Death, taxes, and the Edmonton Oilers losing Game 1. On Monday evening, the Oilers began the hunt for their sixth Stanley Cup in franchise history with their fourth consecutive first-round matchup with the L.A. Kings. Unfortunately, Game 1 didn’t go in Edmonton’s favour, as they fell by a score of 6-5. Let’s take a look at what happened in this wild one. About three minutes into the game, the Kings opened the scoring by capitalizing on a power play opportunity. Kevin Fiala fired one across the goal for a backdoor play, as Andrei Kuzmenko deflected it in next to the post.
Things went from bad to worse for the Oilers in the final minute of the first period. A shot from the point was turned away by Stuart Skinner. However, Quinton Byfield grabbed the puck out of the air and shot the puck off Skinner at a bad angle and into the net.
With just over five minutes left in the second period, Evan Bouchard made a soft play when retrieving the puck, turning it over in the defensive zone. The Oilers scrambled, Adrian Kempe got lost in the slot, made a move to get by Skinner, and put it in for the 3-0 lead.
Another soft play by Bouchard led to the Kings’ fourth goal. Behind the net, he evidently panicked and threw the puck out front of the net. The bad news for the Oilers is that no one was there as Connor McDavid went to help him out in a board battle, leaving Byfield and Phillip Danault all alone in front of the net. Danault put it past Skinner.
The Oilers got one back with six seconds left in the period. McDavid won a battle with Anze Kopitar and passed the puck to Leon Draisaitl, who one-timed it in to beat Darcy Kuemper.
Just two minutes into the third period, Mattias Janmark sat on the doorstep as the puck rolled across the crease. For the first time since Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final, the Janitor scored on an actual netminder. He’s here and he’s perfect.
The Oilers got into some penalty trouble, more on that later, and after the puck was dropped, the Kings won the faceoff and had a quick one-timer play to beat Skinner to make it 5-2 with about 15 minutes left in the game.
However, they didn’t go quietly. Off a faceoff with just over 12 minutes left in the final frame, Connor McDavid shrugged off his defender and found Corey Perry on the doorstep to make it 5-3.
The Oilers made it a close game, as Connor McDavid made a nice little hesitation play just to buy a little more time for Zach Hyman to get backdoor. He made no mistake in making it a 5-4 score.
And then, the Oilers had their own Miracle on Manchester. McDavid broke into the zone with speed and funnelled the puck underneath Kuemper’s pad to tie the game up at five. Absolutely incredible.
Sadly, Skinner allowed a weak goal before the game got to overtime. The Kings took a 6-5 lead and the game-winner. The Oilers really needed a save, and they didn’t get one. Time to shift to Calvin Pickard.
Takeaways…
So the first two periods didn’t go great. The Kings play a suffocating defence, and that was in full display in this game. Every time the Oilers got a zone entry, the Kings were right there with good sticks to take away any chances. That’s if they got in the offensive zone, as the Kings’ trap worked really well in the first two periods. However, things changed after Leon Draisaitl got mad on the bench. On his next shift, he and McDavid combined for the Oilers’ first goal of the postseason. The first two periods looked like a team that hadn’t played together in six weeks, but the third period was marvellous. If they play like that in the rest of the games, they’ll be alright.
Evan Bouchard had a rough game. His two turnovers on the Kings’ third and fourth goals were horrid, and he has to step up like he did last postseason.
Stuart Skinner had a pretty ugly game. Hard to fault him on goals three through five, but he needed to make a big save at some point. Go with Calvin Pickard in Game 2. Speaking of netminders, Darcy Kuemper is beatable, the Oilers proved that in the third period. During the intermission, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman noted that Evander Kane’s absence from the game is seemingly because the league is cracking down on the Long-Term Injured Reserve loophole. Friedman says he wouldn’t be surprised if Kane is back for Game 2.
Speaking of physicality, the Oilers out-hit the Kings 42 to 30. The biggest hit of the game came shortly before the Kings’ second goal, as Walman drilled a King, and then drilled him again as he and Trent Frederic sandwiched the player. Kane will only help with that.
The refs didn’t have a great game. After calling just two penalties in the first period, they called a momentum-changing penalty on Zach Hyman after winning a puck battle. They then called Walman for a roughing, which Phillip Danault sold by throwing his head back. The Kings immediately scored on that five-on-three.
But that’s not it. Midway through the third period, Jake Walman very clearly shot the puck off the glass and out; it was so obvious that the closest linesman said it deflected off the glass. However, the officials got together and called it a penalty anyway. Even though you can see the puck hit the glass in the replay. The Oilers killed off the five-on-three. It’s not the official’s fault the Oilers lost, but it was a little odd they started to call it tightly in the third.
The Oilers return to action on Wednesday, as Game 2 will be played in Los Angeles at 8:00 PM MT. It feels like a must-win game, as the Kings were 31-6-4 at home this season. Go Oilers!
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Oilersnation, FlamesNation, and Blue Jays Nation. They can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
