Edmonton, Canada – For those who think that the Kings-Oillers Playoff series is a lot of already seen Again, Quinton Byfield says you have everything wrong.
For the third consecutive year, the two teams separated the first two games from their NHL -first NHL eliminatory series, with the Kiss Evening things Wednesday Anze Kopitar's goal 2:07 in extension of match 2. So, for the third consecutive year, the teams will meet in Los Angeles on Friday on a match each.
The last two times that have occurred, Edmonton won the series. But this is where the observer Byfield spotted a difference.
“In the past two years, we have won the first game,” said Byfield, who has obtained a decisive pass on the winning goal of Kopitar. “So I hope it's a little different. Success at home throughout the regular season, we will try to wear this at the playoffs.”
It is this second part, the success of the Kings at home in the second half of the regular season, which suddenly overthrew the momentum in the series. After the stars break, the Kings were a record of the 14-3-1 league at home under the temporary coach Jim Hillerwinning nine of their last 10 games.
And with three of the next five games at Crypto.com Arena, this is suddenly the Kings series to lose. Especially after Wednesday's victory, one that erased the mouth of wood from A loss of match 1 in which kings have never led and their deadly deadly penalty was burned for three goals.
In match 2, the Kings killed two of the three penalties and never followed, although they abandoned an advance of two goals in the first period and an advantage of a loot of the third period. Adrian Kempe succeeded in two goals and Kopitar, playing in his 94th eliminatory match equally Luc RobitailleThe franchise record, collected two assists in addition to its game winner.
“We have a lot of veteran players, many guys who have made a lot of victories,” said Hiller. “You need this to have this kind of balance. Just concentrate, refocus, go out and leave, because it is emotional.
“The players have done a very good job to calm down and do their activities. And I think the guys from the veterans management really make a difference in this situation.”
But the Kings may be playing more than a chance to extend their season when they go up on the ice at home for the first time in the playoffs on Friday. They can also look at a photo of the story – the story Lee ZeidmanThe president of the building in which the kings plays, has been continuing for decades.
The Kings share Crypto.com Arena with two NBA teams, the Lakers And MowerAnd all three are in the first round of their respective playoffs tournaments at the same time for the fourth season. And although the Arena welcomed seven NBA finals and two finals from the Stanley Cup, he never had the two championship series the same year.
“I always liked to do this because that is almost everything you can do in my business,” said Zeidman, who has become the first full-time employee of what was then called Staples Center when he was hired far from the forum in 1998. “I hope they could get out of the first round, all three, and we can continue this magic race where we could get, perhaps, all three teams.
“Obviously, we are a long distance from that.”
It has been 21 years since the continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, followed Madison Square Garden, the Boston Garden, the Chicago Stadium and the Spectrum and has become the last place to stage the series of basketball and hockey championships in the same season.
Not so long ago, neither the arena nor the airline that she had the name is still in business.
The crypt is one of the 10 places that have NBA and NHL tenants, but it is the only one to have three teams. And for the second consecutive year, the three are in the playoffs at the same time.
Starting with the opening of the NBA qualifiers last Sunday between The Clippers and Dallas Mavericks And by continuing match 4 of the Kings-Oillers series this Sunday, Zeidman will supervise six games in playoffs involving six teams in two sports in just eight days. Including the 1,700 employees of the Arena who are part of each event, nearly 123,000 people will go through the gates of the crypt during this period.
It is more people than living in a single city in Montana, Delaware, Vermont, Maine, Wyoming or New Hampshire.
Zeidman said that the building had been specially designed to manage the wear of several high -level events by organizing each other. In 2012, when the Lakers and Clippers both made the semi -finals of the Western Conference and the Kings won their first Stanley Cup, 20 eliminatory games took place in the arena – sometimes two the same day.
The possibility that this happens again requires compromises. Although the building organized up to 250 events in one year – approximately a fifth of them non -sporting events – Zeidman says that he cannot reserve anything between April 15 and June 15 because the schedules of the NBA and NHL qualifiers are so unpredictable.
The chances that Zeidman organizes either An NBA or NHL final, even less both, at the crypt in June, because none of the three teams in the building led its series in the first round after two games. These chances will drop even more next season when Steve Ballmer releases his mowers out of the crypt and in the Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
This is a trend that Zeidman expects to propagate because being the only team in a building increases the revenues of the names of name, business consequences, clubs and other things that must be shared when there are several tenants.
“There is a certain cachet to be a building that houses two NBA teams, NHL team and a WNBA team,” he said. “I don't think it will be reproduced in the future.”
Speaking of moving forward, that's what Kopitar and the Kings did Wednesday. The question of whether this victory will change the management of the series and bring Zeidman's dream closer to reality. But goalkeeper Cam Talbot, like Byfield, thinks that the momentum has changed.
“We have a ton of confidence,” he said. “You win a big match in a building like this, you bring back to the Ice Maison. Now we have to go home and deny them the opportunity to do so.”
