The Kings officially clinched home ice advantage on Monday night when they defeated the Edmonton Oilers 5-0 in their penultimate road game. Winning their third straight game and their seventh in the last eight times out, the Kings earned their 47th win and 102nd and 103rd points on the season.
It was a watered down Oilers team compared to the one that the Kings will likely see come Game 1 of the playoffs as they were without Connor Mcdavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evander Kane, Zach Hyman, Trent Frederic, Jake Walman and Mattias Ekholm for tonight’s game. Nonetheless, you play the team in front of you and that’s exactly what the Kings did. It was an eventful game that was filled with a total of 21 penalties and 69 penalty minutes. Surprisingly, the game’s first goal came at even strength 2:55 into the game. Playing against his former team, Warren Foegele extended his career high in goals with his 23rd of the season after tucking the puck into Calvin Pickard’s net after a shot off the end boards bounced back to the goal line. The Kings then doubled their lead on the man advantage midway into the opening period when Quinton Byfield tipped in a point shot from Adrian Kempe. Setting up in the high slot with his stick ready, Kempe ripped a shot-pass right to Byfield’s blade and the redirection beat Pickard inside the glove side elbow, giving the 22-year-old a goal in his fourth straight game and 23 goals on the season. The Kings then added a third goal in the opening 20 minutes with 1:15 to go in the period. Shortly after returning to the ice from serving his minor penalty, Vladislav Gavrikov entered the offensive zone, received the puck in the slot from from Trevor Moore and ripped a shot past the glove of Pickard for his fifth goal of the season. Each team committed four penalties in the first period and after 20 minutes the Kings led 3-0 on the all-important scoreboard and 12-9 in shots.
The chaos continued in period number two. In a period where three Oilers misconduct penalties were called resulting in one ejection, the Kings added another goal. Adding their fourth goal on the power play, Kevin Fiala found the back of the net for a team-leading 15th time on the man advantage and a team-leading 35th time this season. Receiving the cross ice pass from Kempe, Fiala blasted another one-timer high on the glove side, making it 4-0. Another play that occurred in the middle period was the 10-minute game misconduct from Darnell Nurse. Moments after Byfield swiped at a loose puck on the crease, Nurse put Byfield in a headlock and brought the King not so gracefully to the ice. Nurse then grabbed the back of Byfield’s head and violently cross-checked Byfield’s face into the ice. Nurse was ejected and could very likely see a suspension that runs into the start of the first round, but it’s the status of Byfield that remains unknown. Byfield did not return to the game.
The Kings led 4-0 after 40 minutes.
Thankfully it was a much quieter third period. Going the full 20 minutes without a penalty, the Kings added one more goal. Trying to re-catch Fiala for the team-lead in goals, Kempe buried his 34th goal of the season. Mikey Anderson sprung Anze Kopitar and Kempe for a 2-on-1 on Kopitar’s stick. Kopitar cleanly moved the puck across to Kempe and the team leader in points recorded point number 71 with a one-timer. Kopitar’s helper also goes down as his team-leading 47th assist. Following Kempe’s goal at the 8:13 mark of the period, Jim Hiller pulled Darcy Kuemper for precautionary reasons and sent David Rittich in net to see some rubber. The game ended 5-0 and these two teams will meet next in Los Angeles when Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs begins.
Prior to being taken out, Kuemper stopped all 16 shots. Rittich stopped all five of the shots he saw as well.
