The Edmonton Oilers beat the Los Angeles Kings 6-4 in Game 6 on their home ice at Rogers Place and stole the first-round playoffs seven game series 4-2. After being down 0-2 to start the series, the Oilers found a way to climb out of a hole and win four games in a row, an unbelievable accomplishment.
When the Kings gave up home-ice advantage by losing Game 5 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, the odds were stacked against them. Historically, teams that win Game 5 when a series is tied 2-2, go on to advance over 80% of the time. And that’s exactly what the Oilers did. They took advantage of the momentum switch and now have beaten the Kings four seasons in a row in the first round.
The Kings held the best record at home during the regular season, but faced more of a struggle on the road, and struggle they did during all three road games in Edmonton. The third period was especially a curse for the Kings during the losses. Instead of amping themselves up, they took their collective foot off of the pedal and the Oilers kept pushing ahead.
What makes the loss even more frustrating is that this was supposed to be the best Kings team that the Oilers have faced the last four meetings in the first round. What gave the Kings the spark they needed was acquiring forward Andrei Kuzmenko at the March 7th trade deadline from the Philadelphia Flyers. He really helped to ignite the spark into a flame in the remaining 22 games of the regular season. In the first round, Kuzmenko had three goals, three assists for six points in six games played, but it wasn’t enough to beat their mighty foes, the Oilers.
The Oilers dynamic duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl typically get all the attention, and rightly so, but it was the outstanding performance of their goalie Calvin Pickard that made the difference. He was given the nod after Stuart Skinner’s poor performance in the first two games of the series, and he helped the Oilers win the next four games.
Oilers head coach Kris Knoubloch rolled the dice with Pickard and ended up breathing life into his team. Pickard went 4-0 with a 2.93 goals against average (GAA), and a .893 save percentage (SV%). Kings goalie, the Veniza-nominated Darcy Kuemper, the backbone of the team, also had a stellar series and played his best during a losing cause. Kuemper went 2-4 with a 3.74 GAA, and a .889 SV%.
After Game 6, Kings coach Jim Hiller spoke about their poor performance and if this series was a missed opportunity. “100 percent. It’s a missed opportunity,” Hiller said. “It’s very clear. Yeah, it’s a missed opportunity for us. Especially we had a great buy-in from our players. We believe we could have won the series. We believe we should have won the series. We didn’t.”
The Oilers are experts at how to execute and come back when they are at a deficit. These past four first round meetings gave them the experience they needed to know how to win and what it takes to develop a never-count-us-out attitude.
In the Game 6 post-game press conference, Oilers captain Conner McDavid (11 points in the series) spoke about the win. “We got offense from all over the lineup today, it’s great,” McDavid said. “You need that, you need different guys stepping up. I thought Brown (Connor Brown) had the best game as an Oiler (a goal and two assists). He was fantastic. Pickard, obviously…you go down the list, we had guys step up. We found a way tonight and that’s what good teams do.”
McDavid then elaborated about what it took to win the series.
“We just willed it out,” McDavid said. “Two of the gutsier wins that I’ve been a part of here in Edmonton, for Games 3 and 4. Just not being denied. It’s a credit to everybody in this room, we dug ourselves out of tough, tough spots against a stingy, stingy team. We obviously want to have a better start next series and will focus on that and be ready to go, but we should be proud of this one. L.A. is a great team. It’s not easy to beat a team four years straight. It was a fun series to be part of, fun to come out on the good side.”
The Oilers punched their ticket through to the second round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs where their next opponent will be the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas eliminated the Minnesota Wild 4-2 in the first round. And now that the Kings season is officially over, they will go back to the drawing board and see what changes need to be made to get it right next season.