Kings have nothing to lose
In Game 7 the pressure’s all on Oilers to beat surprising L.A. team
LOS ANGELES Rebuilding a team goes beyond filling roster spots, past finding right-handed-shooting defencemen to pair with left-handed shooters and acquiring role players who fit alongside the franchise’s foundations.
When all goes right — and that’s rarely swift or sure — a rebuilt team naturally develops and rallies around an identity. Players live it, take pride in it. After struggling to end the steep decline that followed their two Stanley Cup championships the Los Angeles Kings have used their first post-season journey since 2018 to create a new identity, one they believe can define them for years to come.
Their resilience has served them well during their first-round playoff series against Edmonton, allowing them to bounce back from a pair of two-goal losses and move within a game of winning the series. But the Oilers responded with some resilience of their own on Thursday, pulling out a 4-2 victory on a goal by Tyson Barrie from above the right circle with five minutes and 10 seconds left in the third period. An empty-net goal clinched the win for the Oilers.
The teams will decide the winner in Game 7 on Saturday, at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
Despite losing defenceman Drew Doughty in March to season-ending wrist surgery and 20-goal scorer Viktor Arvidsson for the series to a lower-body injury, the Kings have outplayed the Oilers at key moments.
Coach Todd McLellan’s moves have been uncanny. Defenceman Troy Stecher, acquired in March for a seventh-round draft pick, contributed a goal and an assist in each of Games 4 and 5. Winger Andreas Athanasiou, scratched for Game 4, scored in Game 5. Winger Carl Grundstrom, injured and unable to play Game 3, scored twice in Game 4.
The Kings will come out ahead in some ways no matter the outcome. They’ve discovered what they have in terms of talent and in character, and they know that coming up with a semi-decent power play and average penalty killing could make them a Cup threat. They’ve had no pressure.
Not so for the Oilers, who were heavy favourites. Edmonton revolves around superstars. but hasn’t been able to complete what should be the easier phase of assembling a team: finding reliable goaltending and a solid supporting cast. Since McDavid was drafted No. 1 in 2015 the Oilers have one won playoff series, in 2017. Fans and media are restless.
McLellan, who coached the Oilers from 2015-16 through the first 20 games of 2018-19, knows the duress the Oilers face: “Maybe I’m the only one that can speak to this because I’ve lived their bench and now I’m living our bench. It’s completely different.
“Our pressure is what we put on ourselves. Their pressure is, it’s enormous throughout Oil Country and Canada and the superstars and the media pressure and where they’ve been and what they want to do. A lot of people that have followed this series have used (the term) house money, and we don’t see it that way. But it also creates a different set of pressure points for each organization, I believe.”
The Kings’ pressure point was on a comfortable setting. “We’re going to take advantage of our internal pressure, the pressure that we put when we look at each other in the locker room, the expectations that we have for each other,” McLellan said.