(2P) Oilers at (3P) Kings
Western Conference First Round, Game 3
10:30 p.m. ET; MAX, TBS, BSW, TVAS2, SN
Best-of-7 series tied 1-1
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Kings will bring their successful road show home to Crypto.com Arena for Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday.
The Kings gained a split of the first two games at Rogers Place in Edmonton thanks to a 5-4 overtime victory in Game 2 on Wednesday, following a 7-4 loss in the series opener on Monday.
“Getting the split on the road is obviously massive,” Los Angeles forward Trevor Moore said Friday. “Saying that, we’ve done that two years in a row and we haven’t been able to close the deal yet. The mindset is still hungry, we can’t be complacent, we have to do it now.”
This is the third straight year the Kings and Oilers are meeting in the opening round of the playoffs; Edmonton won in seven games in 2022 and six games last season.
Unlike the previous two years, however, the script flipped this time, with Edmonton winning the opening game and Los Angeles rebounding in Game 2.
“We have to be better and tonight’s a good chance to get back to defending the right way and doing it better,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. “I think that for the most part we’ve defended pretty well, but I think last game we gave up too man odd-man rushes. We had a couple of very unfortunate bounces, but that’s the way the playoffs work sometimes. You have to regroup and find little things to improve on and we’ll do that tonight.”
Here are 3 keys for Game 3:
1. Making your own breaks
Edmonton feels it's been on the wrong end of odd puck bounces in the first two games. The Kings banked in two goals off the skates of Oilers defensemen and benefited from an untimely Edmonton broken stick for another goal in Game 1.
In Game 2, Los Angeles forward Adrian Kempe batted a deflected puck out of midair and into the net and forward Quinton Byfield deflected a pass from defenseman Mikey Anderson into the path of captain Anze Kopitar for the overtime winner.
“I think it’s just like in life, there’s some good bounces that go your way and sometimes there’s not good bounces that go your way,” Oilers forward Warren Foegele said. “At the end of the day, that’s out of your control. All you control is how hard you work and that’s our focus, to work hard and play for each other.”
2. Home sweet home
Los Angeles was 22-12-7 at home during the regular season and 12-2-1 in its last 15 games at Crypto.com Arena. If the Kings can make the most of home-ice advantage, they have an opportunity to take control of the series.
“Obviously the venue and having our home fans behind us, that’s really positive,” Kings interim coach Jim Hiller said. “But we have to play with the mentally we played in the last game as far as the checking mentality. We’re not going out there to trade chances with them, we have to check, whether that’s home or on the road.”
Hill said Los Angeles will stick to its tight defensive gameplan in Game 3 despite the energy and excitement expected in the building for the first home playoff game.
“A lot of times you naturally want to perform more offensively at home,” Hiller said. “But we’re going to make sure that we’re tight.”
3. Good start
Through the first two games, the team that opened the scoring won.
The Kings system is based on clogging up the neutral zone and keeping the odd-man rush chances to a minimum, which works best when they take the lead. Los Angeles scored first and built a 3-1 lead in Game 2 before Edmonton battled back to tie the game twice in regulation prior to Kopitar's goal at 2:07 of overtime.
“I think it’s very important that we play 60 minutes as always,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We got behind in the first period, which made it really difficult to come from behind against one of the best defensive teams in the NHL this regular season.”
By scoring first, Edmonton feels it can force Los Angeles to open up and get away from its tight-checking system to look for offense. The Oilers took a 4-0 lead in Game 1.
“The first period is going to be very important, especially coming into this building,” Knoblauch said. “We’ve seen it twice this year, we’ve come in here and seen how strong they start. It’s very important we get off to a good start.”
Oilers projected lineup
Adam Henrique -- Connor McDavid -- Zach Hyman
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins -- Leon Draisaitl -- Warren Foegele
Evander Kane -- Ryan McLeod -- Corey Perry
Dylan Holloway -- Sam Carrick -- Mattias Janmark
Mattias Ekholm -- Evan Bouchard
Darnell Nurse -- Cody Ceci
Brett Kulak -- Vincent Desharnais
Stuart Skinner
Calvin Pickard
Scratched: Derek Ryan, Connor Brown, Troy Stecher, Sam Gagner
Injured: None
Kings projected lineup
Quinton Byfield -- Anze Kopitar -- Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore -- Phillip Danault -- Viktor Arvidsson
Kevin Fiala -- Pierre-Luc Dubois -- Alex Laferriere
Carl Grundstrom -- Blake Lizotte -- Trevor Lewis
Mikey Anderson -- Drew Doughty
Vladislav Gavrikov -- Matt Roy
Andreas Englund -- Jordan Spence
Cam Talbot
David Rittich
Scratched: Aaron Dell, Arthur Kaliyev, Jacob Moverare
Injured: None
Status report
Each team will dress the same lineup it used in Game 2. ... Grundstrom will remain in the lineup despite playing one shift and 25 seconds Wednesday.
NHL.com independent correspondent Dan Greenspan contributed to this report
