Game Notes: Los Angeles Kings at Edmonton Oilers

After a 3-2 win in their season opener on Wednesday night in front of a packed, fired-up crowd at Rogers Arena, the Oilers will look to continue their undefeated season against Todd McLellan and the @Los Angeles Kings.

1. It didn’t take Todd McLellan long to find work after being fired by the Oilers last November. Shortly after the end of the 2018-19 season, the Kings, who finished second-last in the league under John Stevens and Willie Desjardins, announced that they would be hiring McLellan. The Kings will now become the third team McLellan has coached in the Pacific Division.

2. It isn’t often we see a former Oilers head coach face the team as the head coach of another club. The last time it happened was when Glen Sather was behind the bench for the New York Rangers between 2002 and 2004. While Sather coached the Rangers against the Oilers, he never made a coaching return to Edmonton, as both games were played at Madison Square Garden.

3. In order to find the only former Oilers head coach to return to Edmonton to face the Oilers with a different team, you have to go all the way back to the 1990s. John Muckler, who coached the Oilers to their 1990 Stanley Cup, faced the Oilers multiple times during his tenure with the @Buffalo Sabres and Rangers. That would make Oct. 1, 1999, the last time a former Oilers head coach returned to Edmonton to face the Oilers. That game ended in a 1-1 tie between the Oilers and Rangers.

4. As of right now, only two coaches, Sather and Muckler, have faced the Oilers with a new team. Todd McLellan will become the third coach ever to do so tonight, and, later this season, both Dallas Eakins and Ralph Kreuger will become the fourth and fifth. Eakins is coaching the Anaheim Ducks after a successful run with their AHL affiliate in San Diego while Kreuger is coaching the Buffalo Sabres after spending a few years working with Southhampton F.C. of the English Premier League.

5. McLellan heads into Los Angeles in a somewhat similar situation that he inherited in Edmonton back in 2015. McLellan was hired by the Oilers shortly after the organization won the Connor McDavid draft lottery in order to instill some stability within the organization. The Oilers would miss the playoffs in 2015-16 before breaking their playoff drought the following season. There’ll be similar expectations in L.A. for McLellan. The Kings bottomed out last year but boast one of the best prospect pools in the NHL. The expectation is likely going to be one building year before the Kings are back in playoff contention in 2020-21.

6. The Kings’ 71-point showing last season was their worst since they put up 71 points in 2007-08. After their terrible 2007-08 season, they finished with a slightly better 79 points in the standings. Those two poor seasons were instrumental in Los Angeles’ eventual Stanley Cup wins. In 2008, they drafted @Drew Doughty with the second overall pick and Slava Voynov with the 32nd overall pick. In 2009, they drafted @Brayden Schenn with the fifth overall pick and @Kyle Clifford with the 35th overall pick. Doughty, Voynov, and Clifford were on both Stanley Cup teams while Schenn was traded to acquire Mike Richards, another key member of the 2012 and 2014 teams. The Kings added Alex Turcotte with the fifth overall pick this year and another high pick in 2020 would do wonders for their rebuild.

7. As Jason Gregor pointed out prior to Wednesday’s game, the Oilers have been excellent in season openers in their franchise’s history. With Wednesday’s win against Vancouver, the Oilers are now 19-7-4 in 30 season openers on home ice and 22-13-5 on opening night. The focus now shifts to creating a winning streak to open the season. The last time the Oilers won back-to-back games to start a season was in 2016-17 when the team beat Calgary 7-4 at home on opening night before taking down the Flames 5-3 in Calgary a couple of days later. We all know what ended up happening that season.

8. The Oilers and Kings split their season series in 2018-19 as the two teams each won both of their games on home ice. In November, a late third-period power-play goal gave the Oilers a 3-2 win over the Kings. In March, the Oilers exploded for an 8-4 win. The eight goals scored on the Kings that game represented the most the Oilers would score in any single game last season.

9. The Oilers’ blueline depth will be tested with Adam Larsson expected to miss the next six-to-eight weeks of play with a broken foot. It was Dave Tippett’s plan to use Larsson alongside @Darnell Nurse on the team’s primary shutdown pair, but now things are going to have to be shuffled around.

The team made a paper transaction on Thursday, sending @Ethan Bear to the AHL while recalling @Evan Bouchard. This move was simply to maximize the amount of Long Term Injured Reserve salary cap relief the Oilers could get in Larsson’s absence. Bouchard was sent back down prior to Saturday’s game and Bear and @William Lagesson were brought up.

10. I think @Mike Smith is really going to endear himself here. He has a very old-school swagger about him that’ll be welcomed by Oilers fans.