Edmonton – Despair is a sacred motivator, and now Edmonton’s Oilers have a certain life.
The Kings erased a deficit of two goals and held an advance to start the third period, but Edmonton scored four goals in the third period – including two by Evander Kane and Evan Bouchard 10 seconds apart – to win a 7-4 victory and reduces the advance of the Kings series to 2-1 Friday evening in Rogers Place.
Match 4 of the seven best series is Sunday evening in Edmonton.
“We will rest as we did after winning the matches,” said Kings coach Jim Hiller. “Take a look at that, get together as they did. It may seem a little boring, but I think that is how these things happen. It’s emotional, the crowd is emotional, we are emotional, so we just have to refresh our heads and prepare to play another hockey game.”
Match 3 had everything, and the first victory of the Oilers in the first round series of the Western Conference did not miss a drama.
The striker of the Oilers Evander Kane scored his first goal in the series on a goal race which saw him attack the washer and finally put the goalkeeper of the Kues Darcy Kuemper with 6:42 to play in the third period to equalize the score at 4.
The officials examined it for a kick motion and judged that it was a good goal. The Kings played and challenged for the interference of the goalkeeper, and lost, giving Edmonton a power game. Barely 10 seconds later, the defender of the Oilers Evan Bouchard scored his second electric goal of the match with a clever redirect as she rushed to an advance of 5-4 who was the winner of the match.
“We looked at and had a lot of time and we thought it was an interference as a goalkeeper and we challenged it,” said Hiller. “Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and tonight we lost and it cost us a lot of time.
“We understand the situation. We do not want to give them a power game, but we clearly thought that the challenge was in our favor, and the league did not agree and we must (must) move on.”
Connor McDavid scored in an empty net with 1:40 to play and Connor Brown added his second of the night on another empty net to ensure the victory.
The Kings enjoyed themselves on the power game of this series, and they scored two other goals from the man in match 3. They scored seven power in power on 15 chances of the series, but the Domaining Power of Edmonton came to life when the oilers needed it most – converting to victory twice.
“It was (was) a difficult section for us (in the third), without a doubt, but it is hockey in the playoffs,” said Hiller.
“They did very well. We were lucky to break one, and we did not break it. I am sure they would like some of those we have marked on them too. We will have to be better in these situations, but it was a good hockey. These are two teams that are going pretty well.”
After having lagged behind 2-0 on the goals of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Bouchard less than nine minutes after the start of the competition, things could really have come out of the rails for the Kings, but they settled and Adrian Kempe in the fourth goal of the series at the end of the period, reduced half of Edmonton’s advance.
The Kings Red Power Game scored on two chances in the second period to take a 3-2 lead.
Kevin Fiala opened his way and torn off a shot in front of the Calvin Pickard Oilers goalkeeper, who made his first start of the series, to equalize the score at 2-2.
Drew Doughty shot the power game just over 15 minutes in the second period gave the Kings its first advance of the night.
Brown did not score until 2:14 later to tie the scoring at 3-3, but Trevor Moore restored the chief of the Kings barely nine seconds later when he went to the net and preceded the defender of the Oilers Jake Walman and chicked the washer with one hand and crossed the legs of Pickard.
“We knew they were going to go out hard. It was their skating rink, and they obviously did not like the way the first two games took place,” said Kings defender Mikey Anderson. “It may have been a slow start to abandon a couple, but we found a way to bring together.”
The Kings knew that the oilers would be desperate to avoid a hole in the 3-0 series, and they were able to avoid the first chances of the third period, but Edmonton continued to press.
When Kane and Bouchard joined forces to give Edmonton, the Kings pushed strongly to try to tie him, but they could not get Pickard, who finished with 24 stops.
“It sucks, but if you look at it, we are still in a good place, and we come back to two nights and we get another stab,” said Anderson.
Kempe, Moore and Doughty all collected a goal and a pass for the Kings. Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault both marked a pair of assists. KUEMPER has managed 29 stops.
McDavid finished with a goal and two assists, while Brown scored twice. Kane added a decisive pass to his goal, while Hyman and Leon Draisaitl both recorded two assists.
The Kings lost two third -time traces during the first three games in the series, and although they were able to respond quickly in the last minute of match 1 to win the victory, the Oilers, and in particular Pickard were able to close the door in the section in match 3.
Is there a reason for concern for kings?
“No. The first was more worrying than this one, I think,,” said Doughty. “We are a good defensive team, we have excellent goalkeepers and everyone checks, everyone is doing their job. I am not concerned about this. ”
“We are going to forget this game. We have not played badly, there is no doubt in my mind on this subject. We had a good game, they played well too … But we have to move on and go to the next match.”
The Oilers, who have eliminated the kings in the first round of the last three seasons, have new life.
“We have a lot of character. We are going to swing, if we go down,” said Draisaitl. “We have created this approach here and this attitude within this organization and we are not going to go back until we are absent.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
