Kings' 5-forward power-play unit wreaking havoc on Oilers in 1st round

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Kings have found the right combination for the power play.

Five forwards.

Kings coach Jim Hiller decided to go that unconventional route at the end of the regular season in an effort to spark a struggling power play, and it is paying huge dividends in the Western Conference First Round against the Edmonton Oilers.

The Kings scored three power-play goals in a 6-2 win in Game 2 at Crypto.Com Arena on Wednesday and are 5-for-10 with the man advantage, a big reason they lead the best-of-7 series 2-0.

Game 3 is at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Friday (10 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, TVAS2, truTV, MAX, FDSNW).

"It's a good start," Hiller said. "We scored (power-play) goals down the stretch, we scored a lot of goals I think, in the last month of the season. The power play got better since the Trade Deadline, so I would say that's a good start."

Acquiring forward Andrei Kuzmenko from the Philadelphia Flyers before the deadline on March 7 added another dimension to the power play and has been a boost to the Kings with the man advantage.

Since that day, the Kings had the best regular-season record in the NHL (17-5-0).

Kuzmenko, Anze Kopitar, Quinton Byfield, Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala make up the first unit, which is scorching Edmonton's penalty kill so far in the series.

Kuzmenko and Kopitar scored on the power play in Game 2, and defenseman Brandt Clarke added one from the second unit. Kuzmenko and Fiala had power-play goals in a 6-5 win in Game 1.

"Confidence is the main thing," said Kempe, who had two goals and two assists in Game 2. "We got [Kuzmenko] at the deadline, and he's been great since he got here. Whether it's 5-on-5, or 5-on-4, you can tell that he's a guy that's been playing that role there before, he's skilled and makes a lot of plays.

"He's been working with the puck and without the puck and he's been getting rewarded and everyone on the team is happy to have him. He's been a big factor why the power play has been a lot better too."

Last season, the Kings were 0-for-12 on the power play in losing their first-round series against the Oilers in five games.

This season, the tables have turned as Edmonton has yet to score a power-play goal in the series. Los Angeles is trying to get past Edmonton for the first time in four consecutive first-round meetings.

"I think guys are moving the puck really well and it seems like everyone is on the same page," said forward Warren Foegele, who set up Clarke on the power play for the opening goal at 8:44 of the first period. "When you're all on the same page, it's easier for everyone to do your job out there."

Perhaps the toughest part of putting five forwards on the first-unit power play may have been telling veteran defenseman Drew Doughty he would no longer man the point. The 35-year-old defenseman has been on the top unit for most of his 17 seasons in Los Angeles.

"It was hard," Hiller admitted. "Drew ran the first power play for a number of years and certainly is capable of doing that now. He was out for a little while and we went to the five forwards and had a little bit of success. We didn't want to break it up because they were rolling pretty good, and once they got rolling, we didn't want to break it up because we didn't want to change too much.

"Drew was a good soldier, he's a team-first guy so for now, he's just grabbing the reins of that second pair."

Los Angeles had the 27th ranked power play in the NHL during the regular season, converting at 17.9 percent (37-for-207).

A reason for the struggles was the absence of Doughty, who missed the first 47 games of the season with a broken ankle, sustained in a preseason game against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sept. 25.

"Yeah, I could be upset or something that I'm not on it, but they've been doing awesome, and I fully understand why we're doing it," Doughty said.

The addition of Kuzmenko gave Los Angeles a different look, one Edmonton is having difficulty containing through the first two games of the series.

In 22 games with Kuzmenko in the regular season, the Kings power play improved to 22.3 percent (16-for-67). It clicked at 33.3 percent (8-for-24) from April 8 to the end of the regular season, rolling into the postseason.

Edmonton had the best penalty-killing unit in the playoffs last season, which helped get them to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. The Oilers were hoping to try and exploit a power play devoid of a defenseman, but things have not worked out that way.

"They made a change at the end of the season and it's a good power play," Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. "There's a lot of good moving parts there and it's very difficult to check. All five of those guys bring a different element and it's exactly what we expected from them. We saw a lot of penalty kills our last regular-season games against them. We look at other games they played against other teams, but I don't think there's anything that's unexpected."

NHL independent correspondent Dan Greenspan contributed to this report