Kings drop Game 5 to Oilers, face elimination on Thursday

LOS ANGELES — After the Kings’ two losses in Edmonton evened their first-round playoff series against the Oilers, they wanted to circle the wagons, but instead they found themselves circling the drain.

They dropped a third consecutive decision, 3-1, though this time there was no third-period lead to blow as there had been in their Game 4 and 5 losses, as well their Game 1 win.

They white-knuckled their way through two periods in which they were beaten up analytically and territorially, but not on the scoreboard, until they lost yet another closing stanza.

They now trail the team that has ended their season three years in a row, 3-2, and will face elimination in hostile territory in Game 6 on Thursday night. The Kings have struggled on the road all season, winning just 17 of 43 games in the regular season and playoffs so far, while Edmonton has never failed to close out a Western Conference opponent after mounting three wins in any of the past three postseasons.

After giving up a season-high in shots on goal in consecutive games in Edmonton – 37 in a Game 3 fiasco and 48 in Game 4’s overtime folding act – the Kings allowed the most shots in a home game all season in Game 5 with 46.

Edmonton has outshot the Kings 79-35 since the start of the third period of Game 4.

“They executed way better than us tonight. They were stronger. They beat us in every area of the game, except for the special teams, oddly enough,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “The goaltender was great for us to give us a chance. They were just better, in every way. We can’t look to one part of our game and think that it was acceptable or good enough.”

Andrei Kuzmenko tallied with the man advantage. Darcy Kuemper did his best to steal the game with 43 saves after making 44 in Sunday’s Game 4.

Evander Kane, Mattias Janmark and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each scored a goal for Edmonton. Calvin Pickard moved to 3-0-0 in the series by making 21 saves.

“We couldn’t really get anything going, obviously,” captain Anže Kopitar said. “You look at the shot clock and it was pretty evident, the same with the (offensive)-zone time, when you don’t have that, it’s hard to string shifts together and gain (any) momentum.”

The Kings were a top-10 team in the final frame during the regular season but their third-period woes persisted on Tuesday, as they slunk to a 13-5 third-period playoff deficit (plus a 1-0 hole in overtime), which is an NHL-worst in terms of both goals allowed and goal differential.

A largely miraculous 1-1 tie was broken at the 7:12 mark by a familiar face when former Kings winger Viktor Arvidsson ripped a far-side shot off an odd-man rush that gave Janmark an easy putback for the go-ahead goal. With 57.8 seconds showing on the game clock, Nugent-Hopkins heaped dirt on the Kings’ grave with an empty-netter.

Leon Draisaitl extended his playoff scoring streak to 19 games with an assist on Nugent-Hopkins’ goal, on which Connor McDavid’s helper made him the third player in NHL history with eight or more series during which he scored 10 or more points (Oilers legends Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier are the other two).

Yet the goal-scorers on Tuesday were not the marquee names but rather a pair of role players and the intermittently visible Nugent-Hopkins.

“We challenged every line to bring something tonight. There’s no line that we’re hiding,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We can have our fourth line play against the other team’s top line, we feel very confident with that. Doing that, we don’t have to worry about matchups, we can just roll our lines.”

Trailing 33-12 in shots and having accumulated a meager 16% of the first 40 minutes’ expected goals, per Natural Stat Trick, the Kings still managed to earn the first goal of the game, 3:33 into the second period. They would find themselves back in a tie game less than three minutes later, a stalemate that stood at the second intermission.

The Kings’ power play scored the first goal of the game, just as it did in Games 1 and 2, when Kopitar let fly with a shot attempt from the left point that was redirected to Pickard’s glove side by Kuzmenko.

Kuzmenko now has three goals and six points in the postseason, all coming at home. Kopitar’s assist moved him within one point of Luc Robitaille for second on the all-time Kings postseason scoring list on a night when Drew Doughty skated in his 100th career playoff game.

But a tripping penalty on Doughty gave Edmonton its second man advantage of the night, and they scored seven seconds after it expired. The Oilers swarmed the net and nearly got a goal from Zach Hyman before a shot recovery and a keep-in at the blue line kept the sequence going. It culminated in Kane sniping a far-side shot from just inside the right faceoff circle for his second goal of the series and his 14th playoff goal against the Kings in the past four postseasons (23 games).

“We wanted to play pedal-on-the-gas type hockey, and we did that from the get-go. We looked at their record here at home and how tough of a team they are at home, and knowing we have to eventually win a game here if we want to win this series,” Kane said. “We stayed in the fight and we didn’t get frustrated, even though they scored first and we were outplaying them.”

Negative momentum from the Kings’ pair of heart-wrenching losses in Edmonton carried over into an opening salvo for the Oilers that saw them hit the net 19 times to the Kings’ four. In all, the Kings were outshot 52-17 in the third period and overtime of Game 4 combined with the first period of Game 5.

The game remained scoreless thanks to Kuemper, whose highlight reel included two saves in two seconds on Adam Henrique and a lunging glove save to deny Evan Bouchard’s sterling chance off a silky setup by McDavid.

“They’re shooting from all areas. They’re trying to get the puck to the crease and they’ve got bodies there. Thankfully we’ve got (Kuemper), he’s been unbelievable for us,” said Joel Edmundson, who was on for both goals Kuemper allowed. “We’ve relied on him too much in the series, so we’ve got to block more shots, we’ve got to take care of our ‘D’ zone and limit their chances.”