The third time may not be the attraction for the Los Angeles Kings.
Zach Hyman scored a hat trick and the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Kings 7-Four in Sport 1 of the primary spherical at Rogers Place on Monday night time.
Connor McDavid didn't rating however had a game-high 5 assists within the win.
“I believed we obtained off to a superb begin, I believed we had been good within the first interval, we labored our solution to a 2-Zero lead and I believed we confirmed good vitality and performed rather well within the first interval” , McDavid mentioned.
Adam Henrique, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl and Warren Foegele additionally scored and Evan Bouchard had 4 assists for the Oilers, who had misplaced the primary sport of their final seven playoff sequence and had not gained the primary sport of a house sequence. ice since 1990.
“I believed it was a terrific general efficiency,” Bouchard mentioned. “We obtained on them early like we needed to. They pushed however we fought again and it went in our favor. … Anytime you will get on a streak, it's all the time a superb feeling, particularly the best way we did it.”
Monday's opener marked the third straight assembly between the 2 groups within the playoffs.
Edmonton is 21-Three all-time when taking a 1-Zero lead in a best-of-seven sequence.
Mikey Anderson, Adrian Kempe, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Trevor Moore scored for the Kings, who had been eradicated within the opening spherical by the Oilers in every of the earlier two seasons. Cam Talbot had 38 saves for Los Angeles, and Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner completed with 33 saves.
“This isn’t our mannequin. That's not how we play. It's irritating,” Kings veteran defenseman Drew Doughty mentioned. “We've simply obtained to place that sport previously and get again to doing what we do finest and that's play some two-way hockey.
“We’re 1-Zero down however we are able to simply win and make it 1-1 within the subsequent sport. Now we have to place all the things behind us and study from what we did improper and repair what we did improper and produce it into the subsequent sport.”
Hyman, who rang in a shot off the submit minutes earlier, began the scoring at 6:52 of the primary interval. McDavid turned a defender after which despatched a backhand go in entrance of Hyman, who beat Talbot. Hyman had 54 targets within the common season.
Edmonton made it 2-Zero lower than three minutes later when Henrique, who was picked up on the commerce deadline from Anaheim, fired an ideal wrist shot up excessive for his first objective in his first postseason look in six years. Henrique set a Stanley Cup playoff report for longest objective hole, along with his final objective coming Four,333 days earlier in Sport 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals in opposition to the New Jersey Devils.
McDavid continued to work his magic at Four:50 of the second interval as he got here out from behind the online once more and despatched one other good backhand go in entrance of Hyman for his second of the night time. The objective got here on the heels of the Kings' finest probability as much as that time, when Viktor Arvidsson was stopped on a breakaway by Skinner.
Edmonton added one other objective on the ability play eight:24 into the second interval as Draisaitl discovered Nugent-Hopkins on the again door to make it Four-Zero.
The Kings lastly obtained on the board with 9:04 to play within the second interval as Anderson despatched a protracted shot via visitors previous Skinner for his first profession playoff objective.
Los Angeles regarded to have struck once more lower than two minutes later, however a video evaluation indicated a shot went off Trevor Lewis' glove and into the online.
The Kings scored with 2:04 to play within the center interval when Kempe despatched a shot on web that deflected off defender Bouchard and into the Oilers web to make it Four-2.
Draisaitl scored from a tricky angle on an influence play at 1:08 of the third.
The Oilers scored a 3rd power-play objective at 6:17 of the third interval as Hyman took place on the fringe of the online and allowed McDavid to get it off his stick to finish the hat trick.
Oil followers littered the ice with 1,131 hats.
“It's good for the Oilers Retailer,” mentioned a laughing Hyman, who had 4 hat tips on the season. “It's loopy. I've by no means seen so many hats. It's fairly particular to do it right here in entrance of the followers.”
Dubois and Moore scored late to make it 6-Four earlier than Foegele had an empty netter to seal the win.
Anze Kopitar performed in his 93rd profession playoff sport, passing Dustin Brown, Dave Taylor and Jonathan Fast for second most in Kings franchise historical past. He’s one sport again of all-time playoff chief Luc Robitaille.
Sport 2 of the best-of-seven sequence takes place Wednesday night time in Edmonton.