Playoff Primer: Los Angeles Kings vs. Edmonton Oilers

A first-round series that promises to be high scoring and hard-fought will take place between the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers in a rematch from last spring. That series saw the Oilers take a lead with two blowout wins in Games 2 and 3, before falling behind 3-2 before then clawing back to win after allowing just two goals over the final two games. Connor McDavid carried the team to victory with 14 points in seven games and Mike Smith was great in goal, where he posted a .938 SV% during the series.

The Kings were without Drew Doughty in that previous series, but he has returned to playing great hockey again, posting 52 points in 81 games this season. Adding Kevin Fiala to the lineup gives the Kings a point-per-game performer that they did not have at their disposal a year ago. While Doughty and Fiala give the Kings a big shot in the arm 12 months removed from the last rodeo between these two squads, the Oilers are playing some of the best hockey we have seen in Edmonton in decades.

Will it be the high-flying Oilers for a second consecutive season or will the Kings exact some revenge from a first-round exit a year ago?

Regular Season Performance

Edmonton: 50-23-9, 109 points, +65 goal differential
Los Angeles: 47-25-10, 104 points, +23 goal differential

Head-To-Head

November 16, 2022: Los Angeles 3, Edmonton 1

January 9, 2023: Los Angeles 6, Edmonton 3

March 30, 2023:Edmonton 2, Los Angeles 0

April 4, 2023: Edmonton 3, Los Angeles 1

Season series tied 2-2-0

Team Storylines

The Oilers enter the postseason with Connor McDavid riding one of the greatest offensive seasons witnessed in the modern game. Scoring 64 goals and 153 points is something that we saw in the 1980’s but is simply unheard of in today’s NHL. This season, McDavid became just the sixth player in league history to score 150 points and the first to do it since Mario Lemieux in 1996.

Though he is well ahead of anyone else in the league, McDavid is not the only Oiler piling up points this season. Leon Draisaitl scored 52 goals and 128 points, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added 37 goals and 104 points and Zach Hyman was over working at over a point-per-game with 36 goals and 83 points in 79 games. Evander Kane missed significant time this season, but scored 16 goals and 28 points in 41 games when healthy and was a playoff beast a year ago, leading the postseason in goals with 13 -- even though the Oilers were swept out of the Western Conference Final.

Scoring is not, and never really was, an issue for the Oilers. The questions marks exist elsewhere. Now, have the Oilers patched those holes? They added Mattias Ekholm at the trade deadline and he has been the defensive rock that they needed all along. Since adding Ekholm, the Oilers finished the season on an 18-2-1 run to ensure home-ice advantage in this series. He has been averaging well over 20 minutes of ice time per-game and immediately rejuvenated the Oilers top-four defense playing alongside Darnell Nurse, Evan Bouchard and Cody Ceci.

Do the Oilers have what it takes in goal to win a series? They thought they would be leaning on Jack Campbell at this time of year after signing him to a five-year contract with a $5M annual cap hit just last summer. However, Campabell has struggled in his first season with the Oilers, posting a 3.41 GAA and a .888 SV%. Stuart Skinner has really taken over the starter’s role in the last quarter of the season, posting a 2.43 GAA and a .920 SV% since March 1. He gives the Oilers a reliable goaltender to lean on late in the season.

Another key to focus on -- will the Kings be able to slow down the offensive beast that is the Edmonton Oilers? A quick glance at their numbers show the Kings were not able to slow anyone down this season. They allowed 257 goals on the year. The only playoff teams to allow more were the Florida Panthers and these Oilers. This promises to be a high scoring series. With Doughty playing this time around and Vladislav Gavrikov acquired at the trade deadline, the Kings have a better chance of at least slowing down McDavid and Draisaitl. No one can stop those two, but if they are held to 7-9 points each in a series, it would force the Oilers' depth pieces to add some scoring, which they are not always capable of doing.

What about the Kings goaltending?  Joonas Korpisalo has been great for them since coming over in trade. While he played just 11 games after being acquired, Korpisalo registered a 2.13 GAA and a .921 SV%, giving the Kings confidence in a position that was a weakness for most of the season. If Korpisalo can continue to play like that in the first round, the Kings will be in good shape. But it is difficult for anyone to put up a .920 SV% against these Oilers, who were the highest scoring team in the NHL with 325 goals.

Special teams are always a key component in a playoff series and this will be no exception. The Oilers power play alone is enough to give goaltenders nightmares, as it clicked at a 32.4 percent efficiency rate, the best power play percentage in NHL history. The Kings, meanwhile, had a bottom-ten penalty kill at 75.8 percent. That is not something that can be fixed overnight and it could prove to be a huge problem against a team like the Oilers.

On the other hand, Edmonton's penalty kill was not much better, killing off 77 percent of their penalties while the Kings power play converted on an impressive 25.3 percent of their own chances. Staying out of the box is going to be key for this series, as neither team is strong while shorthanded. And both have the ability to do damage on the man advantage.

Prediction

The Kings have new pieces in place that should allow them to be more competitive in this series rematch. Having Gavrikov and Doughty on defense, Korpisalo in goal and Phillip Danault (one of the best shutdown centers in the league), should at least slow down McDavid a little bit. He is going to score on the power play, but if they can limit him at even strength, they will force the depth of the Oilers to step up and they lack scoring behind their top four forwards. There won’t be two huge blowouts early in the series this time around.

The problem for the Kings is, the Oilers have addressed similar needs. They now have Ekhlom as a defensive horse on the blue line and they are playing the best hockey we have seen out of any team in the past six weeks. McDavid and Draisaitl each averaged two points per-game in the playoffs last spring and both were somehow even better this season than they ever have been in the past. Edmonton could use some depth scoring, but Mattias Janmark, Warren Foegele, Klim Kostin, Nick Bjugstad and Ryan McLeod give them reliable minutes, if nothing else. The scoring can be left to the top two lines.

Yet another magical spring from McDavid and Draisaitl is about to begin and they won’t be denied in Round One. It will not be an easy one by any stretch, but the Kings offense just can’t match the Oilers scoring. Prediction: The Oilers win in six games.