Is it Wednesday at 8 p.m. yet? Final score: 4-3.

The playoffs can be a long and gruelling road. That’s something to remember as we embark on this journey together.

On the game: “There’s lots of emotion. Fans back in the building, excitement. I thought we just didn’t handle it all that well. They got the jump on us and I thought we did a great job of getting ourselves back in the game and giving ourselves a chance. Ultimately, it’s one bounce.”

On the start to the game: “Obviously, we didn’t have a great start. We gave up a few chances and found ourselves down two. Ultimately, it’s not a good enough start. In our home building, it’s not what we want to do. It’s something to work on.”

On what he felt the oilers did well: “I liked our special teams. Our powerplay kept us in it. I liked how we battled back in the game, we didn’t quit on it. There’s things to like, and there’s obviously things to not like.”
Mcdavid on the kings’ line matching, if he found it difficult to get into the flow of the game: “No, I think you’re going to expect that from la. They’re a team that wants to get their matchups, and todd’s always been a matchup guy. We understand that and we’re comfortable playing against anybody.”

On how the mindset changes being down 1-0 in the series: “I think just having a short memory, moving on, but learning, also learning from game one. They did things we want to adjust and we’ll make those adjustments and learn.”

On allowing scoring chances off the rush: “I think maybe just a bit of getting our tracks sorted out. Forwards needed to do a better job coming back and allowing the d to stand and make it hard to get into our zone.”

On if he felt Yamamoto had an excellent game: “I thought he did too. He did a lot of good things: he was hard on the forecheck, got pucks back, made some big plays. Obviously scored a big goal and was all over the game tonight. Real good.”

On his giveaway that lead to the kings’ game-winning goal: “I was just trying to make something happen. Obviously just trying to do too much there. In a tight game like that, you can’t afford to make mistakes like that. It ended up costing us the game and obviously disappointed. It’s one game. We move on and we worry about game two.”

On staying even keel into game two: “You can’t do anything about it now, it’s over. It didn’t go the way we wanted it to. It’s a long series, it’s a long playoffs if you want to get to where we wanna go. It’s adversity early in the series, but it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before and I’m sure we’ll have to deal with it again on the journey here. It’s something we’ll learn from, move on and worry about game two now.”

On if the team is better equipped to be a team down 1-0: “Everyone wants to compare year-to-year, but this team is a different team. Different players, different coach. I think it’s easy to compare from the outside year to year, but it’s a different team. It’s a team that’s really gelled here in the last two months, a team that has learned how to win close games, how to come back in games, how to hold leads. Playoffs is a long journey, there’s going to be ups and downs. You learn from the things you maybe need to improve on and the things you did well you want to continue. All in all, it’s a different team and we’re feeling good about where we’re at, it’s just a game of inches obviously. A mistake here or there tonight and it’s a different game. It’s a game of mistakes but we learn from it, move on and learn from game two.”

On the atmosphere in the building: “Yeah, unbelievable. It was bumpin’ in there and maybe to a fault, we come out and we were kind of running all over the place and maybe forgot about our structure a little bit because it was so energetic. The energy, you feed off that. To get out there and barely be able to hear your heartbeat is something that you just live for and why we play hockey. It’s good to have the fans back in the building. The energy was unbelievable and we want to keep that going next time and hopefully get a win out of it.”

On early jitters: “I didn’t love the way we started the game obviously we gave up a chance off a neutral zone faceoff. We took an early penalty. Those type of things that allowed them to feel good at the start of the game. I thought we worked our way into things and found our way to compete and in the end, it came down to an error in the third period and they capitalized on it.”

On the Oilers not beating themselves again: “I would say it was a 3-3 game, competitive on both sides. We had an opportunity to win that game on different occasions. In the end, we made some mistakes we haven’t made over the last two months or so. There’s areas we can clean up for sure.”

On Smith’s turnover: “I wouldn’t even just limit… *pause* …Obviously mike would like to have that puck handle back. But there was other stuff on that play too I think we can handle a little bit better. He’s done a good job of making big saves for us over time and we want to make sure we can clean up some of those areas.”

On the players being wirey, if it’s hard to keep them calm: “I thought everyone was excited. While there’s some execution things we can clean up, it’s hard to fault our effort, or our enthusiasm in that game tonight. We’re disappointed with the result, but I have a strong faith in our ability to regenerate. We’ll pick some things we need to improve and we’ll work at ’em and be better.”

On Yamamoto’s game: “I thought he was very good. He won a lot of puck battles, went to hard areas. He brings what he brings and he was a good player for us tonight.”

On the Oilers losing structure, what he attributes it to: “I think a little bit of everything. There’s areas we can be better. For me, it comes down to execution on some things and trusting what your structure is at certain times. In the end, it was a 3-3 hockey game in the third period and we made one more mistake than they did and it ended up a 4-3 hockey game.”

On nurse: “I thought there was some stuff from Darnell tonight. He’s been off the ice for a little over a week, and there’s moments where he’s just getting back up to speed. We tried not to overuse him tonight, but he was competitive and very good on our penalty kill.”

On lineup matching: “It was an interesting game with minutes distribution. They had some people who didn’t play a whole heck of a lot. I think one of their players was under three minutes another one under six minutes. At that point in time, when that stuff happens. You’re just trying to get people on the ice and make sure we’re using enough people to spread the minutes out so you’re not overtaxing somebody.”