They say that you are not in trouble until you lose at home in a playoff series, so by that highly empirical metric, the Los Angeles Kings are in trouble.
After the heart-breaking Game 4 overtime loss in Edmonton, the confident, high-flying team from Games 1 and 2 was AWOL in Game 5 and will now face elimination on the road in Edmonton in Game 6. A daunting task for a team that has struggled mightily away from Crypto.com Arena this season.
"We couldn't really get anything going, obviously," explained Kings captain Anze Kopitar during the locker room post-game scrum. "The shot clock was pretty evident...we didn't sustain many o-zone time and you know, when you don't have that, it's hard to string shifts together..."
Right from the opening face-off, it was evident that the Oilers had a lot more jump. Perhaps the kind of juice that a team has when they feel fortunate to be in a 2-2 series when they were just 28 seconds away from a 3-1 deficit just two nights prior.
Edmonton uncorked a first period barrage of 19 shots on Veniza Trophy finalist Darcy Kuemper, who looked every bit a Vezina-caliber goalie in Game 5. The Oilers had shot mentality from the get-go and would not let up. On the night, Kuemper would post a .955 SV% while turning away 44 of 46 shots, many of those saves falling into the "spectacular' category. In fact, the only reason that the Kings found themselves going into the third period in a 1-1 tie was because of Kuemper's stellar play.
"They were stronger. They beat us in every aspect of the game, except special teams, oddly enough," admitted Kings head coach Jim Hiller during the post-game media availability. "But the goaltender was great tonight to give us a chance."
In terms of a chance to get back into this series, history is handing the Kings some tough odds. Historically speaking, teams that win Game 5 when a series is tied 2-2 go on to advance over 80% of the time.
While veterans like Kopitar, Doughty, and Lewis were all part of previous Kings teams that faced serious playoff series deficits and emerged victorious, all the momentum right now is clearly with the Oilers. In a season where so much was made about breaking playoff narratives, the Kings once again find themselves in a familiar spot: on the cusp of being eliminated by the Oilers. Again.
We will see on May 1st just how badly the Kings want to rewrite the narrative.