT) at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
“There is still a lot to play for. We're obviously very excited where we're at right now,” said Kings forward Adrian Kempe, who scored 1:12 into overtime to win Game 5. “It was a great win for us, and our confidence is good, but we have to rest our mindsets. We can enjoy it (Tuesday) and then refocus and try to play as good as we did tonight at home on Thursday.”
The Kings were fully deserving of the Game 5 win, outshooting the Oilers 43-28, while building 3-1 and 4-2 leads in the third period. Had it not been for the heroics of Connor Mcdavid and Leon Draisaitl in the last half of the third period, the game never would have made it to overtime.
Mcdavid scored a power-play goal to pull the Oilers to 3-2, helped set up a short-handed goal to make it 4-3, and assisted on Draisaitl's tying goal with less than five minutes to go in the period.
Kempe, however, took advantage of a turnover in the neutral zone in overtime after Evander Kane blew a tire, then rounded an exhausted Duncan Keith on a rush to the net before tucking the puck in past Oilers goaltender Mike Smith for the winner.
It was Kempe's second goal of the game — his first two of the playoffs — setting the stage for the series upset in Los Angeles.
“Going back to the third period, we were up 4-2 and they came back so they had some momentum going into overtime,” Kempe said. “But we were talking in the locker-room that we had to stick with it and whatever happened, happened already. We reset the mindset and that (Phillip Danault) line came out right away and set the tone and we caught them when they were tired and we were able to finish them off.”
Keith and Brett Kulak surprisingly started the overtime on the blue line for the Oilers and were caught scrambling in their zone for the first minute, unable to gain meaningful possession. Once Kane fell at centre allowing Kempe to pick up the puck on a rush the other way and gain a step on Keith, it was just a matter of finishing off the play.
“It showed a lot of character,” Danault said. “We're learned a lot this year, we're still learning, and to come back in overtime and win this game, it was big for us. It's obviously a big win on the road.”
The Kings won the opening game of the series benefiting from a turnover by Smith and were then pounded in the next two games, 6-0 and 8-2. But they were able to tie the series with a convincing 4-0 win in Game 4 on Sunday and were the better team from the start Tuesday.
Los Angeles outshot the Oilers 16-5 in the first period and would have been up by more than a goal at the intermission had it not been for the play of Smith.
Despite giving up a pair of twogoal leads in the third period, the Kings were able to regroup in the intermission and jumped on the Oilers early.
“I think at the beginning of the series, if someone would have said would you take 2-2 and go into overtime for Game 5, we would have taken it for sure,” Danault said. “That's what we said when we came into the locker-room, and we had a big first shift and then right away in the second shift Juice (Kempe) capitalized. It's just a great mentality that we have and we wanted to win another game here.”
Now heading home, the Kings understand the importance of trying to close out the series. The fourth game is historically always the toughest to win and it would be even more difficult if they had to come back to Edmonton to do it in Game 7.
“These last two games that we played, both won't be good enough to win Game 6, so we have to find a way to be better,” Kings head coach Todd Mclellan said. “I liked our game (Tuesday), but part of our game is power play and penalty killing, and those two areas obviously hurt us.
“I don't know if there is much we can do on Connor's first goal. It's a scramble and a world-class player makes a world-class move. But the next two, the short-handed goal and the power play goal, is preventable in my mind, and those are areas that we're going to have to be better.”
Notes: Andreas Athanasiou was reinserted into the Kings lineup for Game 5 after being a healthy scratch in Game 4. He rewarded Mclellan with the goal to put
Los Angeles up 3-1 in the contest, and is expected to draw in again
... The Oilers will be without Darnell Nurse for Game 6. He was suspended for head-butting Danault late in the second period. The play was not penalized at the time, but it did not escape the attention of the NHL Department of Player Safety.