Kings recover late, top Oilers in Game 1 of West 1st Round after blowing 4-goal lead

LOS ANGELES -- Phillip Danault scored his second goal of the game with 42 seconds remaining in the third period, and the Los Angeles Kings recovered after blowing a four-goal lead to win 6-5 against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round at Crypto.com Arena on Monday.

Danault flubbed a wrist shot from the high slot on a rush but the puck fluttered over the right shoulder of Stuart Skinner.

“I got all of it,” Danault joked.

His goal came just 46 seconds after Connor McDavid tied it 5-5 at 18:32. Skating in on a rush, he beat Darcy Kuemper with a shot off the left post from the right circle with Skinner on the bench for an extra attacker.

“Big up and big down and up again, so that’s playoff (hockey) though," Danault said. "... It’s hard to play a game like this mentally, but like I said, we have to learn from this. It didn’t feel like a loss, but like, it hurt. It got us a little bit. So for us, we have to play even better next game, and we have to play 60 minutes.”

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series will be here on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; FDSNW, MAX, TBS, SN, TVAS, CBC).

Andrei Kuzmenko and Adrian Kempe each had a goal and two assists, Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala each had a goal and an assist, and Kuemper made 20 saves for the Kings, who are the No. 2 seed from the Pacific Division.

“I don’t think we took the foot off the gas,” Los Angeles captain Anze Kopitar said. "That’s a high offensive power team over there, and when you give them a sniff, they’ll take it. And they certainly did.”

McDavid had a goal and three assists for the Oilers, who are the No. 3 seed from the Pacific. Leon Draisaitl and Corey Perry each had a goal and an assist, and Skinner made 24 saves.

“From our group in here, the pushback was fantastic and expected,” Edmonton forward Adam Henrique said. “It’s tough, obviously, giving up the one right after tying it up.”

Kuzmenko put the Kings ahead 1-0 at 2:49 of the first period, tapping in Fiala’s backdoor pass at the left post on a power play.

Byfield made it 2-0 at 19:27 of the first. He gloved down the rebound of Drew Doughty’s shot along the goal line and quickly banked the puck in off Skinner, who was slow to recover in defending his right post.

Kempe pushed it to 3-0 at 14:47 of the second period when he slid a backhand past the sprawling glove of Skinner.

Danault made it 4-0 at 17:43. Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard blindly sent a backhand pass from behind his net into the middle of the ice, where Byfield tapped it to Danault for a wrist shot past Skinner's glove.

“I saw Evan give us an excellent opportunity to win tonight, made a lot of nice plays,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said of Bouchard, who had three assists and a plus-1 rating in a game-high 28:20 of ice time. “Was his game perfect? I’m not sure anybody’s game was perfect tonight.”

Draisaitl cut it to 4-1 at 19:54 of the second, scoring on a one-timer from the right circle after McDavid was able to outmuscle Kopitar and make a cross-slot pass.

Mattias Janmark got the Oilers to within 4-2 at 2:19 of the third period, tucking a shot from just outside the crease five-hole on Kuemper.

Fiala responded for the Kings with a one-timer from the top of the right circle during a 5-on-3 power play to make it 5-2 at 4:59.

“It started well," Fiala said. "... Obviously, they have good players, they came back. You know, most important thing is the win."

Perry cut it to 5-3 at 7:43. He jammed in a shot from the top of the crease after McDavid fought through Vladislav Gavrikov along the right goal line to make a centering pass.

Zach Hyman then made it 5-4 at 17:56, stuffing in another shot from the top of the crease with Skinner on the bench for an extra attacker.

“Now, every single shift, every play matters,” Henrique said. “Even when you’re down and something happens, you know it all matters because you push right to the end, and we showed that coming back and sticking with it and tying it up late. We gave ourselves a chance.”

NOTES: Oilers forward Jeff Skinner had an assist in 11:12 of ice time in his first Stanley Cup Playoff game. The 32-year-old forward, who is in his 15th season, has played in 1,078 regular-season games, the most in NHL history prior to appearing in a playoff game. ... The Kings were 2-for-5 on the power play. The Oilers were 0-for-2.