Will the L.A. Kings teach the Edmonton Oilers one final lesson?

Article content

Nobody sweeps a trilogy.

Otherwise they wouldn’t even have trilogies.

Article content

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier don’t fight a third time if they don’t split the first two. The Lakers and Celtics meeting three times in the 1980s NBA Finals wouldn’t have the nearly same mystique if one side won all three.

It takes two to make a great rivalry and so far the Edmonton Oilers versus Los Angeles Kings has been one-way traffic.

Article content

Now, Ali, Frazier, the Celtics and the Lakers are all-time greats while the current editions of the Oilers and Kings are Stanley Cup wannabes trying to navigate their way into the second round, but the point still applies.

What do we make of the Oilers, 2-0 against Los Angeles in playoff series, meeting for a third straight time this spring?

A little anti-climactic, maybe? Expect more of what we saw in 2023 and 2022? 

There is this underlying sense of inevitability when it comes to this match-up, that the Oilers have figured L.A. out and it will only be a matter of time before they prove it once again.

Of course, that’s easy to say if you’re not the ones out there taking on a team that wants nothing more than to hang your hide on its wall.

“We beat them the last two years but this series is going to write its own story,” said Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl, who’ll be playing his 50th career playoff game when the puck drops late Monday evening.

“I’m sure there will be certain surprises at certain moments but obviously we know the team well. And it goes both ways — they know us and we know them.”

Article content

Article content

How hard? Having eliminated the Kings twice in a row, does that make it harder to do it a third time? You have to imagine the Kings will be as fired up for this as any team in the post-season. If motivation counts for anything, it rests with Los Angeles.

“We’ve had success against them over the last couple of years but we know it’s going to be really hard,” said Draisaitl, who has 77 points in those 49 games. “We have to make sure we’re ready and mentally prepared. They’re a good team, they’ve made the playoffs three years in a row for a reason. They’re a hard team to play against.”

Anyone who remembers the Dallas Stars eliminating the Oilers four times in a row, and then a fifth time two years later, during their annual rite of spring two decades ago isn’t worried about having to beat the same team three times in a row.

The Boston Bruins, after all, eliminated Toronto in three straight series over six years, then just punk-slapped the Leafs in Game 1 of their fourth series Saturday night.

If you’re better, you’re better, right?

We’ll see. But coaches are paid to worry and Edmonton’s Kris Knoblauch knows the margins are thin. And while the Oilers deserve to be favoured, favourites don’t always win.

Article content

“You look at the playoffs, and we were talking about this yesterday, what would be an upset? “ he said, scouring a post-season landscape made up of battles that could go either way. 

“It’s so evenly matched. You look at L.A. and ourselves, it’s so tight in the standings. If you take out two weeks of us playing really well during our 16-game winning streak and take out their two weeks where they lost a few games they shouldn’t have, now who’s the favourite?

“I think it’s two very evenly matched teams and it will come down to execution.”

Execution is an area in which the Oilers have fully ripened over the years. This is no longer a team that is going to beat itself, or panic or abandon its system at the first sign of trouble.

The intersection of Edmonton’s talent and experience is exactly where they want it to be.

“I think we’ve matured a lot over the last couple of years and matured a lot this year, too,” said Draisaitl. “Two years ago there were a lot more individual mistakes made than there will be this year. We’re a mature group, we know how to play this team, we know what it takes.”

And so it begins. We all know championship teams usually suffer unexpected, catastrophic upset losses along the way. Colorado, Tampa Bay and Washington all took stunning defeats before they won it all. The question remains — have the Oilers taken all the lumps they need? Or could this be 1982 all over again when the L.A. Kings taught the Oilers one final lesson before Edmonton began its dynasty.

“It’s those experiences that fuel you and in a way create the hunger and maturity level that you know what it’s like and you know what you have to change, what hurt you last year,” said Draisaitl.

“We’re a much more mature team this year than we were last year, or the year before, and that’s just due to having been in those moments and those situations. We’re very comfortable in any situation that’s thrown at our group. We have a lot of guys who’ve been there and know how to handle these situations.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

Article content