The Edmonton Oilers won’t get home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
On Monday evening, the Edmonton Condors took on the Los Angeles Kings, falling 5-0 to their soon-to-be-first-round-playoff-opponent and officially finishing third in the Pacific Division. Let’s take a look at what happened in this game.
About three minutes into the game, shortly after the Oilers’ first of many penalties ended, a shot from the point took a wild bounce off the boards and landed on Warren Foegele’s stick beside the net, allowing the former Oilers to just tap it in like Rory McIlroy for the 1-0 lead.
Midway through the first period and on another power play, Adrian Kempe took a shot from the point, and Quinton Byfield deflected it past Calvin Pickard for the 2-0 lead. The Kings added a third late in the first period, as the Oilers struggled to defend the rush, and the trailing Vladislav Gavrikov ripped it past Pickard.
About eight minutes into the second period, the Kings were yet again on a power play, and Kevin Fiala one-timed it past Pickard for the 4-0 lead. At this point, the game was well out of reach, but the Kings added a fifth in the third period.
With just under 12 minutes left in the third period, the Kings had a two-on-one, with Anže Kopitar feathering it over to Adrian Kempe, who put it past Pickard for a much-needed insurance goal.
Takeaways…
The referees had a game tonight. Were they the reason the Oilers lost? Absolutely not, but the Kings had eight power plays while the Oilers had six power plays. This was not even close to a playoff whistle.
One of those penalties was a five-minute major and a game misconduct given to Darnell Nurse during a five-on-three. After Quinton Byfield took an extra poke or two on Calvin Pickard, Nurse took him down and cross-checked him in the head. It was certainly worthy of a five and a game, and it won’t be surprising if Nurse receives a suspension.
In total, the two teams combined for 69 penalty minutes, 53 of which were given to the Oilers. It’s worth noting that 20 of those minutes were because both Corey Perry and Vasily Podkolzin received 10-minute misconducts. Hilariously, no penalties were given in the third period.
Quinn Hutson made his National Hockey League debut. He wasn’t really noticeable because of all the penalty kills, but he finished the game with 14:34 ice time and two giveaways. Hopefully, things go better for him on Wednesday against the San Jose Sharks.
A loss was expected from the Oilers given they missed a large handful of their regulars, including Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Mattias Ekholm and others. That didn’t stop the Prime broadcast from making it seem like this game mattered at all.
The Oilers have one more game this regular season, heading to San Jose to face the Sharks at 8:30 PM MT on Wednesday. Who knows who’ll be in the lineup for that one, but it’d be nice if the team rested up ahead of this weekend’s playoff opener.
