Kings shut out Oilers, win 4th in row

LOS ANGELES -- Anton Forsberg made 27 saves for his third shutout of the season, and the Los Angeles Kings continued their push for a Stanley Cup Playoff spot by defeating the Edmonton Oilers 1-0 at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.

Artemi Panarin scored for the Kings (34-26-19), who have won four straight games, tying their longest winning streak of the season (Nov. 9-15). They are 5-0-1 in their past six.

“Going on this (three-game) road trip (to end the season), I don’t really remember when was the last time we had a three-game winning streak, so it definitely feels good,” said Los Angeles captain Anze Kopitar, who played his last regular-season home game and will retire at the end of the season. “But more importantly, I think the belief in this locker room has gone up and spiked, which is obviously a very good thing.”

The Kings remained one point ahead of the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Western Conference. Los Angeles has a game in hand but must finish ahead of Nashville, which would hold the regulation-wins tiebreaker (28-21).

“Right, like, from the start of the season, it’s always on us,” Forsberg said. “Now, obviously, it’s only a few games left. At the end of the day, it’s, as I said earlier, it’s our game, and we just got to play that, and then hopefully it’ll turn out the right way.”

Connor Ingram made 19 saves for the Oilers (40-30-10), who have lost three of four (1-2-1).

“We just couldn’t find a way to get one,” Edmonton center Adam Henrique said. “I thought we pushed hard throughout the entire game, had a lot of opportunities, but couldn’t find a way to get that first one.”

The Oilers would have clinched a playoff berth with one point. Edmonton can still clinch a berth Saturday if the Winnipeg Jets fail to win in regulation against the Philadelphia Flyers.

"I thought the effort was great," Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. "I thought they worked hard. We did a lot of good things. We did make some mistakes. I thought Ingram played really well. I thought we had enough scoring chances (to) get certainly more than one goal tonight, and their goalie played well and we missed some really good opportunities."

Panarin put the Kings up 1-0 at 7:34 of the first period. He stole the puck from Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard at the blue line in the defensive zone and scored on a breakaway with a wrist shot that beat Ingram to his glove side.

It was Panarin’s 26th point (nine goals, 17 assists) in 23 games since being traded from the New York Rangers on Feb. 4.

“I mean, he can make plays, and he makes two or three a night that no one else makes,” Kings interim coach D.J. Smith said. “A lot of the game was just that kind of back and forth, but they made one mistake, give The Bread Man a breakaway and he gets the winner, so we expect a lot from him to get where we want to go, but he found a way to do it here tonight.”

Cody Ceci kept Los Angeles in front by diving to knock Curtis Lazar’s shot off the goal line after it trickled past Forsberg at 10:31.

“That was early … so obviously now we’re talking about how huge that play was,” Kopitar said. “I mean, everybody, every single guy in this locker room is putting team first and the winning mentality first, and we’re trying to win games. Whether that’s 1-0 or 7-6, it doesn’t really matter. It’s about the two points for the next week, and then we’ll go from there.”

The Kings went 2-1-0 in the season series against the Oilers, who have eliminated them in the first round of the playoffs each of the past four seasons. The loss, 8-1 at home on Feb. 26, came three days before Jim Hiller was fired as coach and replaced by Smith.

“Like I said earlier, I mean, they had their top guys out there with five minutes to go, three minutes to go,” Smith said of the February game, “and I think as an athlete, you know those kinds of things, and they kind of rubbed it in, and probably made guys play harder today.”

NOTES: Forsberg is 4-0-0 with an 0.97 goals-against average and .963 save percentage in his past four starts. … The Oilers were shut out for the fourth time this season. … Edmonton forward Max Jones left with an undisclosed injury in the first period. Knoblauch did not have an update on Jones’ status.