Avry Lewis-McDougall looks at what went right and wrong for both teams as the resilient Los Angeles Kings once again took a Game 1 victory against the Oilers.
Did you expect anything else besides Game 1 of Edmonton and Los Angeles to be filled with drama?
Leon Draisaitl's goals, animosity galore and a Los Angeles team that refused to go away on a Monday night saw the Kings strike first with a 4-3 overtime victory to open the Western Conference quarterfinal rematch.
In a game that saw the Oilers dictate much of the pace early on, finishing off L.A. proved to be a task Edmonton just couldn't do as they dropped their sixth-straight series-opening game.
On the positive side for Edmonton, the Oilers led in high-danger chances 21-12, as well as the Corsi battle (53.85 percent to 46.15 percent) in all situations, according to naturalstattrick.com.
Defensively, Edmonton's penalty kill stood up to the task through the first two periods, killing off the first four situations it faced in Monday night's game. Mattias Ekholm's play once again showed why he was worth the price at the trade deadline, from turning aside an early wraparound chance from Kings captain Anze Kopitar to breaking up cross-ice pass attempts by the Kings in Edmonton's zone.
Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard provided the early offense to make things 2-0 only 12:31 into the game, which held through the first two frames. But the Kings eventually sparked offensively with the play of Adrian Kempe, whose two third-period goals helped keep the visitors alive.
In a season that saw Kempe step up to the plate for the Kings with a career-high 41 goals and two clutch tallies in Game 1, Kings coach Todd McLellan praised his ability to take his game to another level after the victory.
"I think Adrian unlocked Adrian," McLellan said. "It's not easy coming to the National Hockey League as a young player. Teams, coaches, and support systems all have expectations of you, and you may not be ready to deliver it right away, and it just gets harder and harder. If you stick with it and fight through it, you can become Adrian Kempe.
"I've said it before – he's a great story for our young players, but you have to break through at some point, and your lifeline doesn't last forever. He took advantage of his."
Considering Edmonton's offensive firepower, it couldn't truly lock this game down or find a fourth goal, even after Draisaitl made it 3-1 at the 8:46 mark of the third with his second of the night.
With Kempe's play but also Anze Kopitar's tying goal on a 6-on-4 situation with fewer than 20 seconds left in regulation, it showed the Kings will not be an easy out in this series.
The Oilers looked like they escaped with a win after Derek Ryan deflected the puck past Joonas Korpisalo, but it was ruled a clear high stick upon review.
As good as the Oilers' penalty kill was for much of this one, Alex Iafallo broke through with the game-winner in the extra frame after Vincent Desharnais was called for a tripping penalty on Blake Lizotte. It didn't sit very well with the home fans when it appeared that Lizotte may have tripped on a broken stick.
Correct call or not, for Edmonton, the big thing post-game from Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft was his team learning from this loss and figuring out how to close out games going forward in this series.
"We know we can handle certain situations better than we did tonight, specifically in the third period," Woodcroft said. "We did a lot of good in order to get the lead, but in the end, we're disappointed in how we locked it down.
"That said, it's one game. We feel it's going to be a long series between two teams – a 109-point team and a 104-point team. Both teams are going to have their moments."
Game 2 goes down on Wednesday night at Rogers Place at 10 p.m. ET before shifting to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4.