LOS ANGELES — Country Night backfired on the Los Angeles Kings Thursday, as the Edmonton Oilers busted their truck, stole their girl, and took the two points over the county line in an 8-1 blow out.
Edmonton two-stepped over and around the Kings at both ends of the ice, getting eight goals from seven different players while allowing just five high-danger chances all night long (per Natural Stat Trick).
“Some games you score, some games you don’t,” offered Zach Hyman, who had a goal and two assists. “But the one thing you can control is how well you defend.”
This was the first time Edmonton had surrendered one or less since a shutout on Jan. 18, 10 games ago. It’s been a bloodletting in Edmonton’s D zone of late, with 40 goals surrendered in their previous eight games.
But Connor Ingram was solid in goal — Warren Foegele’s deflection was the only of 22 Kings shots to elude him — and the Oilers defensive posture returned, particularly on a four-minute Kings power play with the score still 2-1 late in Period 1.
“The four-minute penalty, (Edmonton penalty killers) really came up big. We maybe gave up one, two shots, but really didn’t give much room or chances,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch.
His team snaps a four-game losing streak that transcended the Olympic break, and bounced back from a wasteful 6-5 loss the previous night in Anaheim. In that game, Edmonton had led 4-2 after 40 minutes, and fell apart in the final frame.
“I actually thought we played well last game, despite losing,” Hyman said. “We played better tonight, just cleaning up some of the rushes and the Grade-A’s. I don’t think we gave him too many Grade-A’s today.
“If you do that, and the goaltender makes the saves he needs to make, you’re not going to let in too many goals. Ingo played great today.”
There’s a battle brewing on the goaltending front here, with expected No. 1 Tristan Jarry still searching for his game after getting the hook against the Ducks.
Ingram (2.58 GAA, .899 save percentage) has far better numbers than Jarry (3.85, .864 save percentage), and gave the Oilers exactly what they needed after losing a game in Anaheim that even decent goaltending would have won.
Frankly, Edmonton was a few saves away from sweeping this back-to-back on the road, in which they scored 13 goals and 10 at even strength.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t get the two points (in Anaheim), but overall, I think we played pretty good six periods of hockey,” Knoblauch said. “If we are able to make a couple more defensive plays, get another save or two, we’re probably ecstatic about how we played there. But we were short a couple defensive plays and a couple of saves, we lose it, and we’re very disappointed. But overall, we played pretty well.”
Seven different Oilers scored goals on Thursday, Edmonton’s largest road win since 2009, as the Oilers benefitted from a substandard start by L.A. goalie Darcy Kuemper.
Kuemper returned from the Olympics, where he was Canada’s No. 3 goalie, only to allow a softie to Ty Emberson to open the scoring at the 7:25 mark. Less than a minute later, Vasily Podkolzin’s wrist shot somehow squeezed through Kuemper for a 2-0 deficit, and when he coughed up three more in the first 10 minutes of Period 2, head coach Jim Hiller had seen enough.
It’s funny how fast karma came around for Edmonton. The night before they were pulling Jarry — 24 hours later it was the Oilers who benefitted from some shaky netminding.
It was a much-needed ‘W’ for an Oilers team that’s now six points ahead of the flailing Kings.
“I’ve been with this team for a few years now. Things don’t usually faze them,” Knoblauch said. “When things are on the line and they need a bounce-back game, they respond really well.”
What fans remained at the final buzzer booed the Kings off the ice, and Hiller’s employment will be a topic on the local hockey shows today.
Los Angeles gave up five third-period goals the night before in a 6-4 loss to a Vegas team that sat out Mitch Marner, Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, Noah Hanifin and Shea Theodore. The Kings are in rough shape, unsure whether to be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline — after acquiring Artemi Panarin in a recent trade.
Meanwhile, Connor McDavid crested the 100-point plateau with a two-point evening. It would have been his 10th straight 100-point season, but for the 97 points he put up in the COVID-shortened, 64-game campaign in 2019-20.
It’s the fourth time in his career he’s reached 100 points in 60 games or fewer.
McDavid played 20:05 against the Kings after logging 22:02 the night before in Anaheim. So much for resting the Olympic tournament MVP.
“We haven’t afforded ourselves the luxury of having the ability to take nights off,” Hyman said. “It’s playoff hockey, pretty much from here on out, and we don’t have much of a leash to play without our best players.
“We’re fortunate that we have a guy who you don’t have to ask him to play. He loves hockey. He wants to play all the time.
“You weren’t going to be able to hold him out of that that game.”
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