LOS ANGELES — A pair of three-goal onslaughts powered the Kings past the Edmonton Oilers, 6-2, on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena, where the hosts took a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven, first-round playoff series.

The Kings have lost just twice all season, and never in regulation, when scoring three goals or more, and they’ve won 33 of 43 games on home ice, including both in the playoffs.

“We’ve been a really strong home team this year. We got the home-ice advantage. Going into the series, that was our mentality, that we’d build off what we’d done all year at home,” said Adrian Kempe, who asserted himself with two goals and two assists. “Tonight we came out and played a really solid 60 minutes, and I think we were the better team throughout both games.”

The Kings have turned the special-teams angle 180 degrees, now amassing five power-play goals and allowing none through two games after allowing nine power-play goals and two more right after penalties while scoring none in last year’s five-game loss.

The series shifts to Edmonton for Game 3 on Friday night and Game 4 on Sunday night.

“It feels good. That was what we were looking to do. We played two really solid games at home,” Kempe said. “The job’s not done, we’ve got to go up there and win at least one game, otherwise it’s going to be tough to win the series.”

Captain Anže Kopitar matched Kempe’s point total with a goal and three assists, and their other linemate, Andrei Kuzmenko had a goal and an assist to make both his first two playoff appearances multipoint efforts. Quinton Byfield and Brandt Clarke each lit the lamp, while Warren Foegele chipped in two assists. Darcy Kuemper made 24 saves.

Leon Draisaitl and Viktor Arvidsson tallied for Edmonton. Stuart Skinner wobbled again, stopping 23 of 28 shots before the Oilers summoned Calvin Pickard from the bench.

Kempe now has 14 goals and 26 points in 20 career playoff games, all of which came against Edmonton, which bounced the Kings from each of the past three postseasons. He leads all NHL postseason scorers with three goals and seven points.

After the Kings took a 3-0 lead for the second straight game, they also faced a similar impasse as in Game 1. There, they retroceded a four-goal advantage and needed a last-minute, tie-breaking goal by Phillip Danault to win. Wednesday, they saw their three-goal margin diminish to one, but Kempe scored a goal, notched another and set up Kopitar in between to leave the Oilers in his dust.

“We’d been here before, two days ago it was kind of the same thing,” said Clarke, who got the ball rolling with a power-play goal, his first career playoff point. “We knew they weren’t going to go away, we knew they had some of the best players in the world and we knew they were going to fight tooth-and-nail to the end, so we were going to do the same thing.”

A late goal in the second period begat an early one in the third for Edmonton once again on Wednesday, this one by the former King Arvidsson. “The Little Viking” contributed a huge marker as he battled hard in front to expertly tip Brett Kulak’s shot skyward at the 4:05 mark.

From there, the Kings outright owned Edmonton, ensuring there’d be no late-game heroics like the ones from Connor McDavid and chums on Monday. McDavid, who had three primary assists and the tying goal before the Kings prevailed 6-5 in Game 1, was held scoreless Wednesday and looked on as Kempe established himself as the man of the match.

Arvidsson’s giveaway – he fanned on a pass deep in his own zone and had his pocket picked by Kopitar – led directly to Kempe’s goal 2:41 after Arvidsson scored. Kopitar found Kempe zooming past the right faceoff dot for a far-side snipe, after which Kempe calmly skated to the corner, sans celebration.

They tacked on another goal, their third on the power play, with 10:53 left in the contest. Kempe hit Fiala, whose seam pass got by Kuzmenko at the netfront, but sailed on to Kopitar for a backdoor redirect that sealed Edmonton’s fate.

For good measure, Kempe scored again, this time off the rush, 2:02 later by way of a shot that entered and exited the net instantaneously. It was a cold welcome to the game for Pickard after he had just come on to relieve Skinner.

The Kings stretched their lead to three goals with tallies 4:14 and 10:37 into the second period before handing one back at 13:54 to lug a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.

Draisaitl broke up Kuemper’s shutout, as he did in Game 1, after he found quiet ice during a puck battle that ultimately got the puck to John Klingberg. Klingberg, who was unavailable for Game 1, spotted Draisaitl cutting to the net and lofted a shot that he tipped past Kuemper. It was Draisaitl’s 19th goal in 20 postseason games against the Kings, cutting the score to 3-1 in favor of the black and silver.

Draisaitl was blunt but nondescript in assessing the Oilers’ special-teams underperformance and defensive woes after they allowed 12 goals in two games, including five while shorthanded.

“They’re just winning that battle right now. They’re beating us in that department. We’ve got to fix some things and be better,” Draisaitl said.

He added: “Way too many [goals]. We’re just a little slow right now, and again, it’s something we have to fix.”

To make it 3-0, the Kings had struck for a second time with the extra man, with both goals going to the player who drew the penalty.

In this case, it was Kuzmenko, producing his second man-advantage marker in as many games. Kempe’s one-timer banked off the end boards and right to Kuzmenko, who popped in the putback.  He had drawn a hooking call against Trent Frederic to earn the opportunity.

Before that, Byfield scored the second goal of the game for the second consecutive contest. While Draisaitl got into a shoving match with Vladislav Gavrikov at the right-wing boards high in the zone, Byfield darted in to outnumber Evan Bouchard at the net before he feathered the puck past Skinner.

Through 20 minutes, the Kings were out-shot 11-6 but still led 1-0, again winning the once-elusive special-teams battle.

They killed two first-period penalties – the first of which in large part due to a deft pad save by Kuemper on Zach Hyman’s point-blank bid and Gavrikov’s swift clearing of the rebound – and scored on their only power-play chance, 8:44 after puck-drop.

Clarke drew the penalty, a cross-check on Evander Kane, who played for the first time all season Wednesday, and scored the goal with time winding down on Kane’s infraction. Clarke joined the rush and drove the net, where Foegele found him for a redirection thanks in part to a poorly executed sliding block attempt by Nurse, one of two he had in the period.

“We’ve executed better. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re up two games to zero and we’re really happy with where we’re at,” Clarke said. “We know they’re really strong, they’re going to make adjustments, they’re going to come out firing and they’re going to be excited to play in front of their home fans. We’ve done a good job of holding it down at home and we’re really confident with where we’re at, but we’ve still got to execute.”

Related Articles