Kings' season ends in fourth consecutive playoff series loss to Oilers
EDMONTON, Canada — For the fourth time in as many years, the Kings' season came to an end with a first-round playoff loss to the Edmonton Oilers. The coup de grace came Thursday in a 6-4 Oilers' win at a raucous Rogers Place, which has become a house of horrors for the Kings.
Edmonton got goals from (take a deep breath) Adam Henrique, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman, Darnell Nurse, Trent Frederic and Connor Brown. For the Kings, Quinton Byfield, Brandt Clarke, Jordan Spence and Anze Kopitar scored.
The Kings haven't beaten the Oilers in the postseason since 1989, but this year's loss may be the most painful of the nine playoff series they've dropped to Edmonton. The Kings tied franchise bests for wins (48) and points (105) this season and won a team-record 31 times at home during the regular season, finishing ahead of the Oilers in the Pacific Division standings for the first time in seven years.
They seemed primed for a long run in the postseason but once again, they couldn't get by Edmonton. They Kings went out like warriors though, carried out on their shields after a wild end-to-end final game that saw the teams combine for at least 10 goals for the third time in the series. There were 51 scores overall, an average of 8.5 a game.
So much for conservative playoff hockey.
With their backs against the wall the Kings set the frenetic pace early, with Byfield scoring 79 seconds into the game, one of four goals in a manic and exhausting first 5 minutes and 55 seconds. Only one potential Stanley Cup elimination game in the last 60 years has seen the first four goals score more quickly.
Byfield's goal, his third of the series, came on a breakaway that saw him beat Leon Draisaitl up the slot, deke Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard to his left, then slip the puck behind him and into the net. It was the second-fastest goal to begin an elimination game in franchise history, trailing only Wayne Gretzky's score in the first minute of Game 7 versus Edmonton in 1989.
That should have been a good omen since that was the last time the Kings beat the Oilers in the deciding game of a playoff series. It wouldn't happen again Thursday.
Edmonton evened things on Henrique's deflection in traffic less than two minutes later but Clarke needed just 33 seconds to put the Kings back in front on a snap shot from inside the right circle. That lead was short-lived, too, with Nugent-Hopkins equaling things for the Oilers on a wrister from the edge of the left circle less than six minutes into the period.
Hyman then put the Oilers in front for the first time on a play that began innocently enough, with Nugent-Hopkins sending the puck off the boards on a faceoff deep in the Kings end. The carom found Darnell Nurse at the point and he sent a one-timer on goal that Kings' goalie Darcy Kuemper had a bead on before Hyman got his stick up, redirecting the puck into the back into the back of the net. That gave Edmonton a 3-2 lead with more than seven minutes still left in the first period.
Nurse, given plenty of space in the high slot, doubled the advantage on a wrist shot that got just under the crossbar late in the second period; Frederic made it 5-2 just 96 seconds later on a tip-in from the crease at the end of an Oilers' breakaway.
But still the Kings would not quit, with Spence scoring two minutes before the second intermission to keep the score close. The Kings pulled Kuemper for an extra attacker with 4:18 and were rewarded when Kopitar scored with 53.3 seconds to play, but the Kings would get no closer with Brown closing the scoring with an empty-net goal, Edmonton's fourth of the series, in the final two seconds. That left the Kings to begin focusing on next season while the Oilers move on to play Las Vegas in the second round of the playoffs.
Neither the Kings nor the Oilers made things easy for Kuemper, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy. He faced 121 shots in the final three games and 207 in the series.
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