GAME RECAP: Kings 3, Oilers 2 (OT - Game 3)

LOS ANGELES, CA - For the second time in three games, the Los Angeles Kings scored the winning goal on the power play in overtime and now hold a 2-1 lead in their first-round series with a 3-2 victory over the Oilers on Friday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Trevor Moore scored 3:24 into the first sudden-death frame to give the home side the win, despite a lengthy review as the officials checked the replays to determine whether the sequence should have been blown dead due to a Kings high stick. In the end, the call on the ice was upheld and Edmonton was dealt the tough defeat with Game 4 slated for Sunday.
The Oilers trail in the series despite leading for 107:26 of it, compared to 8:15 for the Kings with their OT winners in Games 1 and 3. The teams have been tied for 77:02.
"It's a tight-checking series, we've said that all along," said Connor McDavid, who scored both Oilers goals in the loss. "We knew that. It's little breaks here and there, it's little calls here and there. We haven't seemed to get many of the bounces. We had our looks, we had our chances, and they find a way to get a power play and score in overtime. That's just the way it is, playoff hockey."

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FIRST BLOOD

There were almost as many penalty minutes (10) than there were shots (12) in the opening frame, but the Kings emerged from the chaotic period with a 1-0 lead thanks to Alex Iafallo's second goal of the series with 33 seconds left on the clock.
After a lengthy scrum in the corner, Anze Kopitar rimmed the puck around the end boards back to the point for Matt Roy, who fired a shot on net that Stuart Skinner stopped with Iafallo providing a screen. The distraction in front created a rebound that the forward pounced on and chipped over the sprawled netminder to give Los Angeles the early advantage.

PLAYS OF THE GAME

Welcome to the series, Connor McDavid. The Oilers captain had a quiet first two games in Edmonton, but he recorded a pair of nearly-identical power-play snipes on back-to-back man advantages in the middle frame on Friday to put his team up 2-1 at the time.
At 7:42 with Alex Edler in the box for tripping, McDavid collected a pass from Evan Bouchard at the top of the left circle and skated in towards the faceoff dot before ripping a wrist shot past the defender Roy and over the glove of netmidner Joonas Korpisalo.
Then, just 1:40 later with Zack MacEwan in the sin bin for high-sticking, McDavid showed he's an equal-opportunity sniper, this time receiving a pass from Bouchard at the top of the left circle, taking a few strides towards the net and sending a rocket wrist shot over Korpisalo's blocker-side shoulder.

SAVE OF THE GAME

Adrian Kempe had just knotted the score at 2-2 when an Oilers turnover sent Viktor Arvidsson and Phillip Danault in alone on a two-on-none break while the teams were playing four-on-four hockey. Arvidsson carried the puck into the Edmonton zone and slid a pass over to Danault, who immediately redirected it back to Arvidsson crashing the net, but Skinner darted out his left leg and somehow managed to get his skate on the shot attempt to preserve the tie.

TURNING POINT

Less than two minutes into overtime, Iafallo was driving to the net when he took a slash on the stick from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, sending the Kings to the man advantage.
Edmonton came within 20 seconds of completing another successful penalty kill, but Gabriel Vilardi got the puck down low and found Moore driving to the net for the close-proximity one-timer that beat Skinner for the game-winning goal.
The controversy came a few seconds prior when Vilardi appeared to knock the puck down with a high stick while being defended tightly by Mattias Ekholm. McDavid immediately gestured to the official that he felt high contact was made by Vilardi's stick, but there was no whistle at the time.
"I saw just in the corner... the puck kind of goes up and it goes off the stick," the captain recalled. "So I call high stick, that's what I saw on the ice, and then as the play goes on, they score. So they have that review in place for a reason. I guess they determined they couldn't tell."
Despite the Kings celebrating Moore's goal, Skinner stood at his net and the Oilers players remained on the ice staying warm as they awaited the officials' ruling from the review. They ultimately determined the high stick was not definitive, the goal stood and the teams were finally able to retreat to their respective rooms, one happy and one dejected.

"I thought it was a play where the greatest player in the world two feet away, as it happens, his arm comes straight up in the air because he knows that it hit the stick," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said of the potential missed call. "Otherwise, he wouldn't put his arm up in the air. He would keep playing. It appears to me in the video that the puck is going straight up in a trajectory and it deadens. In the end, I'm going to go with the greatest player in the world, who's three feet away."

TOP PERFORMER

After the Kings held him to a lone assist in the first two games of the series, McDavid regained his Rocket Richard Trophy form with a pair of second-period power-play tallies.
The Oilers captain now has 23 goals and 35 assists for 58 points in 40 career games during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He also led the Oilers in time on ice (26:43) and shots on goal (7) on Friday, while contributing five hits and winning 53 percent of his draws.

PARTING WORDS

Nugent-Hopkins on Edmonton's lack of five-on-five production:
"We're getting a lot of looks, we're putting a lot of pucks, a lot of pressure on them. I think it's one of those cases where we've got to stick with it and find a way to break them down. We're disappointed we didn't get a chance to continue that. I thought we were starting to come on in the third and put pressure on them, and we didn't get a chance to do that in overtime."
Nugent-Hopkins on his slashing penalty in overtime:
"He cuts across the middle like that and I try to kind of clamp down on a stick and not take a whack, and yeah, obviously I came down too hard. I think his stick might have broke, so for the ref, you can't fault him for that. I mean, I come down too hard and break a stick, so I've got to maybe be in a better position to not put myself in that situation."

Coach Woodcroft on another tightly-contested matchup in the series:
"I think each game plays out a different way. Tonight we were down and we came back and we scored, and then they scored on one of those penalties. So for us, in the end, the game was 2-2. We had numerous great looks to make it 3-2 and get it to our advantage, and we didn't find that third goal in the end. There are areas for us to improve, but there's a lot for us to build on as well."
McDavid on the Oilers controlling each game but only winning once:
"Yeah, we feel that way obviously, but we're down 2-1 in the series. There's no moral victory, so we've got to find a way to turn those chances and that kind of territory advantage into results."

Leon Draisaitl on where the team is at through three games:
"I think we're playing well. We're doing a lot of good things. I think we're definitely the better team for the bigger spurts. Seems like we can't score at the right times right now. We've got to regroup and find a weakness.
"We've got to find a way to score at the right time and create better looks for ourselves. I think we got lots, but I think our team has a lot of potential to have even more, so it's something to look at."