PREVIEW: Oilers at Kings (Game 3)
LOS ANGELES, CA â The Edmonton Oilers will be aiming to regain the lead over the Los Angeles Kings with a better defensive effort on Friday night in Game 3 of their first-round series at Crypto.com Arena
âIt's fun playing at home, but there's nothing better than winning on the road in the playoffs,â said Mattias Janmark after the team arrived in LA early Thursday evening.
âI think it's a different challenge for sure, and I think if we play it the right way, it can feed into our game and maybe we don't have to open it up as much.â
Edmonton is hoping to use its âroad warriorâ mentality to get back to playing some better defensive hockey after some bad-luck bounces and breakdowns in their own zone during Game 2 on Wednesday contributed to their demise, falling 5-4 overtime in overtime off the stick of Anze Kopitar 2:07 into the extra period after Quinton Byfield somehow created a breakaway for his captain off a weird neutral-zone deflection.
Offensively, the Oilers have plenty to like about their game right now with the power play going 4-for-7 in the series so far and all three of Zach Hyman, Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid combining to produce 15 points (5G, 10A) over two high-scoring affairs that have been split one game apiece after Edmonton's Game 2 loss.
The Oilers believe that if they can back to allowing fewer goals and play more of those low-scoring games, they have a lot of faith in their offence being able to push them across on most nights thanks to some renewed depth of scoring down their lineup.
"In the playoffs, itâs more difficult to score and we've been able to find the net," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "But every good team that is able to have a long playoff run and hoist the Stanley Cup when it's all done is usually congratulated and acknowledged for their strong defensive play, and there are things that we need to tighten up and get a little bit better at."