The chess games behind their Stanley Cup playoff games began Friday for the Kings and the Edmonton Oilers as they prepared to resume their first-round series at Crypto.com Arena.
After splitting their first two games in Edmonton, both teams made lineup changes for Game 3. The Oilers made their moves by choice, the Kings partly by choice and partly by necessity.
The Kings prevailed when Thousand Oaks native Trevor Moore, who grew up a Kings fan, scored during a power play 3 minutes, 24 seconds into overtime for a 3-2 victory and a series lead of 2-1. It was the Kings’ second sudden-death victory of the series, after winning the opener on a goal by Alex Iafallo.
The play was reviewed because it appeared that Gabe Vilardi had knocked the puck down with a high stick shortly before Moore scored, but the ruling of a goal was upheld.
Third-line center Blake Lizotte, whose grit personifies the Kings’ resilience, was ruled out of Friday’s game because of a lower-body injury, which forced coach Todd McLellan to improvise on the fly. Lizotte, who’s generously listed on the roster as 5 foot 9, took several hits from the big, physical Oilers during the first two games at Rogers Place and apparently came out the worse for wear. Forward Arthur Kaliyev, who often seemed lost and overmatched in Game 2, also came out of the lineup.
McLellan moved Vilardi into Lizotte’s spot and put Alex Iafallo and Carl Grundstrom on Vilardi’s wings. The move wasn’t a stretch for Vilardi, who played center during his junior career but was moved to the wing by the Kings. He got in some shifts at center in Game 2, in which he helped the Kings tie the score in the second.
McLellan created a fourth line of Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Rasmus Kupari, and beefy winger Zack MacEwen, with MacEwen undoubtedly added to the mix to counteract the Oilers’ relentless physicality. Edmonton outhit the Kings 50-49 in the Kings’ overtime victory in Game 1 and outhit the Kings 60-48 in winning game Game 2. The Kings again were without winger Kevin Fiala, who missed the first two games because of an undisclosed injury. McLellan said Fiala is “getting better,” but Fiala has not yet skated with the team.
McLellan wasn’t looking for anything fancy from the Anderson-Dolan-Kupari-MacEwen line.
“They have some experience, they’ve played in our system and our structure, so they have a good idea of what we want to do,” he said after the team’s morning skate in El Segundo. “They can play in straight lines, which I think is important. They can get to the blue paint and they’re both willing to do that, I think that’s important. There’s a lot that they can bring.”
Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft flipped the left wings on his top two lines, moving Evander Kane up to the first line alongside Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman and putting Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to the left of series scoring leader Leon Draisaitl and Kailer Yamamoto. Strange as it sounds, getting McDavid going had to be a factor.
McDavid won the scoring championship this season with 153 points and joined Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Phil Esposito, Steve Yzerman and Bernie Nicholls as the only NHL players who have scored 150 points or more in a season — but he recorded only three of those points at the Kings’ expense in four games against them. In the first two playoff games he was held to one assist, with Kings center Phillip Danault leading a concerted effort to deprive McDavid of time and space as much as possible.
McDavid told reporters Friday morning he looked forward to playing alongside Kane, who had 16 goals and 28 points, 53 penalty minutes and 124 hits in 41 regular-season games.
“He creates a lot of loose pucks. He creates a lot of open space. He’s someone that I really enjoy playing with,” McDavid said of Kane. “This is the time of year he really ramps up that physicality.”
Adding physicality to their plentiful finesse was a successful formula for the Oilers, who ended the regular season with nine straight wins and points in each of their last 15 games (14-0-1) and pushed past the Kings to finish second in the Pacific Division and earn home-ice advantage.
The Kings knew that to have a chance against the high-scoring Oilers on Friday they’d have to be sharper than they were in the first period in the two games at Edmonton.
“I think we had some iffy starts in both games and we’ve got to be ready to go,” winger Viktor Arvidsson said pregame.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
