With the start of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs just a few days away, PHR makes its first foray into playoff series analysis with our 2023 Playoff Primers. Where does each team stand in their series, and what storylines could dominate on and off the ice? We continue our look with the Pacific Division matchup between the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers.
A series that promises to be high scoring and hard fought will take place between the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers in a rematch from a year ago. That series saw the Oilers take a lead with two blowout wins in Game 2 and 3 before falling behind 3-2 and then clawing back to win by allowing just two goals in the final two games. Connor McDavid carried the team to victory with 14 points in seven games and Mike Smith was great in goal with a .938 SV% in the series win.
The Kings were without Drew Doughty who was injured last season, but he is playing great hockey again with 52 points in 81 games this season. Adding Kevin Fiala to the lineup also gives the Kings a point-per-game player they did not have at their disposal a year ago. Doughty and Fiala give the Kings a big shot in the arm compared to a year ago, but the Oilers are playing some of the best hockey we have seen in Edmonton in decades.
Will it be the high-flying Oilers for a second consecutive season, or will the Kings exact some revenge from a first-round exit a year ago?
Regular Season Performance
Edmonton: 50-23-9, 109 points, +65 goal differential
Los Angeles: 47-25-10, 104 points, +23 goal differential
Head-To-Head
November 16, 2022: Los Angeles 3, Edmonton 1
January 9, 2023: Los Angeles 6, Edmonton 3
March 30, 2023:Edmonton 2, Los Angeles 0
April 4, 2023: Edmonton 3, Los Angeles 1
Season series tied 2-2-0
Team Storylines
The Oilers enter the postseason with Connor McDavid riding one of the greatest offensive seasons we have witnessed. Scoring 64 goals and 153 points is something we saw in the 1980’s but is simply unheard of in today’s NHL. McDavid became just the sixth player in league history to score 150 points and the first to do it since Mario Lemieux in 1996.
Though he is well ahead of anyone else in the league, he is not the only Oiler piling up points this season. Leon Draisaitl scored 52 goals and 128 points, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added 37 goals and 104 points and Zach Hyman was over a point-per-game with 36 goals and 83 points in 79 games. Evander Kane missed significant time this season, but scored 16 goals and 28 points in 41 games and was a playoff beast a year ago, leading the postseason in goals with 13, even though the Oilers were eliminated in four straight games in the Western Conference Final.
Scoring is not, and never really was, an issue for the Oilers. The questions marks existed elsewhere, but have the Oilers patched those holes? They added Mattias Ekholm at the trade deadline, and he has been the defensive rock that they needed all along. Since adding Ekholm, the Oilers finished the season on an 18-2-1 run to ensure home-ice advantage in this series. He has been averaging well over 20 minutes of ice time per game and immediately rejuvenated the Oilers top-four defense along with Darnell Nurse, Evan Bouchard and Cody Ceci.
Do the Oilers have what it takes in goal to win a series? They thought they would be leaning on Jack Campbell at this time of year after signing him to a five-year contract with a $5MM annual cap hit just last summer. However, he struggled in his first season with the Oilers, posting a 3.41 GAA and a .888 SV%. Stuart Skinner has really taken over the starter’s role in the last quarter of the season, posting a 2.43 GAA and a .920 SV% since March 1 and giving the Oilers a reliable goaltender to lean on late in the season.
Another key to focus on is, will the Kings be able to slow down the offensive beast that is the Edmonton Oilers? A quick glance at their numbers show the Kings were not able to slow anyone down this season. They allowed 257 goals this season. The only playoff teams to allow more were the Florida Panthers and Oilers. It sure promises to be a high scoring series. With Doughty playing this time around and Vladislav Gavrikov acquired at the trade deadline, the Kings have a better chance of at least slowing down McDavid and Draisaitl. No one can stop those two, but if they are held to 7-9 points each in a series, it would force the Oilers depth pieces to add some scoring, which they are not always capable of doing.
What about the Kings goaltending? They did trade for a goaltender at the trade deadline and Joonas Korpisalo has been great for them. He played just 11 games after being acquired, but he had a 2.13 GAA and a .921 SV% to give the Kings confidence in a position that was a weakness for most of the season. If Korpisalo can continue to play like that in the first round, the Kings will be in good shape. But it is difficult for anyone to put up a .920 SV% against these Oilers, who were the highest scoring team in the NHL with 325 goals.
Special teams are always a key component in a playoff series and this will be no exception. The Oilers power play alone is enough to give goaltenders nightmares as it clicked at a 32.4% efficiency rate, which is the best power play percentage in NHL history. The Kings had a bottom ten penalty kill at 75.8%. That is not something that can be fixed overnight and could prove to be a huge problem against a team like the Oilers.
On the other hand, the Oilers penalty kill was not much better, killing off 77% of their penalties while the Kings power play converted on an impressive 25.3% of their chances. Staying out of the box is going to be key as neither team is strong while shorthanded, and both have the ability to do damage on the man advantage.
Prediction
The Kings have new pieces in place that should allow them to be more competitive this time around. Having Gavrikov and Doughty on defense, Korpisalo in goal as well as Phillip Danault who is one of the best shutdown centers in the league, should at least slow down McDavid a little bit. He is going to score on the power play, but if they can limit him at even strength, they will force the depth of the Oilers to step up, and they don’t have a lot of scoring behind their top four forwards. There won’t be two huge blowouts early in the series this time around.
The problem for the Kings is, the Oilers have addressed similar needs and now have Ekhlom as a defensive horse on the blue line and they are playing the best hockey we have seen out of any team in the past six weeks. McDavid and Draisaitl each averaged two points per game in the playoffs last spring, and both were somehow even better this season than ever before. Yes, they could use some depth scoring, but Mattias Janmark, Warren Foegele, Klim Kostin, Nick Bjugstad and Ryan McLeod give them reliable minutes even if they don’t score a ton. That can be left to the top two lines.
Yet another magical spring from McDavid and Draisaitl is about to begin, and they won’t be denied in round one. It will not be an easy one by any stretch, but the Kings offense just can’t match the Oilers scoring. Prediction: The Oilers win in six games.
The Kings’ secret weapon to slowing down 29 & 97, is Mikey Anderson. When push comes to shove, he’ll “accidentally-on-purpose” land on somebody’s leg/ankle, thereby creating the competitive advantage the Kings need. Of course, Kostin or Kane will be there to separate his melon from his body, but Mikey’s all in for the good of the team.
Standard Kings practice for the past 20 years. When you build a statue to a career intent to injure player it says a lot about your franchise.
McSatan is the King of dirty hits! Kane is a POS!
Was this submitted by an Oilers fan?
Kings didn’t have Arvidsson last series besides Doughty. Hopefully Fiala and Vilardi will be able to return at the beginning or at some point in this series.
Oil in 5.
Even as a Kings’ fan, I have a hard time picking against the Oilers with the run they’ve been on. Anything could happen, though, and the Kings are severely underrated. It’s easy to forget that before they were hit with injuries, they were challenging for the lead in the entire Pacific. Not to mention they clearly outplayed the Oilers in the games with a healthy roster.
Even though this was a very poorly written article, the writer hit the nail on the head; ultimately, this series will come down to special teams. Specifically, how will this series be called? Will it be called evenly, or will the Oilers continue to get the benefit of calls, especially against the Kings? That has been a very real element, especially recently, so we shall see.
Also, how do you not mention Anze Kopitar even one time, the Kings’ best and most consistent player for years. Kopi is the most underrated player in the league – better than Toews for their entire careers, better than Bergeron. If you swapped Bergeron and Kopi, they’d talk about Anze like he was the greatest player that ever played. Show the man some respect!
The lopsided nature of this preview makes me think the author didn’t do more than the most cursory research into one of the teams.
Mentioned by name for the Oilers: the top 11(!) forwards, top four defensemen, both goalies, plus a goalie who didn’t even play for them this year. Not mentioned by name: I guess the bottom pairing defenseman, a fourth-line forward, and whoever the healthy scratches/black aces are going to be.
Mentioned by name for the Kings: five players, none of which was team MVP, no. 1 center, and leading scorer Anže Kopitar, or 41-goal scorer Adrian Kempe, or top shutdown defenseman Mikey Anderson.
I get why everyone thinks the Oilers are the favorite, but I also think the Kings are going to be a much tougher out than people think because, you know, some of those guys who didn’t make the cut in this preview are pretty good hockey players.
Kings in 7 if Fiala is back!
Kings win! Great comeback! McSatan has 0 points!