Oilers face another playoff test after playing awful defense in back-to-back losses to LA Kings
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Edmonton Oilers know how to perform when they’re facing playoff series deficits. After all, they went down 0-3 last summer in the Stanley Cup Final and still nearly won it all in Game 7.
But the first two games of their first-round series with the Los Angeles Kings have been disheartening for a team with championship aspirations and an urgency to to do it while Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are at the peak of their talents.
The Oilers have allowed two six-goal performances by the hungry, hard-hitting Kings, making regular defensive mistakes and committing penalties to make it even easier. McDavid and Draisaitl haven’t been able to mask their teammates’ defensive ineptitude with their usual offensive brilliance.
After getting blown out 6-2 in Game 2 on Wednesday night following a 6-5 loss in Game 1, the Oilers know they need big changes when the series shifts to Edmonton for two games starting Friday night.
“We just have to be better,” said Draisaitl, who has scored a goal in each game. “We’ve got to dig in, and we’ve got to be better. And this group has a lot of character in here, so we’ll regroup, let this one go, and go back home and try to bring our best game.”
They’ll need a whole lot more than they brought to Hollywood this spring to open the Pacific Division rivals’ fourth consecutive first-round playoff meeting.
This offensive powerhouse has been outscored 12-7 — and four of those Oilers goals occurred in the third period of Game 1, when they finally mounted a rally that fell short.
Game 2 was even more one-sided than the opener: Edmonton managed just 15 shots in the final two periods while desperately needing offense to catch up from a 3-0 deficit. McDavid was held scoreless for the third time in his last four playoff games, dating to the final two games against Florida last summer.
Yet the Oilers should be much less worried about their offense than their defense and penalty-killing, which hasn’t been able to stop the Kings from doing just about anything they want.
Los Angeles has five power-play goals in the series — an embarrassing number to allow to an opponent with the worst power play among playoff teams in the regular season, even if the unit has improved markedly since the late-season arrival of Andrei Kuzmenko.
The Oilers killed all 12 of the Kings’ power plays in last year’s first-round matchup, and the first three editions of this annual series were all defined by the Oilers’ superiority on special teams.
The difference this year is stark for Edmonton, which isn’t playing any element of hockey up to last season’s standard — and not just because key defenseman Mattias Ekholm is out for the series with an injury.
Two defeats aren’t enough to shake a defending conference champion’s belief in itself, but the Oilers realize no team gets more than four playoff games to get itself together.
Edmonton’s veterans still radiated confidence after their blowout loss.
“They’ve capitalized on their opportunities, (but) I think a lot of them are self-inflicted,” Corey Perry said. “Turnovers, run out of position, whatever it is. We shore that up, they don’t have a whole lot going on. I mean, they’ve made some great plays and put the puck in the back of the net, I’m not going to lie about that. They got good players. We clean up our mistakes and we’ll be OK.”
Coach Kris Knoblauch pulled goalie Stuart Skinner in the third period of Game 2 after LA’s fifth goal, the 11th allowed by Skinner in the series. Perhaps Knoblauch was hoping to spark his team for an improbable comeback — or perhaps he wanted Calvin Pickard to get some ice time ahead of a goalie change in Game 3. Skinner got 50 starts for Edmonton this season, and Pickard made 31.
“We’ve seen this team face difficult situations, a lot more difficult than it is right now,” Knoblauch said. “There’s no quit in this group. It’s certainly not an ideal situation, but we certainly won’t panic.”
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