Iafallo more than 'unsung hero' for Kings in Game 1 against Oilers

EDMONTON -- Alex Iafallo does a lot of heavy lifting for the Los Angeles Kings, which may go unnoticed by some but is very much appreciated by his teammates.

Iafallo had a strong defensive game and scored in overtime in Los Angeles' 4-3 win in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Monday.
"Alex is kind of our unsung hero," Kings coach Todd McLellan said. "He cleans up a lot of messes, errors, mistakes, for teammates. He seems to be the clean-up guy. But on the other side of it, he has the ability to score. He can go up and down the lineup, he penalty kills, he blocks shots, is a utility guy that is often forgotten when you roll into Calgary or Edmonton, or wherever we might be going. He certainly is not forgotten in our locker room."
Iafallo scored on the power play at 9:19 of overtime, taking a pass from Viktor Arvidsson in the slot and one-timing a shot past Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner.
RELATED: [Complete Oilers vs. Kings series coverage]
Game 2 is at Rogers Place on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, CBC, TVAS, SN, BSSC).
"I was just trying to get lost," Iafallo said. "We have a lot of good players that can make good passes. I was just in the middle there and trying to find a good spot. [Anze Kopitar] had it on the wall and got it down to 'Arvi' and I was just trying to get in a good spot past the defenseman. He was able to make that pass to me and I just hammered it home."
The Kings overcame a two-goal, third-period deficit twice in the victory. Adrian Kempe scored two goals and Kopitar had four points (one goal, three assists). The Kings were able to keep Oilers captain Connor McDavid off the score sheet, holding him to five shots on goal. McDavid led the NHL with 153 points (64 goals, 89 assists) during the regular season, including a season-ending 16-game point streak (10 goals, 19 assists).

"We were very resilient, everyone gave it their all, huge blocks from the forwards and defense, and [Joonas Korpisalo] made some huge saves," Iafallo said. "We talked about being resilient all year and coming back was good for us."
The Oilers took a 2-0 lead on goals from forward Leon Draisaitl and defenseman Evan Bouchard in the first period. Kempe scored 52 seconds into the third period to make it 2-1.
Draisaitl extended the Oilers' lead to 3-1 at 8:46, but Kempe scored again at 11:23 to make it 3-2. Kopitar tied it 3-3 at 19:43 with the Kings on the power play and Korpisalo pulled for an extra attacker for a 6-on-4 advantage. The Kings were 2-for-6 on the power play.
"We were just trying to stick with it," Iafallo said. "We were trying to use different plays and different shots. We were talking about it before the face-off (to start overtime), making a couple of changes but still shooting the puck. I think we did a good job of that."
The Kings had the fourth-best power play in the regular season at 25.3 percent. They were 0-for-4 against the Oilers before scoring on their final two chances on the man-advantage.
"We believe in our system and how we do things on the power play," Iafallo said. "That helps give us momentum even if we don't score. We believed it was going to go in at the end."