The Los Angeles Kings thought they had solved their penalty-killing woes this season and it felt like that could be a difference-maker in round one against the Edmonton Oilers.
Looking back at the last two series against the Oilers, special teams have been the Achilles Heel of the Kings.
In 2021-22, they went 12.5% on the man advantage and 63.2% on the penalty kill. In 2022-23 their power play improved drastically, going 33.3% but their penalty kill was hopeless at 43.8%.
After finishing the regular season with the second-best penalty kill and a top-11 power play, it felt like they might finally match the Oilers in the special teams battle.
Instead, their penalty kill and power play have completely fallen off a cliff.
They've gone 0-10 on the power play through three games and 7-14 on the penalty kill. That gives them the playoffs worst power-play and the third-worst penalty kill.
You simply will not win a playoff series posting these numbers. Even if the Kings were dominant at 5-on-5, and they haven't been holding just a slight edge, these results on special teams are too much to overcome.
Not only is a seven-goal swing devastating, but the loss of momentum when you continually fail on the power play is deflating for the team.
The Kings switched their penalty kill this season to a diamond formation, which brought a lot of success in the regular season but seems to have been figured out by the Oilers.
The ability for Connor McDavid, who's registered a point on each of Edmonton's seven power-play goals, to isolate Kings penalty killers has been a problem.
Having just one defender in front to defend Zach Hyman has also been a big problem for the Kings.
Of course, we've seen the Kings deal with Edmonton's power play in the regular season, so some of it is simply an execution problem.
The power play has looked terrible on the other side of the ice. It's been indecisive, slow-moving and lacked clean passing all series.
It looks like the Kings power-play of two seasons ago that finished 27th in the league. With no confidence and seemingly no plan.
It's difficult enough to win a series when one of your units isn't clicking, but when it's both units, winning a series is almost impossible.
Matt Roy had a simple answer when asked about the team's struggles on the penalty kill.
"They're just finding the seams, finding the holes," said Roy. "They're a good power play, that's all."
We all knew about their power play, but their penalty kill has been just as good, a point Zach Hyman made clear after Game Three.
"I think we're just going out and executing," said Hyman about the team's ability to solve the second-best penalty kill during the regular season. "We don't worry about what the other team's doing. We've had a lot of success, we've played together for a long time and it's not about how many goals you score, but when you score them. We talk about that a lot and it was obviously big tonight. I think everyone's going to talk about the power play but the penalty kill's been the story of this series for me. It's been absolutely phenomenal in just keeping everything at bay, keeping momentum on our side, I just can't talk enough about how good that's been. Our power plays been good for a long time, but the penalty kill has really been elevated I'd say."
If the Kings can't figure out their special teams, this series will be another disappointing one for the franchise and might be another step back for them. Going from losing in seven, to six and potentially now five games if they can't get at least one of their units going.