In case you've been living under a rock, you surely saw since last Thursday that the Oilers beat the Kings in the first round for the fourth year in a row 4 games to 2.
One goliath defeated, three more to go, as the saying goes.
With the Jets-Blues series finale last night, the Oilers will be one of three Canadian teams left in the playoffs. With the Jets winning both them and the Oilers will be Canada's with well.....Toronto. Against Florida. Again. Good luck with that one.....
Anyway, how did the Oilers do it? How did they beat the Kings?
Tiring the Kings out
The Oilers are a team that can beat you any which way, and knowing they were going to be playing the majority of the series in a hostile barn against a team that was one of the NHL's best defensive - and most successful teams - down the stretch, they knew they were going up against a wall and would need to combat that with their speed. It appears they achieved that objective, although Kings head coach Jim Hiller certainly helped out the Oilers in that regard too - more on that later in the blog.
Speed is one of the biggest weapons the Oilers have in their arsenal - oh sure, they've also got players who have lost a step such as Corey Perry and John Klingberg, but those guys do other things to make up for their lack of speed. It certainly doesn't hurt that the Oilers have what is widely acknowledged as the fastest player in the league on their side in Connor McDavid.
The Oilers team speed combined with the incredible firepower found up and down the lineup is a deadly combination to any opposition team, even ones like the Kings that are good defensively. It was always going to be a case of which would win out, the Kings defensive play or the Oilers firepower that would win the series, and fortunately for us it was the latter. This is new age hockey, a game based primarily on speed, and the Oilers have it in spades, fortunately.
They found ways to beat the Kings at their own game
This series should teach Oilers fans and especially those new to the game an important lesson - the regular season means nothing once the playoffs roll around. Regular season success is not a guarantee of anything in the playoffs - otherwise the Presidents Trophy winner (best regular season NHL team) would be a surefire team to win the Cup every season, but in fact the opposite is usually true. Case in point - 2006. The Oilers upset Ken Holland's Detroit Red Wings in the first round despite the fact that the Red Wings won the Presidents Trophy and the Oilers barely squeaked into the playoffs that year. The Wings, of course, would go on to win the Cup two seasons later.
The same thing happened this year. Yeah, the Kings came into the series rolling but one of the Oilers strengths is never saying die and always believing in a comeback. In fact, the Oilers almost took game one of the series in a valiant third period comeback only to fall one goal short. The Kings then took game two in the only convincing game of the series they played and nearly took game three too until the Oilers took over in the third period and beat them down 7-4. Even game four to tie up the series, the Oilers needed the third period and OT to get it done.
However, once the Oilers got more of their legs under them as a team and the previously injured players had shaken off the rust, by game five the Oilers were able to beat the Kings at their own game, when Andrei Kuzmenko opened the scoring in the second period but that's the only goal they could get past Calvin Pickard.
Sometimes the Oilers were off their game, but sometimes they could outscore their mistakes, and by the end they were dominating the Kings defensively. So it doesn't matter to the Oilers if they're playing in the firefight with guns ablazing or whether they're locked in a defensive battle, they're comfortable in either situation.
One roll of the dice that Knoblauch took that I didn't understand though - putting Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard on the top pairing together. I get that he's trying to create a puck moving super pair but both players need some help defensively, illustrated by the fact that both guys finished the first round at -3. Every other blueliner that suited up for the Oilers was a + player - even Josh Brown, who only suited up for a single game. If I were Knoblauch, I would've put Nurse and Walman as the top pairing because those two have shown chemistry with each other, then put either Troy Stecher or Brett Kulak on the second pairing with Bouchard, then the leftover guy plays on the third pairing with Ty Emberson.
I completely get that it messes things up when Mattias Ekholm is out with injury/sickness, but it's still a bit of a mystery to me why Knoblauch would want that much of a defensive adventure on the top pairing. And yes - Walman and Klingberg made a solid second pairing, I 100% agree with that. But Walman would've been more valuable on the top pairing with Nurse, IMO. Troy Stecher's been a good soldier for the Oilers this season, yet he never drew into the series, and he deserved to. I would've loved to see what the pairing of Stecher-Bouchard could do - but hey, I'm not the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers so it's not my call. Vegas is an even better team so he may not get away with that pairing in the second round because they've got more firepower at forward and defense. Bouchard never hurt for points in the series - he did finish with 7 in 6 games - but imagine how he would've done had he faced softer competition.
Of course you can see this in the player numbers too. Kempe was -8, Kopitar -6, Andrei Kuzmenko -5, Quinton Byfield, -7, Drew Doughty -7, Vladislav Gavrikov and Jordan Spence -1, Mikey Anderson -4, Sammy Helenius -1, and Alex Turcotte and Jeff Malott both -2. That's most of the Kings core that finished on the bad side of +1 - even guys known for their defense like Vladislav Gavrikov.
Now compare this to the Oilers. Connor McDavid, +5, Leon Draisaitl +6, Connor Brown +2, Nuge even, Zach Hyman +1, Vasily Podkolzin +3, Corey Perry +4, Mattias Janmark +3, Jake Walman the leader at +8, you get the idea. In fact, the Kings had 11 minus players while the Oilers had a mere four. That's a lot of minus players for a supposed "defence first" team.