WEST Playoffs '23-'24 Round 1: (P3) Los Angeles Kings at (P2) Edmonton Oilers (EDM Wins 4-1)

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

                                             

 

Revitalized Kings, still running on the vintage core of Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, and Trevor Lewis (the remaining players from the last Kings' Cup in 2014), will look to get in the way of McDavid, Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins, Nurse, and the rest of the Edmonton Oilers, in search of their first.

To that end, over the course of the last year and a half, the Oilers have gotten some hard nosed players, some former Cup champions to add to the ever increasing experience of their own developed talent.

Will it be enough?

Both teams have question marks.... which Kings team shows up?
The one that looked every bit the contender with guys like Fiala leading the way...... or the lethargic one lead by Pierre Luc Dubois?

How about the Oilers.....does the one that went on a tear to beat out every team except Vancouver in the Pacific?
Or the one that bled scoring chances and ended up on the short end on nights when they probably should have won?

That is what these two will decide on the ice in Round 1!

Los Angeles Kings tale of the tape:
Season Record: 44-27-11, 99 pts______ Home/Road Splits: 22-12-7 / 22-15-4

Offense-Defense: 256 GF, 215 GA good for a +41 differential

Special Teams: PP 22.6% (12th), PK 84.6% (2nd)

 

Edmonton Oilers tale of the tape:
Season Record: 49-27-6, 104 pts______ Home/Road Splits: 28-9-4 / 21-18-2

Offense-Defense: 294 GF, 237 GA good for a +57 differential 
Special Teams: PP 26.3% (4th), PK 79.5% (15th)

Get your Kings and Oilers on, right here!          

Edited 9 hours ago by TropicalFruitGirl26

[Math]

Goalies: 

Defense: 

Offense: 

Special teams (PP/PK): 

Coaching: 

Mental: 

Experience: 

Robustness: 

Depth: 

 

Like the Avalanche-Jets series, a typical opposition of styles: offense condensed in the top-6 vs. defensive-structured team. I don't trust either Skinner or Talbot in this stretch. This will be played on the Kings' ability to shut down the two-headed monster. If the Kings take an early lead, that might be interesting. However, the Oilers have more arguments overall.

 

Oilers in 6.

Edited April 19 by Math

[OccamsRazor]

 

 

So someone thinks they have the key.

 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

21 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

 

So someone thinks they have the key.

 

 

Yep.
As some famous boxer dude once said, "Everybody's got a game plan....till they get punched in the mouth" 

[JR Ewing]

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

 

So someone thinks they have the key.

 

 

 This guy's tweet makes no sense...

 

 

He comments on an executive slagging the pairing that handily led the NHL in xGoal% by noting that the Nurse/Ceci pairing, which finished 8th in the league, is dogshit. I get that it's twitter, and land of the trolls and imbeciles, but still...

 

[OccamsRazor]

Just now, JR Ewing said:

I get that it's twitter, and land of the trolls and imbeciles, but still...

 

it was why i posted it

 

i don't watch enough west coast hockey honesty to say either way

 

just laying out there what he things can take him out the game

 

so now we see if he is full of dogshit he makes it sounds though like it's easy

 

like no other coaches have thought of this?

[JR Ewing]

1 minute ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

it was why i posted it

 

i don't watch enough west coast hockey honesty to say either way

 

just laying out there what he things can take him out the game

 

so now we see if he is full of dogshit he makes it sounds though like it's easy

 

like no other coaches have thought of this?

 

Any guy whose game plan starts with "All you have to do stop McDavid is..." really talking out of his a$$. Confidence is what you have when you don't understand the problem.

[FD19372]

"Familiarity breeds contempt". That describes this matchup well. Third year in a row these teams have met. Great power play for the Oilers (4th best in the regular season) against a great PK unit for the Kings (2nd best in the regular season). I think McDavid and Draisaitl come through in the clutch, and win a hard fought series. I'm picking the Oilers in 7, although the Kings will try and hit them often and wear Edmonton down... and do their best to get under the skin of McDavid, Draisaitl and Co. It should be an excellent series.

[thegx.ca]

[yave1964]

Edmonton has a better goalie, defense and offense. I cannot imagine the Kings winning this one 

[JR Ewing]

Strong 1st for the Oilers. 2-0

 

Adam Henrique went juuuuuuuust a little while between playoff goals.

 

 

[Math]

Beating a Craig Ludwig record. That's mean.

[JR Ewing]

4-2 with 40 minutes in the bank. Kings had a better period than the 1st, but they're still down by a pair.

 

[JR Ewing]

Well, 7-4 EDM after all is said and done. Hyman with a hat trick, McDavid with 5 points and then Kings with two of the flukiest goals you'll see in your life at the end of the game.

 

[Brewin Flames]

McJesus.....

[Brewin Flames]

 

[JR Ewing]

So, Klim Kostin still maintains a home in Edmonton and was at the game on Monday night, wearing his Oilers jersey in the stands. I can't think of another time that an active player of another NHL team attended the game of his former team wearing that former team's jersey.

 

 

 

[JR Ewing]

Notes in point-form...

 

-Just one game, but Kopitar seemed just a hair slow at times. Might age be catching up with him? Keeping up with 97 and 29 in their prime is a tough gig at 36.

-In general, seemed like LA was not playing their game. Some end of game yelling from Doughty…

-Don’t recall too many games where Danault gets carved up like that. He's so good defensively.

-Fully expect a much different Kings club tonight.

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

What a pancake stack of players in that LA crease!

I doubt the review camera will find the puck in that humanity....

So far, it's the Adrian Kempe show

[JR Ewing]

There's the Kings push back I was expecting.

 

-The Oilers were loose on coverage on several of those goals, though the Kempe goal where he batted the puck out of the air was just a great play on his part.

-A couple of LA goals, including the Kopitar OT winner, looked a lot like set plays. Well done.

-Nobody is perfect, and the defense will make mistakes, but Skinner didn't bail them out on any of their mistakes, while Talbot made a few saves on 5-alarm chances.

-The Kings played their A-game, the Oilers played their C, and it still went to OT.

 

 

[JR Ewing]

6-1 EDM... This one was never close.

 

-The first two periods of game three were the template: score first, skate like hell, don’t back down, wait for the Kings to get frustrated and try not to get hurt when they start to slew foot, lowbridge and take headshots.

-It was 4-1 when the Kings ran headlong into penalty trouble, and Knoblauch was able to rest McDavid and Draisaitl other a couple of 5-on-3 powerplays to make the score 6-1.

-Evander Kane was a force in this one. Took a headshot from Andreas Englund, popped up and beat him in a fight. Gordie Howe hat trick.

-The PLD trade is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[JR Ewing]

Game 5

1-0 EDM

 

-The Kings outshot EDM heavily, 33-13, but I couldn't recall a single 5-alarm chances generated by Los Angeles and, by eye, it was mostly a lot of "wing and a prayer" attempts from the blue line and sharp angles.

-The morning after, SportLogiq backed up what I saw. Of the 33 shots by the Kings, 26 were perimeter shots, and the High Danger Chances were 7-4 in favour of EDM.

-Stuart Skinner has been strong in games #1, 3 and 4.

-PLD continues to be The Invisible Man. He was credited with a goal in game 1, which went off the skates of Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse. That's it since then, and Jim Hiller has him parked on the 4th line now... $8M on the 4th line.

 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

Heh...Pierre Luc Dubois.

Amazing that a single player (and a talented one too!) can be such an albatross to a team!
I mean, I could be wrong, but hasn't EVERY team that unloaded him (wait, excuse me, gonna pilfer JR's word), FOISTED, him on someone else improved once he was gone?? I do believe so!

And I'd say the Kings would do well to try moving him, but, ummm, I think the 'secret' is out now  

Oilers just about on their way to Round 2 no matter how you slice it.
Wouldn't an Edomonton-Vancouver second round be fun to watch, eh? I'd like that one!
All we need now is for the Oilers to finish the job, and the Canucks to do the same in their series.

[JR Ewing]

2 hours ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

Heh...Pierre Luc Dubois.

Amazing that a single player (and a talented one too!) can be such an albatross to a team!
I mean, I could be wrong, but hasn't EVERY team that unloaded him (wait, excuse me, gonna pilfer JR's word), FOISTED, him on someone else improved once he was gone?? I do believe so!

And I'd say the Kings would do well to try moving him, but, ummm, I think the 'secret' is out now

 

It's the damndest thing... He has all the ability in the world: tremendous size and strength, skates well for a man his size, hard to move off the puck. When he's not happy (which seems like a lot of the time) he barely moves and his effort can be lacking. Not a single team improved by bringing him in, despite his talent. Either way, I think the Kings are mostly stuck with him, because $8.5M isn't the easiest thing in the world to move. They would have to risk another team's bad contract or buy him out. If they go that route, just look at the damage:

 

 

I was, and remain delighted by the trade-and-sign Rob Blake made that day. You didn't need to be Carnac the Magnificent to see that it wouldn't work out.

 

 

Quote

Oilers just about on their way to Round 2 no matter how you slice it.
Wouldn't an Edomonton-Vancouver second round be fun to watch, eh? I'd like that one!
All we need now is for the Oilers to finish the job, and the Canucks to do the same in their series.

 

Draisaitl and McDavid have royally feasted on both Vancouver and Nashville, but I greatly prefer the travel of a Vancouver series than one back and forth between Alberta and Tennessee.

 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

Up a bit late here....house is quiet.
Husband, kids, dogs....everyone down for the count.

And I am up seeing if the Oilers are gonna move on to Round 2!"

They are 20 minutes away from doing that.
Kings have a pretty good team, but they really are not set up to make miracle comebacks....especially if the Oilers decide they aren't done scoring.

We will see.
An Oilers at Canucks series looks like it is in the works, however, Edmonton still has to take care of things here, and Vancouver, well, they seem to be having a bit of trouble with the Predators now.