Edmonton, Canada – When Edmonton's Oilers abandoned the Northlands Coliseum for their beautiful new house in the city center eight years ago, the collection of offices, hotels and restaurants that arose around Rogers Place has become collectively under the name of Ice District.
For KissThe name alone had a scary effect because Rogers Place is the place where the last two team eliminatory campaigns started – and the two were put on ice during defeats in the first round against the Oilers.
The Kings were back in Edmonton for the third episode of their qualifying series on Monday and the first act did not go well, the Oilers marking twice in the first 10 minutes on the way to a 7-4 victory.
And for Edmonton, it was really a team effort. Zach Hyman finished with three goals and a decisive pass, Adam Henrique and Leon Draisaitl each had a goal and a decisive pass, Evan Bouchard collected four assists and Connor McDavid had five aids to direct a performance as effective as around.
Mikey Anderson And Adrian Kempe Everyone scored in the second period, and Pierre-Luc Dubois And Trevor Moore scored at the end of the third period for the Kings who, apart from a brief period at the end of the second period, were outpatched.
It will take at least a week to find out how much this result will mean since the Kings beat the oilers when opening the playoffs in each of the last two seasons, only to lose the series. And the last time the Oilers won the first game in an post-season series, they ended up losing against the Ducks in the second round in 2017.
“It's a series of seven games,” said defender Drew Doughty. “We are down 1-0, but we can easily do it 1-1 next match. We have to put this one behind us.
“We have to learn from what we have done to be wrong and repair the things we have done wrong. And bring them to the next game. We are just going to have a short memory and be ready to win the next one. ”
Nevertheless, for a team of veterans Kings featuring 14 players in the alignment in the playoffs last season, it was a disturbing start.
The Kings wanted to set the tone and instead, they appeared flat, conceding the first four goals while abandoning 45 shots in total.
The Kings became trembling after the first five minutes and it did not take long for the Oilers to take advantage of it, Hyman deviating an McDavid pass from the edge of the left circle to give Edmonton the advance at 6:52 in the game.
On the game, McDavid reached to control a loose washer on the blue line, heading towards the center of the ice, then moving away Anderson before moving to Hyman in the slit for a Tap-in.
Henrique doubled the advance of the oilers less than three minutes later, marking on a Wryter in the center of the left circle of a Hyman assist.
The best chance of the Kings in the first 30 minutes came at the start of the second period when a turnover in the neutral area launched Viktor Arvidsson on a breakaway with only the guardian of Edmonton Stuart Skinner to beat. But his wrist shot was wide from the net, the oilers checked the rebound and 20 seconds later, Hyman marked again to do 3-0.
The Kings Cam Talbot goalkeeper is positioned to stop a shot by the striker of the Oilers Zach Hyman during the first period of match 1.
(Curtis Comeau / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
McDavid again installed the objective, this time while moving away from Drew Doughty, who was caught in traffic behind the Kings net, and centering the washer with a hyman widely open at the lower edge of the right circle.
“The rushes were simply too numerous,” said Doughty. “We let their best guys get too much speed and go through the neutral area as if it were nothing and that it is difficult for the (defense) when these guys fly.
“So we have to solve this problem. And we know that we are going to repair it. ”
Kings coach Jim Hiller accepted.
“In the past two months of the season, when we had a (bad) match, each time we had one, we came back with a strong effort,” he said. “So we will have to do it. We will have to be much better than this evening, it's very clear.
“These are things that are repairable for us. I don't have a good answer to know why we did it (that). But that's not how we play.”
The Kings, who did not win as a eliminatory series in a decade, entered the healthy season at any time in the regular season and boasted of the second best PNH penalty, which they hoped would serve as kryptonite in the deadly power of the oilers. But even it did not work, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins marking the first of the three goals of power game to reach 4-0 at 8:44 of the central period.
The rout was on.
Anderson finally obtained the kings on the table at 10:56 am from the second period, exploding a slap in front of Skinner between the blue line and the left circle, and Kempe made a game of two goals when he turned behind the net and diverted a shot in the skateboard of the defender of the Oilers Evan Bouchard with 2:04 a.m.
But the Kings made the dynamics they had won when Draisaitl and Hyman have scored electric play goals in the 6:27 am opening of the last period.
“We talked about our penalties. We talked about their power game so much before this series,” said Doughty. “It pulled us in the foot.”
The Kings obtained a few goals with sense of Dubois and Moore in the last 3:04 before Warren Foegele closed the scoring for Edmonton with an empty goal with 26 seconds to play.
The series continues Wednesday in Rogers Place before spending Crypto.com Arena for matches 3 and 4 Friday and Sunday.
