Edmonton, Canada – The NHL regular season is like an anthology of 82 stories, each with its own start, the middle and the end. The qualifiers, however, are like a novel, each game a new chapter that is based on the last.
And Kiss Coach Jim Hiller says he likes it, especially after his team has taken the book in a new direction Wednesday with Anze Kopitar Marking 2:07 in overtime to give his team a 5-4 victory against Edmonton's Oilers, in the evening their series of playoffs in the first round with the Oilers in a victory each before match 3 Friday at Crypto.com Arena.
“We love all the playoffs because we play the game, you review the game, adjustments are made and you continue to continue to move forward,” he said. “From the point of view of a coach, we all appreciate this part of the game, just be able to focus on a single team.”
Hiller has obtained many of these adjustments in match 2, juggling with its line combinations, flooding the neutral body area and preventing Edmonton's Lightning attackers from making the dangerous rush on the ice they used to dominate play 1. Mikey Anderson jumping along the boards of the end of the kings. Quinton Byfield was able to obtain a stick near the central ice, redirecting the washer to a strict Kopitar, which beat a goalkeeper Stuart Skinner proper.
“It was a kind of eccentric game,” said Kopitar, who helped the first two goals from his team. “You just try to read the room and sometimes you are in the right place, sometimes you are seriously in the wrong place. Tonight, I was in the right place several times. I suppose it worked.”
Trained well enough to guarantee that the best seven series will return to Canada after match 4 on Sunday in Los Angeles.
“A match for us, a match for them,” said Hiller. “And now we are going to”
But it was not easy. Although the oilers never led, they erased an advance of two goals in the second period and a deficit of a loot at the start of the third in a match which was large open for large parts of the last period.
“It's just hockey in the playoff series for you,” said Byfield, whose assistance on the match winner was his second in the match. “There are a lot of momentum in a game like that and it is how much you can manage the ups and downs and how much you can stay to maintain it.”
It is the third time in as many seasons as the Kings and the Oilers divide the first two games from a series of playoffs in the first round in Edmonton. The teams also divided the next two games at the, although the Oilers ended up eliminating the Kings from the playoffs twice.
This is the part of the story that Hiller wants to rewrite.
The Kings took control at the start of match 2 with the second goal of Adrian Kempe in the series, on a decisive pass from Kopitar, giving them an advance from 1-0 to 3:19 in the match. Less than six minutes later, the Kings killed the first of the two penalties they would survive at night, which was just as significant because Edmonton had three for four on the game of match 1.
Kempe then doubled the advance at 2:57 p.m., again following a decisive pass from Kopitar, before the Brett Kulak defenders and achieved him the goals of Doughty in the last three minutes of the first period. Kulak obtained Edmonton on the board with a nasty slap from the top of the left circle; Doughty restored the two goals of the Kings 29 seconds later, sliding the washer through the skin of Skinner on the edge of the fold.
The momentum turned heavily to Edmonton after the intermission with Dylan Holloway, taking advantage of the turnover of a Kings in the neutral zone to reduce the deficit to a goal by hitting a left shoot at the top of the slot at 7:51 from the second period. Less than three minutes later, Zach Hyman, who had a hat round in match 1, scored his fourth goal in the series on a power game and the match was equal.
Kings goalkeeper Cam Talbot managed to maintain him with a sprawling backup on Leon Draisaitl during a power game in Edmonton in the last minute of the second period.
“It's as good as you will see it,” said Hiller. “It probably made the difference in the hockey match at the end.”
Addition of Kopitar: “He kept us in it.”
This allowed Kevin Fiala to place the Kings in front 1:46 in the last period with a single-time rocket of the good boards. But again, the advance was short -lived, with the second goal of the night Holloway of the Night to equalize the scoring at 3:23 of the last period, sending the match in overtime and preparing the field for the winner of the match of the captain of the Kings, a double champion of the Stanley Cup who, at 36, is the second oldest player in alignment.
“Someone has to score a big goal,” said Hiller. “We needed this match, clearly. To see Kopi get this one at the end, it was great.
“But I can tell you for myself personally, for a guy who did as much as he did, obtaining another winning goal in overtime was special.”
He appears to make a convincing chapter to a story in the playoff series which is far from complete.
