If there were ever a moment of reckoning in the tempestuous journey that has been the Kings’ season, it would be Saturday’s matinee against the Edmonton Oilers.
The Kings are currently qualifying for the playoffs by literally the thinnest of margins, a solitary point with no tiebreakers in hand. Should they fail to reach the postseason, Saturday would mark the King of Kings Anže Kopitar’s final home game.
Yet the Kings are currently on a three-game winning streak, tied for their second longest of their campaign, and a five-game points streak.
“If you’re chasing and you rack up wins, you feel that hunger and you want to go out there and do it every night,” leading scorer Adrian Kempe said, adding that the Kings were “feeling good about their game.”
No one was feeling better about their game than Kopitar’s linemates, Kempe and trade pickup Artemi Panarin. They’ve combined for 43 points in the 18 games since the Kings sacked Jim Hiller and promoted D.J. Smith on an interim basis.
“The league is run by the big boys, and you look at the best teams in the league, they all have stars and they all have guys that make plays at big times. Right now, that line is doing it for us,” Smith said.
The Kings are a single point ahead of the Nashville Predators for the final playoff spot, but have a game in hand. Now, they’re also a mere four points behind the third-place Ducks and second-place Vegas Golden Knights in the Pacific, with a game in hand on both.
“Everybody wants to be first in the division and have the playoffs clinched already, but we’re not in that situation. It’s really tight from the first spot in our division to the last-place wild card,” Kempe said. “We have a lot of tough games, especially Edmonton on Saturday, which is going to be a great test for us. Then we go on the road for the last three that are going to be huge games for us.”
They’ll finish the year with three matches in four nights. That’ll begin in Seattle, where the Kraken just parted ways with top executive Ron Francis. It’ll continue at Vancouver, where they’ll seek to sweep the basement-confined Canucks. The Kings will wrap up in Calgary, against a playing-for-pride Flames club that has had the Kings’ number, winning five of the past six meetings behind the dominant goaltending of Dustin Wolf.
First, however, they will have to exorcise a few demons Saturday afternoon. Edmonton has eliminated the Kings from four consecutive first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series. Last year was a particularly hefty and haunting defeat, when the Kings led 2-0 but then proceeded to wither over the course of a reverse sweep, the effects of which lingered well into this season. The Oilers’ 8-1 annihilation of the Kings on Feb. 26 was also the nail in Hiller’s coffin.
Edmonton will be without Leon Draisaitl, the German megastar who hasn’t played since March 15, due to a lower-body injury. They’ll also be without the sturdy and prolific Zach Hyman (undisclosed).
Yet the Oilers have gone 7-3-1 sans Draisaitl, winning six of their past eight, including a season-long string of five wins. Dating to the game in which Draisaitl departed, Edmonton captain Connor McDavid has piled up 22 points in 12 games, including a five-point explosion against San Jose on Wednesday.
Edmonton at Kings
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: FDSN SoCal, KCAL (Ch. 9)