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There’s more dread than joy in Los Angeles about the prospect of the L.A. Kings facing off against the Edmonton Oilers for the third year in a row in the NHL playoffs.
At the Frozen Royal hockey blog in Los Angeles, optimism isn’t high about the Kings, whether they were to face Dallas or Edmonton: “They’ll face another 1st round exit from the playoffs, and it probably won’t be close.”
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Hockey commentator Russell Morgan of the in-depth Hockey Royalty podcast said it’s unknown what to expect from the inconsistent Kings heading into the series. “We really have no clue,” Morgan said.
“If you watched the regular season, if you watched this team, they haven’t really given you any reason to hope to believe that they can win. They’ve been a really defence-first style of team. They haven’t been exciting to watch whatsoever.”
But Morgan said the Kings have strong leadership and better depth than Edmonton, so he says the Kings have a legitimate opportunity to win in seven games. “I know there’s not a lot of numbers to back that up.”
Fellow Hockey Royalty commentator Joe Patarino said the team under new coach Jim Hiller has been trying to win with structure and without much offence.
“This team can’t score. It’s not going to score…The Kings will try to beat an Oilers team 2-1 four times out of seven.”
Patarino predicted the Oilers will win in five games. Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse are not a great middle d-man pair, but the Oilers are evidently aware of that, and Los Angeles isn’t the kind of team that can exploit that, he said. “I’m just trying to find where the weakness is that Los Angeles is able to exploit and I just can’t find it. I think Edmonton wins this series comfortably.”
Noting that the Kings have lost to the Oilers in the last two playoffs, Drew Stahl at the Los Angeles blog The Mayor’s Manor said, “It isn’t that surprising that some on social media have been dreading a Kings-Oilers meeting again this year.”
But Stahl noted one area of hope for Los Angeles, that even though Los Angeles won only one of four games against Edmonton this season, the Expected Goals stat — a measure of each team’s shot quality — indicated the Kings weren’t all that bad. “Despite only scoring nine times against Edmonton, the Kings were expected to score nearly 13 times. And although they allowed ten goals, they were expected to allow over 13. This suggests that they were on the bad end of puck luck when it came to scoring goals, scoring less than expected, but on the good end when it came to saving goals, allowing less than expected.”
Most NHL commentators are picking the Oilers.
Dave Portnoy, the owner of the Barstool Sports media empire, went so far as to place a $150,000 bet on the Oilers winning the Cup. It will pay out $1.2 million if the Oilers win.
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Sharing in the doubts about the Kings is hockey commentator Paul Bissonnette of the Spittin Chiclets podcast, who tweet as Chicago tied the Kings at three on Thursday night and Vegas lost to Anaheim: “WOW the Kings give up 3 goals in a 5 minute span in the 3rd to Chicago to pull off the Mongolian Reversal on the Golden Knights. This is wild. Nobody wants McJesus and the Oilers.”
A moment later, after the Kings won the game and the slot against the Oilers, Bissonnette added: “Oilers & Kings round 3 it is. I think the Kings just dug their own grave but what the f*ck do I know. Let the games begin.”
At Sportsnet, columnist Mark Spector also predicted success for Oilers: “The Kings will greet Edmonton with their staid one-three-one system. They send one forward in to forecheck — barely — and line up three players across the neutral zone, daring the opponent to try to carry the puck through their picket fence. Edmonton, however, learned long ago that the boring, dump-‘n’-chase game is the solution to L.A.’s grind. Both series had a moment where they could each have gone the Kings’ way, but in the end Edmonton’s skill conquered L.A.’s gravel road in both series. Today, a better and more experienced Oilers team will have even fewer issues with this familiar foe, we’d predict.”
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At TSN, commentator Craig Button said the Kings don’t have the offence to make the Edmonton Oilers feel uncomfortable. “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.”
Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff told Brenden Escott of Oilers Now that maybe the most important point of this series is how quickly the Oilers dispatch the Kings. “There’s also a road map here, a lesson plan, a blueprint of what not to do. The Oilers have gotten away with it in the last couple of years (beating the Kings in seven, then six games). But the best teams that go on the deepest runs that are ultimately successful in winning the Stanley Cup, one of the big things is trying to have a quick series. Pocket a quick series at some point in the four rounds.”
Servalli said the Oilers stubbed their toe in both recent playoff series against the Kings, losing in Game One. Another time the Oilers seemed unprepared for a game in L.A. “It kinda looked like they were at the beach in L.A. the day before.”
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On the 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman favoured the Oilers.
“Is L.A. going to be able to score enough to beat these guys? I think you have to be good enough to outscore Edmonton and last year Vegas was good enough to do that. Because Edmonton is going to have games where they’re going to score four or five times, and you’re going to have to beat them, and especially with Byfield struggling, I just don’t know if they’re going to be able to do that.”
On Daren Millard’s podcast The Chirp, TSN’s Darren Dreger said he’d like to pick Edmonton as Canada’s best hope for a Cup win. “But I’m still not convinced about Edmonton’s goaltending.”
On an ESPN podcast, commentator Greg Wyshynski picked Edmonton, in part based on the two teams facing off in the previous two playoffs. “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. They’ve done it before. They can do it again. I think this is the match up they’d much rather have personally than the Vegas Golden Knights.”
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At the Hockey News, writer Adam Proteau picked the Kings. “We’ve got a hunch the Kings can upset Edmonton and move on to the second round… Although L.A. doesn’t have the type of generational talent the Oilers have, the Kings are, very quietly, one of the league’s top defensive teams. At an average of 2.54 goals against per game, they’ve got the third-best mark in the league in that category – and they have a well-balanced group of forwards that can play either a high-octane, run-and-gun game or grind it out with a 1-3-1 neutral zone trap.”
My take
Oilers in five.
Seravalli made a good point that a serious Cup contender has to dispatch at least one opponent in rapid fashion. Edmonton has an edge over Los Angeles in most aspects of the game, so this should be that series for the Oilers. Will it be that series? That’s on the Oilers. But I think they’re ready to get it done.
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