A recent history of EDM vs LAK — advantage Oilers, but it’s close

Article content

“When you understand what your opponent is going to play like, and you know that you’ve beaten that team playing that style of game, I don’t think the Edmonton Oilers have any fear.” — Craig Button, TSN

“The Edmonton Oilers know how to beat the crap out of the L.A. Kings… When they look across the ice and see those guys, there is not going to be a scintilla of fear. They’re not going to be intimidated at all.” — Greg Wyshynski, ESPN

Article content

Article content

According to some of the hockey pundits out there, Edmonton Oilers have no reason to fear the Los Angeles Kings. They’ve beaten them before — twice — they’ll beat them again, right? Book it!

Easy for them to say. In truth the Kings gave the Oilers a major scare into the Oilers in 2022, and did so again in 2023.

To say these two franchises know each other well is understatement. They’ve been division rivals every year but one since 1981-82. In the first 11 of those seasons they met in the playoffs no fewer than 7 times with the Oilers winning 5 of them. But from 1993 to 2021 there were no further match-ups; when the Oil were good for a few years there, the Kings generally weren’t; and LA’s time as a powerhouse coincided with the Decade of Darkness here in Good Old Ourtown.

The nadir of the rivalry was the oddball 2021 season, when the COVID-era NHL split its divisions into 4 silos with no crossover play whatsoever. The Oilers played all 60 of their games in Canada, while the Kings were similarly bound to the western United States and didn’t even qualify for the post-season.

Since that sorry campaign the rivalry has bounced back with a vengeance. The two squads have faced off no fewer than 25 games in the past 30 months, 12 times in the regular season and 13 more in a pair of harrowing playoff series. They are now poised to meet at least 4 more times, perhaps as many as 7.

Article content

So what is that has the commentators suggesting the Oilers should have no fear? Perhaps it’s the way that Edmonton battled back in crunch time to win both series.

• In 2022, Edmonton lost Game 1 at home, bounced back with a pair of blowout wins before dropping both Games 4 and 5, the latter in overtime at Rogers Place. The Oilers faced elimination on the road, and were tied deep into regulation before a Tyson Barrie goal turned Game 6 in their favour. By Game 7 back in Edmonton, Connor McDavid was in the ascendant, playing one of the finest games of his career in leading the Oilers to a 2-0 win.
• In 2023, another Game 1 that got away, this time in overtime. After rallying again Game 2, the Oil dropped another OT affair to fall behind 2-1 in the series. When the Kings stormed the Bastille to establish a 3-0 lead in Game 4, things looked grim indeed for the Oil. But the squad responded with a major comeback, ultimately winning it on a Zach Hyman overtime goal. That was the turning point as Edmonton finally broke through Joonas Korpisalo in the Kings net and won Games 5 and 6 by scores of 6-3 and 5-4 to seal the deal.

Article content

Article content

The Oilers were in fact the better team in both series. They outscored the Kings  27-17 in 2023

That said, there was plenty of both fear and loathing in both of those series. I see no reason to assume that the Kings are just going to go away without a fight this time around.

And honestly, folks, there’s precious little from the 2023-24 regular season to suggest the gap between the two rivals is widening in any meaningful way. The Oilers were again the better team, finishing 5 points ahead of their rivals. They won the season series 6 points to 3, outscoring the Kings by 10 real goals to 9. Over the set of games, we had LAK with 47 Grade A shots, EDM with 46.

How did they fare against the league as a whole? Again, close.

Once again we present a basket of selected key stats, this time inclusive of the entire 82-game campaign. The Oilers were the better in 10 of the 14 categories, though not much to choose in several of them. The Kings were the better club, and by some margin, in defensive stats such as goals against, penalty kill, and team save percentage; the Oilers superior in the opposing categories of foals for, powerplay, shooting percentage. Edmonton was fourth in the league in shot shares, LA fifth, and goal shares were similarly close at sixth vs. eighth. Only in the creation/suppression of dangerous shots were the Oil clearly better, finishing first in the entire league in percentage of High Danger Corsi and Expected Goals.

Article content

The cast of characters

Rather than rehashing the numbers from this regular season, we’ll present the Kings here in a different fashion. What follows are playoff numbers from the last two seasons combined, in which the Kings played a total of 13 games — all of them vs. Edmonton. So this is all head-to-head.

Let’s start with the forwards, listed in order of average ice time.

The team has morphed somewhat over time, with names like Alex Iafollo and Gabriel Villardi dropping from the team via trade and Dustin Brown by retirement. But this format shows that the major 6 forwards have returned from last season, and good forwards they are too. Don’t sleep on Quinton Byfield, further down the list due to TOI over the past 2 playoffs but emerging into a bigger role this season. Byfield slumped down the stretch before breaking out with a goal and an assist in the season’s final game.

Some interesting results suggested from the +/- column, never to be trusted on face value alone but in this instance, readily supported by a quick dive into 5v5 results. First line centre and captain Anze Kopitar got worked to the tune of 7 goals for but 16 against in about 200 minutes in the primary game state. But 2C Philip Danault lived up to his billing as a two-way whiz, playing a like number of minutes and enjoying a 10-4 goal share in the process. This year he, Trevor Moore and Viktor Arvidsson, long a trio who are no fun at all to play against, have been reunited.

Article content

Brand new to the picture this year is enigmatic Pierre-Luc Dubois, acquired in an expensive trade that cost the Kings Alex Iafollo and Gabe Villardi. PLD’s debut season as a King left plenty to be desired, playing all 82 games but with mediocre boxcars of just 16-24-40, -9.In theory, Dubois provides the squad with a big, skilled 3C to support Kopitar and Danault; in theory, he’s been less than that. But he now starts the playoffs with a clean sheet and, presumably, plenty of motivation.

Another newcomer is RW Alex Laferriere, a 22-year-old rookie who came up through the NCAA and latched on as an NHLer almost immediately. He scored a dozen goals as a freshman, and recently has been skating on the top line with Kopitar and Kempe.

Then there’s, uhh, oldcomer Trevor Lewis, a long-time King who returned to the squad this season after 3 years in western Canada with Winnipeg and Calgary. At 37, he remains more or less what he always was, a bottom 6 worker bee who might pop one in every 10 games or so.

At the bottom of the list, grinder Carl Grundstrom and sniper Arthur Kaliyex remain with the club but both have been healthy-scratched of late.

Article content

On the back end, we see a similar pattern: last year’s top 4 remains intact, a quartet of hard nosed defenders who are no fun at all to play against. Acquired at the deadline a year ago, Vladislav Gavrikov was a revelation in last year’s series and had a solid season in 2023-24. On the third pairing, 22-year-old Jordan Spence has established himself, playing most often with Swedish veteran Andreas Englund who established himself as an 82-game regular with LAK this year after kicking around the league as a part-timer for years.

A history of bad blood with this group. Mikey Anderson was vbbilified for spraining Leon Draisaitl’s ankle with a slewfoot in a scrum in 2022, an injury which hindered the star Oiler going forward. Last year, it was Drew Doughty who hammered Connor McDavid with what many saw as a knee-on-knee check, leaving the Edmonton captain on the limp. In both instances, one outcome was that then-coach Jay Woodcroft felt compelled to reuniting McDavid with Draisaitl for the rest of the playoffs.

Even though he departed the Kings after 2022, I left the line for Troy Stecher in place because his stats were pretty darn good filling in for the injured Doughty. Now, of course, he’s an Oiler.

Article content

Using a different approach with the goalies because unlike the skater positions, the Kings cleaned house in the blue paint, and for the second year in a row. This time around they signed Cam Talbot and David Rittich as free agents on Jul 01, and the new tandem responded with strong results in 2023-24, shown above. Those results notwithstanding, their ability to withstand the playoff heat their opponents are going to bring is an open question which will go along

While both stoppers are new to the Kings this year, they are very familiar to Oil fans, and are likely to provide an intriguing subplot to the upcoming series.

Add it all up, and the Kings’ core group remains largely intact from last year’s squad in particular. One can only imagine they remain highly motivated to slay the dragon that dispatched them from the playoffs these past two seasons.

Look past them at your peril, I say. This is a team that commands the respect and the full attention of the Edmonton Oilers. I anticipate another close, hard-fought series which is anything but a foregone conclusion.

Recently at the Cult of Hockey

STAPLES: Kane, Janmark missing from practice. What are the implications?

STAPLES: Pretty much every NHL commentator is picking Oilers over Kings

STAPLES: It’s time to play Dylan Holloway, right? 

McCURDY: Game grades vs Avs

STAPLES: Player grades from snoozer in Arizona

McCURDY: State of the Oilers address as they head into the playoffs

Article content