Improved Kings present tough challenge for Oilers
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Heading into the 2024-25 season, the Edmonton Oilers were a consensus favourite to contend for the Stanley Cup. Oddsmakers gave the Oilers the shortest odds to win it all this time around after falling just short against the Florida Panthers a season ago.
The top of the Oilers lineup — starting with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — has always been of championship quality; denying this two-headed monster over a seven-game series has proven extraordinarily difficult for any Western Conference foe. But performance gains from the rest of the lineup, coupled with decent goaltending, solidified the team as one of the league’s best last season.
Fast forward 10 months and there are as many questions as answers about this Oilers team. The dynamic offence is still there, but Edmonton by and large floated through the regular season, finishing third in the Pacific Division.
The goaltending has been underwhelming, injuries have mounted, and now the Oilers are staring down the barrel of a potential Western Conference gauntlet — road matchups against the Los Angeles Kings, Vegas Golden Knights, and a superpower from the Central Division likely await.
Oddsmakers still like Edmonton to advance past Los Angeles in round one, even as the road team. But from a head-to-head standpoint, these two teams are extremely close in capabilities, and discounting Jim Hiller’s team would be foolish in light of what they’ve accomplished this year:
It’s difficult for me to believe the Kings have the weaponry to slow down McDavid and Draisaitl over a lengthy series. But we are talking about a Kings team that has dominated — and I do not use that word lightly — teams at even strength this season, and much of it is because they have been such a tough nut to crack defensively.
Only two teams this season finished the regular season conceding fewer than two goals per 60 minutes at evens this year: the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets (1.80) and the Kings (1.97).
Much of L.A.’s defensive success stems from the way they insulate Darcy Kuemper in net – shots from the low slot and between the circles have been impossible to find (via HockeyViz) because their five-man units are incredible at forcing turnovers and pushing attacking sequences to the perimeter:
Los Angeles is going to try and muddy this series up as much as possible; they’ll forecheck the Oilers blueline aggressively, and will throttle the neutral zone like few other teams can.
We saw the Kings attempt this during their regular season games and they had reasonable success doing so. Los Angeles held a 3-1-0 head-to-head record against Edmonton this year, outscoring them 12-4 (+8) in the process. Two of these games came later in the year where the banged up Oilers lineup was in survival mode, but it shouldn’t be lost on anyone how much difficulty Edmonton had generating offence.
Because of the injuries it’s hard to know precisely what Los Angeles will do from a matchup perspective, but in the games where the top of the Oilers lineup was healthy, the big guns saw heavier minutes against defencemen Mikey Anderson and Vladislav Gavrikov, and less so that of the Drew Doughty pairing.
I find this to be one of the more interesting wrinkles heading into the series, because McDavid has made a career out of torturing the Doughty pairing, and notably has had less success against all other regular Los Angeles’ defenders:
Whatever the matchup approach Hiller chooses, the Kings know they have two critical boxes to check if they want to advance: containing McDavid and generating regular pressure on Oilers goaltenders. Last year’s five-game trouncing at the hands of the Oilers started and ended with McDavid running roughshod on Doughty and company, with 12 points to show for it.
I don’t envision the Kings going as quietly into the night this time around. They’re an improved team and the taste of last year’s beating surely still resonates.
I’m still riding with the Oilers into the second round, but this is not the layup it appeared to be just a season ago, and Kris Knoblauch’s team would be wise to not take this edition of the Kings lightly.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference