30-04-2025
All Oilers, all the time as Edmonton pulls away from Los Angeles
Things were close for a few games, but that sound you heard Tuesday night in Los Angeles was the Edmonton Oilers pulling away from the Kings — probably for good, if the last five periods are any indication.
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A series that started in L.A.'s favour, with the Kings up 2-0 and a break or two away from putting Edmonton in a place they couldn't recover from is now All Oilers All The time.
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If it's possible to blow a team away 3-1 with an empty-netter, that's what happened in Game 5 in Los Angeles, where the Oilers outshot the Kings 46-21 and took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with a chance to wrap things up for good Thursday night at Rogers Place.
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The Oilers controlled Game 5 from the start, outshooting Los Angeles 19-4 in the first period and 14-8 in the second period, a carry-over from the third period (16-6) and overtime (17-7) of Game 4.
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They swarmed them from the opening shift and the Kings couldn't do anything to keep them off.
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The only thing preventing Edmonton from being up about 4-0 by the halfway mark was Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, who took an .881 save percentage into the game. He was all-world when Los Angeles was under siege so the Oilers had nothing to show for it but 0-0 after 20 minutes and 1-1 after 40 on goals from Andrei Kuzmenko and Evander Kane.
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That was fine with them, though, given that they outscored Los Angeles 11-5 in the third periods of the first four games.
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They only needed one this time. Mattias Janmark, from Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin, scored the game-winning goal 7:12 into the third period to give Edmonton its first lead of the series. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added the empty-netter.
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