The Kings ran out to a four-goal lead then had to hold off a frantic Edmonton comeback to beat the Oilers 6-5 in a wild opener of a best-of-seven first-round playoff series at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night.
Phillip Danault scored the winner, his second goal of the game, with 41 seconds to play after the Kings led 4-0 late in the second period.
Andrei Kuzmenko, Quinton Byfield, Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala also scored for the Kings. Leon Draisaitl, Mattias Janmark, Corey Perry, Zach Hyman and Connor McDavid scored for Edmonton. Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 20 saves.
The goals from Hyman and McDavid came after Edmonton pulled its goalie in the final three minutes. McDavid’s goal, which tied it 5-5, came with 88 seconds to play. But Danault erased that less than a minute later.
The goals from Kuzmenko in the first period and from Fiala in the third came on power plays. The Oilers did not allow a power-play goal in 12 chances in last year’s playoff win over the Kings.
But it’s not so much how the Kings start as it is how they finish in their playoff series with Edmonton. The Kings won the opening game in two of their last three playoff meetings with the Oilers but went on to lose the series each time. However, all of those series started in Edmonton; this time the Kings drew first blood at home, where they won a franchise-record 31 times during the regular season.
Kuzmenko and Kempe had two assists while Byfield and Fiala had one each to go with their goals.
The Oilers, who took the Florida Panthers to a seventh game before falling in last year’s Stanley Cup Final, limped into the playoffs wounded but mounted a late comeback just the same. Draisaitl, who led the NHL with 52 goals, missed the final seven games of the regular season with a lower-body injury while McDavid, fourth in the league with 74 assists, missed nine of the final 14 games with a lower-body injury.
Together Draisaitl and McDavid combined for 206 points during the regular season but they hadn’t been on the ice together in more than a month until Monday, when McDavid assisted on the goals by Draisaitl, Perry and Hyman, then scored the tying goal.
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