Edmonton, Canada – THE Kiss The season ended on Wednesday with a groan not a blow.
He found himself again in the first round of the NHL qualifying series and again in a defeat against Edmonton's Oilers, who have become for the Kings what kryptonite was for Superman.
The final score of The last game was 4-3But it was only a detail of accounting because the series was over long before the final horn sounded. The oilers outstripped the Kings 22-13 in the five games, with nine of these goals in 19 chances on the power game. They did not concede a goal on the 12 power game opportunities for Kings.
Four Oilers – Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and Zach Hyman – finished the series with at least eight points, twice as much as the co -leaders of the Kings, Quinton Byfield and Adrian Kempe. As the beats start, it was about as unilated The history of the Kings-Oilers qualifiers was generally.
However, for the defender of Kings Drew Doughty, regardless of the color of the other uniform. What matters is that kings came out of the playoffs after a tour.
Again.
“The fact, I think, is that we have lost three years in a row in the first round,” he said. “Yes, it was against Edmonton.
And a third consecutive defeat in the first round of the playoffs will undoubtedly lead to an intervention of the intersane soul for the Kings. Did The acting coach Jim Hiller Show enough to bring the team to the playoffs for the managing director Rob Blake to remove the temporary label and give Hiller permanent work? Will it be Blake's decision to take?
In the seven seasons of Blake in charge, the Kings made the playoffs four times, but never advanced beyond the opening round. When Blake Licensed coach Todd McLellan In February, he said that a new voice was necessary in the locker room. Could The same now is true at the front office?
In addition, the Kings have seven players who have become free agents without restriction after Wednesday's defeat, including defender Matt Roy, striker Trevor Lewis and goalkeepers Cam Talbot and David Rittich. They must all be signed or replaced.
And finally, the team will have to decide what to do with the Pierre-Luc Dubois center, which signed an eight-year contract of $ 68 million with the team in June, becoming the second highest player of the team. For this, the Kings obtained only 16 goals and 24 assists; Dubois skated on the fourth line on Wednesday, taking a questionable penalty that led to Edmonton's third goal.
When asked if he wanted the work permanently, a clearly deflated hiller went up.
“It goes without saying,” he said. “You know, it's a large group of players with a lot of character. They made it easier for me in what was perhaps difficult circumstances for them. So I owe them a lot. I appreciated.”
But the change must come if the kings must make again in the second round.
Asked in the locker room for silent Kings if the list of Kings is good enough to win the playoffs, Doughty was direct.
“We haven't proven this yet. I'm not going to say no. But that's a difficult issue,” he said. “We have not proven it. This is the net profit. “
When asked if there was a next step in the evolution of the team, he continued with the same theme.
“Obviously, winning a tour of the playoff series. It was our goal this year,” he said. “Work hard during the offseason and come back stronger and you know, use this experience, these past experiences, as motivation and try to win a series.”
“I'm not going to tell you what I think I miss,” he continued. “It comes back to all of us, we all have to make deposits in an eliminatory series and we had guys on the nights, guys from other evenings. And we all have to be in place. Nothing great. We all have to be really solid and consistent to win an eliminatory series and I think that is where we lost.”
The Kings have not beat anyone in a series of series of playoffs in the first round since 2014, when they won the second of their Two stanley cups. But it was the oilers who have become the eternal road roadblock in the playoffs, beating the kings in the first round in each of the last three seasons.
The teams have gathered in playoffs 10 times since 1982 and Edmonton won eight of these series. Only two other NHL teams beat the same adversary of the playoffs more often during this period.
And although you can crack some of the difficulties of the Kings in bad luck and at random, the domination of this diploma seems inexplicable without curse. So maybe that's all Wayne Gretzky's fault.
Hey, it's a theory. (And it's not worse than some of those offered by Kings players on Wednesday.)
Gretzky was much more than an icon in Canada, he was a national treasure that had led the oilers with four stanley cuts in five seasons when He was treated with kings In the summer of 1988. In Edmonton, mad with hockey, trade was not so much a job as a betrayal.
But the owner of the Oilers, Peter Pocklington, whose other commercial companies were in trouble, needed money and the Kings offered him $ 15 million in the Gretzky agreement. In this way, the trade recalled the sale of Babe Ruth des Red Sox to the Yankees in 1920, a owner of Boston, Harry Frazee, made to support his failing theatrical interests.
After trade, the Red Sox would spend 83 seasons without title World Series while the Yankees would win a record of 26 championships.
If the curse of Gretzky exists indeed, it was not as hard as the curse of the bambino, but it haunted the two teams. In addition, he needed a few seasons to take effect.
During the first season of Gretzky in Los Angeles, the Kings beat the Oilers in the playoffs on the way to the final of the division; A year later, the Oilers, without Gretzky, would win their fifth Stanley Cup in seven seasons.
None of these things happened.
The Kings have lost six consecutive playoffs against the Oilers while Edmonton spent 33 years without NHL championship. The whole country of Canada, in fact, has won only two Stanley cuts since Gretzky left for Hollywood.
And while the Kings won the NHL titles in 2012 and 2014, their way forward was facilitated because the oilers missed the playoffs twice, part of the drought fans of 10 seasons always call “the decade of darkness”.
Oilers can finally be ready to go back into the light, the curses are damned. In McDavid and Draisaitl, Edmonton has three of the last four winners of the Hart trophy, and this year, the support distribution that surrounds them is better than ever. The team seems to be ready for a long race in the playoff series.
The Kings, on the other hand, envisage another long off -season in search of answers. Could they be cursed?
“I don't know what to think. It's too fresh,” said striker Phillip Danault. “But it really hurts.”
