You don’t need to know anything about hockey to know what Kings are in trouble returning to Edmonton for Game 5 of their first-round NHL playoff series with the Oilers.
Just knowing how to count is enough knowledge.
After Sunday’s 1-0 loss in the Crypt, the Kings trail the best-of-seven series, three games to one. That makes Wednesday’s game a must-win for the Kings. Just like everything that comes after that.
“Yeah, our backs are against the wall,” center Phillip Danault said. “Nothing to lose. One game at a time. The pressure is on them. Give everything you have.”
A pained smile appeared on his face.
See more information: Kings fall to Oilers in Game 4 loss, moving to brink of elimination
“All the clichés,” he said.
It doesn’t seem right that after a regular season that started and ended in record fashion, the Kings find themselves just one loss away from being eliminated from the playoffs with a whimper, not a bang.
The Kings won their first 11 road games of the season under coach Todd McLellan, breaking the NHL record. So, after McLellan was fired and assistant Jim Hiller promoted to take his place in February, the team won eight consecutive home wins at the end of the season, equaling the team’s longest home winning streak in 32 years.
However, now, after back-to-back home losses, the Kings are one away loss away from home after a long offseason.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this, of course. Two years ago, in the first round of the playoffs, the Oilers eliminated the Kings in seven games. Last year they did it in six. Now it could happen in five.
After averaging nearly 3 ¼ goals at home during the regular season, the Kings scored once at the Crypt in two playoff games. The team is not progressing, it is regressing. But it’s a hole the team dug for itself.
That’s it penalty once vauntedsecond in the league during the regular season, has been torched in this series, with the Oilers scoring eight times in 15 man-advantage opportunities, the last coming in Sunday’s second period to decide Game 4. The Kings’ own power play, while That’s it, they’ve been helpless, going 0-11, the last breath coming in the third period of Sunday’s loss, when they didn’t even take a shot.
The Oilers have scored 18 times in four games and their big three, Zach Hyman, Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, have combined for 10 goals and 15 assists. Even so, the Kings have not yet died (their vital signs, however, are very weak).
But as Danault, who has apparently never heard a cliché he wouldn’t repeat, knows, the series isn’t over until it’s over.
In 2021, when he was in Montreal, the Canadiens lost three of their first four games in their first-round series with Toronto, only to bounce back with two overtime wins that helped them win the series. That team reached the Stanley Cup Final.
“So we have to believe. And it has to be there,” Danault said.
If the Kings needed some encouragement – and they clearly did – they may have gotten some in Sunday’s loss, because although the result wasn’t what they wanted, the performance was. The Kings outscored the Oilers 33-13; surpassed, surpassed and surpassed them; and managed to stay out of the penalty area for most of the night.
They also rolled the dice by replacing goalkeeper Cam Talbot with substitute David Rittich, who had a poor record in the playoffs, conceding eight goals in 32 minutes. Rittich was nearly perfect on Sunday, becoming just the fourth goaltender to hold the high-octane Oilers to one goal or fewer in 39 games — a streak that Rittich began when he excluded Edmonton in early February.
It was a model for victory, even if it ended in defeat.
“It’s the kind of game you have to replicate,” Danault said. “That’s the only way to beat Edmonton right now. We have to play exactly the same way and that will give us a great chance.”
“The preparation, the effort, it’s there,” Hiller added. “So to invoke this again. It’s not like we have to go and figure it out. It’s right there. So it shouldn’t be that difficult.”
Trevor Moore said it’s now a game of follow the leader.
“Leadership in this [locker] the room is incomparable,” he said. “It’s game by game. It’s waking up, going to training and, you know, continuing to improve.”
See more information: ‘We’re not out of it’: Kings look to Series Oilers in Game 4
But those leaders also need to show up on the ice — including Moore. He led the team with 31 goals and had 26 assists in the regular season, but scored just one goal in the playoffs. And as captain Anze Kopitar He has one goal and two assists in the series, all three points came in the same game. Then there’s Pierre Luc-Dubois, who the Kings acquired last summer and later signed to an eight-year, $68 million contract. He scored just one goal in the series, didn’t take a shot in 35 shifts combined in the two home games and took just one shot in the last three games combined.
“The message is to just persist. Keep up our game and play the same way and we will be rewarded,” Danault said. “We usually do. So we have to keep playing the same way and we will be rewarded in the next game, I think.”
Otherwise, anyone who can count to four will be able to count the Kings.
“Our backs are against the wall,” Danault repeated. “Then there is nothing to lose.”
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
