The Los Angeles Kings saw their opportunity to push for a Stanley Cup playoff sweep of the Edmonton Oilers disappear in a flash. Even so, the Kings head into Sunday’s Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series in Edmonton holding the upper hand.
The Kings just need to ensure they regain the momentum.
“If look at it, we’re still in a good place,” defenseman Mikey Anderson said. “You get to come back in two nights and get another stab at it, which is the best part.”
Los Angeles leads the best-of-seven series 2-1. The Kings were seven minutes away from taking Friday’s Game 3 but surrendered a pair of goals 10 seconds apart — the second one during an Oilers power play due to an unsuccessful goaltender interference challenge — en route to a 7-4 loss.
Now it’s time to see how the Kings recover.
“In any sport you have to (move on),” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “I’ve been through a lot of highs and a lot of lows. I’ve learned to keep it more even-keeled, and I think our squad is good at doing that as well. We’ll be ready for the next one.”
The Kings had two keys to their regular-season success. One was their home record, and the other was their defensive play. In two of three games, they surrendered third-period leads to the high-octane Oilers. The Kings recovered in time to win Game 1, but not in the last outing.
“I’m pretty happy that we’re playing the game well enough that we’re leading in the third period,” coach Jim Hiller said. “That’s a good team, so I’ll take that — that’s the way I’ll look at that situation.”
The Oilers, who are looking to defeat the Kings in the opening round of the playoffs for a fourth consecutive year, managed to pull themselves off the proverbial mat with their comeback. Whether they can build off it and tie the series before it returns to Los Angeles is the next test.
“Hopefully (Friday’s win) gives us some momentum going into Game 4,” forward Evander Kane said. “We’ll have a chance to hold serve on home ice.”
Drumming up a comeback victory not only prevented the Oilers from finding themselves on the precipice but also ensures a fifth game for a club that had a litany of injury issues down the stretch.
The opportunity to prolong the series as long as possible gives the Oilers the chance to build more and more momentum and their players to amp up their game.
Kane missed all of the regular season and twice had surgery, while Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl sat for several games down the stretch, depth forward Trent Frederic only played in one regular-season game after Feb. 25 and defenseman John Klingberg was sidelined the final 10 regular-season games as well as the series opener.
“We have lots of guys that hadn’t played a lot,” said Draisaitl, who is riding a 17-game point-scoring streak against the Kings in the playoffs (16 goals, 15 assists). “You could see (Frederic) coming a little bit tonight, he had his legs going. (Kane) is getting up to speed, and I’ll put myself into that group as well.”
“We knew there was going to be some rust for some of those guys coming back,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Klingberg, there is another guy that I mention, that hadn’t played very much and has really given us two good games.”
