Oilers blank Kings to take series
McDavid, Smith shine as Edmonton moves on to second round against the Flames or Stars
Go Big or Go Home, right? In terms of Connor McDavid and the overdog Edmonton Oilers against the underdog Los Angeles Kings Saturday night, they absolutely had to win Game 7 so they could avoid the yeah buts and the what-ifs and having to say sorry, once again. But, hey, they were already home at Rogers Place so the fiery mantra was only half applicable.
So before a raucous, but very nervous 18,347 fans, McDavid lifted a shot over Jonathan Quick late and set up Cody Ceci in the second to make sure there was no crowning glory from the
Kings as the Oilers beat them 2-0. It was a series where the Oilers seemed comfortable early until they weren't. They blasted L.A. 6-0 and 8-2 in Games 2 and 3 before they had to win the last two under the crushing expectations of getting past round one against a weaker opponent that had dragged this to
Game 7.
While there's a fine line between being scared to lose and buoyed to win McDavid tossed off a pre-game fib “it doesn't feel much different than a normal game day” before the best player in the world switched to an I cannot tell a lie “obviously a big game for our group, its do-ordie.”
And the Oilers, led by McDavid wouldn't let them die with a virtuoso performance. He played an eye-popping 11 minutes in the second period alone, setting up Ceci for the game's first goal in that frame with help from the hobbled Leon Draisaitl and otherwise playing a game unlike anybody else to give him 14 points in the seven games.
“Well, Connor's a different player than most in the league,” said Kings coach Todd McLellan, who used to be on the Oiler bench, in a massive understatement before the Oilers put away the Kings, with only L.A. goalie Jonathan Quick's fantastic play in his fifth Game 7 keeping it from being a blowout with the Oilers setting a playoff record with their 24 second-period shots.
“I've lived their bench and I'm living our bench now and the pressure on Edmonton is enormous throughout Oil Country and Canada, on the superstars ... where they've been and what they want to do,” said the prescient McLellan before the Game 6 Oiler win in LA, and offered up much the same about the heat before Game 7.
“We would like to put them in a situation where that does exist,” he said.
And they did thanks to Quick, who faced 41 shots, but the Oilers, in the first home Game 7 in 32 years, back to the 1990 first-round ouster of the Winnipeg Jets, got the job done in a series where familiarity maybe didn't breed contempt but a healthy dislike as the Oilers won Games 2 and 3, 6 and 7.
“You keep seeing the same team every night and it's almost like you know what they eat for breakfast, “said Oiler coach Jay Woodcroft, certainly aware it was Wheaties, breakfast of champions, for guys like goalie Quick and Anze Kopitar with their two Cup wins. “We have a strong belief in our game and our ability to meet challenges.”
And they did, but the Game 7 adventure started anxiously with drama in the morning around Draisaitl, who didn't take the skate, leading to whether he would play after injuring his ankle during a scrum takedown by Mikey Anderson in Game 6. The 55-goal scorer did play, gutting his way through 20 minutes) — maybe his ankle was heavily taped, maybe they had an extra big skate boot, maybe he spent the day in a hyperbaric chamber to get some oxygen flow to his sore extremity — and while playing on one leg still managed an assist on Ceci's goal and 15 draws.
The Oilers' single-period playoff record for shots was 22 during their glory days before they poured 24 at Quick in the second 20, but only got one past him when Ceci took McDavid's pass on the faceoff dot and beat him short side past his glove with Mikey Anderson screening him.
“Really good play by Connor to find me,” said Ceci, who picked up his second playoff goal with a Cale
Makar type shot.
That was it, with Quick making big stops in tight on Zach Hyman and Kailer Yamamoto, and getting lucky once when former Oiler Andreas Athanasiou cleared the bouncing puck off the goal line behind the goalie after an Evander Kane fivefooter.
The teams went through an aggressive, scoreless first period with referees Chris Rooney and Jean Hebert letting them play prison rules. Close calls at both ends but neither Quick nor Smith had to make a fantastic stop as McDavid worked on two lines with Hyman and Kane, along with Draisaitl and Kailer Yamamoto, getting 7:56, 15 more seconds than Anderson on the ice almost every shift against the Oilers captain.
The biggest cheers came with a McDavid wallop on Sean Durzi on the end boards rather than a breath-taking rush, then Dustin Brown plastered McDavid into the end boards on another shift.