Are kings about to make noise in the playoffs? – Orange County Register

Los Angeles – So who is the most bitter rival of Kings now? Is it the Ducks, the district irritant who is again out of the image of the playoffs? Or is it the Edmonton Oilers, who knocked out in the first round with three consecutive sources?

Well, consider: the Oilers, the stars injured by Minus, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and goalkeeper No. 1 Stuart Skinner, were in downtown Los Angeles for a Saturday morning, and at the start of the match n ° 90 in Edmonton Blue and White was the first time he touched the washer.

It was Corey Perry.

Oh, too bad. There is a long story there, encompassing both the Ducks and the Oilers – as well as Dallas, Montreal, Tampa Bay and Chicago, the other perry career stops.

That said, Kings-Oillers games are always significant, even when a part is not at full power. On Saturday, the Kings took advantage of the difficult situation of the Oilers with a 3-0 victory which included the 30th goal of the season of Kevin Fiala. This placed them four points ahead of Edmonton with five regular season games to play.

“The guys from this room, in their room, I am almost sure they would have liked anything more to enter this building and beat us without the players that they do not have at the moment,” said Kings coach Jim Hiller.

The teams divided their first two meetings, the Kings losing regulation in Edmonton and the oilers in extension in the center of the earliest this season. Edmonton is now 0-1-1 here, but the Oilers are not alone. The Kings are 29-4-4 at home, the best in the league, and I think it is prudent to assume that the opportunity to play at least their first series at home is vital after giving the ice at home to the oilers in the last three seasons and short each time.

“Listen, there will be moments in the playoffs where you can also win on the road,” said Captain Anze Kopitar. “We have confidence in his team … Yeah, (home ice cream) is there for taking, of course. But we are going to play by match and build our game. ”

The last meeting of the Kings regular season with the Oilers will be a week from Monday in Edmonton, and this could determine who has ice cream at home in a Kings-Oilelers series … or, in sight, it could determine if the Kings can catch the Vegas Golden Knights for the Division title and a Wild Card opponent in the first round.

Reality, apart from the figures: this could be a sneaky and sneaky dangerous team in playoffs, and assume that the worst after the last two unsatisfactory springs could be an error.

On the one hand, the acquisition of mid-season Andrei Kuzmenko could help save the reputation of general manager Rob Blake as a framework. Kuzmenko, acquired from the Philadelphia flyers on March 7 as part of an agreement which also included an exchange of draft choice, scored its 11th goal of the season on Saturday, has five goals and six assists in 11 games with the Kings and well adapted Kopitar and Adrian Kempe on line n ° 1.

“He is obviously a guy of great competence,” said Kopitar. “His offensive zone game is very impressive, how he creates things when you don’t necessarily think he can create. And he climbs on the match sheet. So it’s really good for (his) confidence.

“When you are exchanged and you arrive at a new team, I’m sure he was a little hesitant at the beginning. But it’s on me and Juice (Kempe) to put it at ease above all and then advance chemistry. And right now, it seems that we did it.”

While Kuzmenko has reinforced the upper line, Kevin Fiala – playing on a line on Saturday with Quinton Byfield and Alex Laferriere – scored his 30th goal of the season, hitting in a rebound in Laferriere’s shot to put the edge in the second period. But he also praised Hiller for his recent attention to other details of the game, some of which tended to let slide sometimes.

“This season has probably aged him and I, to be honest with you,” said Hiller. “I think it’s aged, but it has aged us both in the right direction. He plays his best. Or I’m going to say during the last week he played as well as I saw him play. So we have a long way to go.

“But if you have noticed it, checking back, lifting sticks, control cure. He followed someone the other evening and stole the washer. … There is just a consistency in other areas of the game we wanted. And I am thinking at the moment, during the last week (at) at least ten days, he gives us exactly what we want.

Meanwhile, hot guards tend to take over when the playoffs start. When the Kings won Stanley cuts, Jonathan Quick was as good as anyone in hockey in the net. And although it can be blasphemous to order Darcy Kuemper as the man for the moment, consider: it is 28-10-7 with an average of goals at 2.02 and a saving percentage of 0.921. He is 10-2-1 in his last 13 departures, with only 15 authorized goals, and Saturday was his fifth bleaching this year and the 36 of his career.

And he has a 12-4-4 life against Edmonton if there is.

There are therefore good reasons why the vibrations in the Kings room are quite good at this stage because they have won four in a row and have been 13-3-0 since March 18.

“I mean, it’s a confident group,” said Kopitar. “We played quite well. You know, some nights, you know, not necessarily the biggest hockey but always does it. ”

Maybe this year, they will end their sequence. The latest series of the playoffs that this franchise won ended on June 13, 2014, when the double goal in overtime of Alec Martinez – Do you remember the celebration of the “Hands of Jazz”? – Beat the Rangers and gave the Kings their second Stanley Cup in three seasons.

They have been 0 for 5 in playoffs since then. It’s time to change, maybe?

jalexander@scng.com

Originally published: April 5, 2025 at 6:38 p.m.