Despite lopsided chances the Oilers beat rival Kings

Whose house?

Oilers' house!

Whose house?

Oilers' house!

That joke was inspired by the call-and-answer that the Los Angeles Rams employ during their home games, which tend to become road games whenever the Las Vegas Raiders, Buffalo Bills, San Francisco 49ers, Denver Broncos, and Kansas City Chiefs are in town. Sorry in advance, but I'm grouping the Los Angeles Chargers in with the Rams.

I get that this isn't the NFL, but Edmonton Oilers fans made up, at worst, 30% of the people in attendance at the Los Angeles Kings' Crypto.com Arena. The Oilers happened to win that game 4-1 to bring their record through six games to 5-0-1.

The Oilers' players also happened to be at SoFi Stadium on Sunday for the Chargers' game against the Broncos. The Chargers lost that game. And Broncos fans invaded the stadium.

Not a great four days for Los Angeles' sports teams.

Given that Los Angeles' NFL teams are a combined 2-8 to start the 2026 season, I'm willing to take the risk with the analogy.

Now back to the hockey.

The Oilers' skating won them this hockey game

It's already clear that Connor McDavid is the world's top skater in almost every facet of the game, but it seemed like every Oilers player had an extra step in their game to an extent against the Kings.

Sure, it's probably because the Oilers are playing their sixth consecutive game against a division rival. Sure, it could be the fact that Mike Babcock's coaching style is already resonating with the players. Sure, it could be because the Kings' ability to sustain offensive possessions forced the Oilers to work that much harder in their own end.

But when it came down to the track meet side of the game, the Oilers were the clear winners. Even if the Kings looked like the better team at creating scoring chances, the Oilers had moments of puck control and sent Los Angeles back into their own end. This was especially true early in the game when Edmonton was winning puck battles in Los Angeles' end and had even put together a stretch of time where they were getting back to the puck and putting it back into the offensive zone mere seconds after a Kings player cleared it.

Combine that with an ability to move the puck quite effectively, and you can understand why the Oilers were able to go up 3-0 by the end of the first period.

Devon Levi is making an early case to be this year's Comeback Player of the Year

Though it's not an official award, goaltender Devon Levi would be an early contender for a Comeback Player of the Year award. In the early part of the season, he seems to have solidified the Oilers starting role.

The Kings ended up having a strong game against an Oilers team that has shown an ability to hold teams to below-average shots on goal counts, ultimately outshooting the team by 23 (I'll get into that later) in that category. Even then, Levi was able to withstand the pressure and prevent a performance akin to his season debut in Vancouver. He recorded saves on 39 of the Kings' 40 shots on goal, yielding a .975 save percentage and giving the Oilers' their third one-goal defensive effort in four games.

When considering his performance against Los Angeles, Levi is now up to a .903 save percentage on the season and a 2.76 goals against average. Yes, those numbers include a .682 save percentage against the Canucks.

Four years ago, Levi nearly single-handedly backstopped the Buffalo Sabres into a postseason berth. His numbers through four starts are quite similar to that seven-game stretch during the latter stages of the 2022-23 campaign. For a goaltender that was seen as more of a reclamation project after getting stuck on Buffalo's depth charts, that is more than encouraging.

The blue line's success is helping to drive the Oilers' early-season scoring

I feel confident enough saying that I like what I am seeing so far this season from the Oilers' defensemen. Sure, that also comes with a hint of skepticism when it comes to actually defending, but it's unfair to assume that the only true role-players on this year's Oilers' roster are a team of superstar forwards and one two-way defenseman.

Mattias Ekholm proved this exactly on Saturday, and Ty Emberson backed it up against Los Angeles when he recorded his first point of the season on the Oilers' 3-0 goal.

When considering that Evan Bouchard is now on pace for 200 points this season, one cannot ignore the blue line's role in the Oilers' early-season point-and-goal-scoring rampage. After all, they've now scored at least three goals in each of their first six games, with four of them seeing the team score at least four times. As a result, they're tied with the Colorado Avalanche for the league lead in goals for per game and they have the league's best shot percentage at 19.3% (that does come with a not-so-great power play and a not-so-high amount of shots).

On top of the scoring effort, five of six Oilers' defensemen recorded at least one blocked shot on Tuesday, while the same was true when it came to hits. The Oilers also got two takeaways from the defensive side of the ice, provided by Ekholm and Emberson, though the 14 total giveaways (eight of which were from defensemen) should represent a significant point of concern.

There is a lot of room for growth on this side of the ice, and Tuesday's contest added another example to that argument. As a result, the Oilers' defensemen could be in for some big point-scoring seasons and valuable roles down the stretch.

Don't read into the shot count. Or the scoring chances.

The Oilers had one shot in the first six minutes of play and ended up getting outshot 40-17. They also had an additional 11 shots blocked and converted just one of their three power play opportunities.

Say what you will about the Oilers' inability to consistently create sustained offensive pressure - this is now the third consecutive contest where that has been a concern to some extent - but it really didn't matter in the immediate aftermath.

Three minutes after the aforementioned six-minute stretch, the Oilers found themselves up 2-0. Leon Draisaitl got the Oilers on the board off a pass from McDavid, while Vasily Podkolzin recorded his sixth goal of the campaign to extend the advantage to two goals.

With around four minutes left in the period, McDavid got on the end of a deep pass from Emberson and bested Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper to put Edmonton up 3-0.

There is definitely something to be said about the need for consistent chance creation, this much is true. But the Oilers are finding ways to score and make the most of their limited chances, which should mitigate this concern for the time being.

That said, we will have to revisit this point if the lack of chance creation starts costing them points in the standings.

One quick note

Can the Oilers keep these alternate jerseys as their new away jerseys? And make the old away jerseys their alternates to use them at home more often?

What's next?

The Oilers will return home to take on the Utah Mammoth in what will be the first leg of a home-and-home encounter. The game is set to start at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

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