LOS ANGELES — Phillip Danault scored his second goal with 41 seconds to play, and the Kings blew a four-goal lead before rallying for a 6-5 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in the opener of the teams’ fourth consecutive first-round playoff series on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The Kings led 5-3 in the final minutes before Zach Hyman and Connor McDavid tied it with an extra attacker. The Kings improbably responded, with Danault skating up the middle and chunking a fluttering shot home while a leaping Warren Foegele screened goalie Stuart Skinner.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
They led the game 4-0 through 39:55 of the match, delivering a solid punch to the mouth of the team that has knocked them out in each of the past three seasons. The Kings even dominated the special-teams battle, scoring twice with the extra man and allowing nothing shorthanded, but they had to fend off a late rally of five goals in 20:05, including two in a 36-second span, from Edmonton.
Danault’s second goal proved to be the game-winner. Andrei Kuzmenko and Adrian Kempe had matching totals of a goal and two assists. Kevin Fiala and Quinton Byfield each scored and added a helper. Darcy Kuemper stopped 20 shots in his first playoff start since raising the Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2022.
Edmonton captain McDavid had a goal and three primary assists. Leon Draisaitl and Corey Perry had a goal and an assist apiece. Mattias Janmark tallied and Evan Bouchard had three helpers. Stuart Skinner made 24 saves.
The Kings, who have home-ice advantage for the first time in these four straight series against the Oilers, struck twice in each of the first two periods and wrangled complete control of the game from Edmonton in the second, relenting only with five seconds left.
It only took 2:49 of this year’s series for the Kings to score more power-play goals than they did in all five playoff games last season. Fittingly, it was Kuzmenko, the trade deadline bargain who has become an offensive catalyst. The Kings’ five-forward unit overwhelmed the Oilers to the point that Fiala’s seam pass could have been tipped past Skinner by Byfield almost as easily as it was by Kuzmenko at the back post.
Byfield made it 2-0 when he knocked Drew Doughty’s shot out of the air with his glove and shoveled it toward the net, where it banked home off of Skinner’s back with 33 seconds left.
The Kings’ shot suppression game, fueled by Vladislav Gavrikov but moved forward by practically every skater, took hold late in the first period, carrying into the second, when they struck twice more.
At the 14:47 mark, Bouchard’s Teddy Ruxpin-soft clearing attempt was gobbled up by Kempe, who nearly scored unassisted. Instead, he had to await a recovery and Kuzmenko’s feed for a goal that sent the Swede skipping across the ice with his tongue out like Michael Jordan.
Bouchard served up another pizza, this time to Byfield in the slot. He slid the puck a few inches to Danault, whose wrist shot made it 4-0. Byfield and Fiala had applied forecheck pressure to key the sequence.
The Oilers went 16 minutes with a shot on goal and had just 10 through 40 minutes, but their 10th got them on the board with 4.7 seconds showing on the second-period clock. McDavid pivoted hard off of Anže Kopitar to force an abrupt defensive rotation, opening up Draisaitl for a one-timer from the right circle. McDavid and Draisaitl now have 74 points in 19 playoff games against the Kings over four postseasons.
Edmonton got another goal off Janmark’s crease-crashing effort 2:19 into the third period.
After Hyman illegally checked Brandt Clarke in the head and Jake Walman cross-checked Danault in the face, the Kings had a two-man advantage and their second power-play goal of the night. It was Kempe serving up Fiala’s one-timer from high in the right circle. Kempe and Kuzmenko, who had the secondary assist, both earned their third points of the night.
That goal proved even more critical when McDavid made another play off a powerful turn, this time shaking Gavrikov and sliding the puck across for Perry’s redirection at 7:43.
Edmonton soon found itself facing another two-man disadvantage, this time for a full two minutes after Walman shot the puck out of play and the Oilers lost a subsequent challenge. Though the Kings sustained pressure for 90 seconds, they did not extend their edge.
McDavid made things even more interesting when he weaved into the slot and slipped the puck past a prone Doughty to Hyman to make it 5-4 with 2:04 left.
Then McDavid did it himself, driving the net and knifing the puck past Kuemper to tie the score with 1:28 left.
With overtime looming, a Kings counterattack initiated by Gavrikov and Trevor Moore found a trailing Danault for a clean look at the net with 41.1 seconds left won the game.
More to come on this story.
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