When there’s a will, there’s a way, and boy, do the Edmonton Oilers have a lot of will.
It’s given them a way as they’ve relied on their past playoff experience in key times through the first four games of their first-round series with the Los Angeles Kings.
The Kings are doing things that have benefited the Oilers, too. For one, coughing up leads certainly helps, but there may not be anything more impactful than how head coach Jim Hiller is utilizing the Kings’ bench, essentially running nine forwards and four defencemen.
At five-on-five, Alex Laferriere leads all Kings forwards with 74 minutes of ice-time. The rest of the top-nine forwards follow closely, with even the lowest, Andrei Kuzmenko, averaging 13 minutes per game (54 total minutes). The fourth line, however, is barely seeing action. Jeff Mallott, Samuel Helenius, and Trevor Lewis each average under five minutes per game.
On defence, the Kings rely heavily on their top-four. Mikey Anderson, Drew Doughty, and Joel Edmundson have all logged over 90 minutes—roughly 23:30 per night. Vladislav Gavrikov has also been busy, with 78 minutes (nearly 20 per game). In contrast, depth defenders like Brandt Clarke (40 minutes), Jordan Spence (18 minutes), and Jacob Moverare (just five minutes) have hardly stepped onto the ice at five-on-five during this series.
It’s something the Oilers have noticed and is something they’re actively trying to capitalize on.
“They’re relying heavily on four D and kind of nine forwards, and that’s tough,” said captain Connor McDavid after their Game 4 win Sunday night. “Not to say that we’re not playing big minutes too, but I thought we just wore them down.“They like to absorb pressure, that can be taxing at times, and I thought you saw that tonight. Just kind of wore them down through the second half of that game, just stuck with it. A couple huge, huge plays. Bouch keeps that puck in and he scores the goal, Leo doing his thing — it was a fun win.”
The Oilers clearly let the Kings absorb a lot of pressure, as they peppered Los Angeles as Game 4 went on, taking 23, 26, 33 and 31 shot attempts in the first, second, third and overtime periods, respectively.
One other thing the Oilers began doing more was increasing their physicality on the Kings’ blueline at five-on-five. They brought a heavy physical game in Game 1, laying 23 hits on Kings defenceman — nine of which were on Doughty alone — or 14.8 per hour. In Games 2 and 3, they dipped to 13 hits in both games, 8.3 per hour in Game 2 and 7.5 in Game 3.
Game 4, however, saw them get back up towards their Game 1 numbers, laying 20 hits, or 9.0 per hour.
The hit totals through the first four games bear this out. The Oilers forwards have clearly been engaged physically in this series, with Zach Hyman (24 hits), Vasily Podkolzin (21), Adam Henrique (18), Trent Frederic (15) and Evander Kane (13) leading the way. These players continuing to lay the body is going to be key.
The Oilers, meanwhile, have loaded up Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid with ice-time — playing 75 minutes each, and averaging nearly 19 minutes per game at five-on-five — but the remainder of their forward group is much tighter. Hyman ranks third in average five-on-five ice-time through four games with roughly 15 and a half minutes, but the Oilers are getting much more usage out of the bottom of their forward group, with Podkolzin and Mattias Janmark averaging nearly 10 minutes at five-on-five per game.
Similar to what McDavid said, Draisaitl feels it’s something they need to keep up.
“They played four D and nine forwards an awful lot, and the longer this goes, we got to continue to chip away at it and make it hard on them, if that’s the game they want to play,” he said after Game 4. I don’t know if its in our favour, but we have to make sure we do the little things that make it hard on them.”
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.
