The Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings don’t like each other. Given how much they’ve gone head-to-head in recent years, you could probably say that the two Pacific Division rivals actively dislike each other.
Tensions boiled over on Monday night in Edmonton as the Kings hammered the undermanned Oilers by a score of 5-0, clinching home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs with the win. It was an eventful game that saw 69 minutes in penalties handed out on 21 calls.
Much of the drama happened in the second period, with Vasily Podkolzin, Corey Perry, and Darnell Nurse all getting called for 10-minute misconducts at different points. Nurse threw a cross-check to the head of Quinton Byfield and will have a hearing with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety on Tuesday.
During the second intermission, Philip Danault was asked about the chippy play and the veteran forward sounded off on how the Oilers iced a team designed specifically to bang the Kings up.
“I think they just have their B squad in trying to hurt us,” Danault said. “That’s pretty much their message. That’s what I’m thinking.”
The Oilers and Kings are going to meet in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth year in a row this spring and Danault seems to think Edmonton dressed a goon squad in the 81st game of the regular season to give them an edge in that upcoming series.
It’s a strange comment to make given the Oilers are limping into the playoffs with injuries to multiple key players. Mattias Ekholm could be done for the year, Trent Frederic reaggravated his ankle injury and might not be available again until later in the playoffs, while Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Jake Walman, and Troy Stecher are all dealing with issues as well. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been out with an illness but returned on Monday so Connor McDavid could rest.
With the array of aforementioned injuries, the Oilers called up defencemen Cam Dineen and Josh Brown from the American Hockey League in recent days and they brought in NCAA free agent Quinn Hutson to make his NHL debut against the Kings. Brown is the only one of these three additions known for his physical play, as Hutson and Dineen are both skill-first players.
The three Oilers who took 10-minute misconduct also aren’t B-Squad players. Podkolzin is one of four Oilers to play in all 81 of the team’s games so far this season and Perry is fifth on the team with 18 goals. Nurse’s cross-check on Byfield was a dirty play and he’ll likely be handed a suspension, but he’s certainly not a B-Squad player being paid $9.25 million annually.
For 39-year-old Perry, now in his 20th NHL season, it was shocking to hear Danault make such a complaint during a game that didn’t even see two players drop the gloves for a fight.
“What the f—?” said Perry. “Excuse my language, but what do you want us to do? Did he not see what’s happened over the last couple of weeks (with injuires)? What does he want us to do? We’re not out there to hurt anybody. Let’s move on.
I’m not really interested in getting into a media war with Danault,” Perry continued. “He took a run at me, I took a run at him. I don’t really have anything to say.”
Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch wasn’t quite as blunt as Perry was but he agreed with the sentiment, saying that the chippiness of this game was no different than any other meeting between two rivals.
 “I don’t think we were running around,” Knoblauch said. “We had a couple scrums, but I don’t think it was anything more than a regular game.
Obviously there’s some extra tension, just in the likelihood of us playing each other (in the first round of the playoffs) going into this game. But I didn’t see a lot more than a typical game.”
The Oilers have one game left to play in their regular season schedule, a meaningless Wednesday night match on the road with the basement-dwelling San Jose Sharks. Edmonton is four points back of the Kings in the standings, so they’re locked into third place in the Pacific Division. Los Angeles will play the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday and the Calgary Flames on Thursday to finish off their season.