The Los Angeles Kings scored a stifling 5-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers Sunday night at Rogers Place.
The Oilers, who managed just 22 shots on goal, lose back-to-back games for the first time this season.
“I was worried yesterday at practice,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said. “Not a lot of juice in practice and I was worried yesterday. My thoughts came true today.”
For the 14th time this season, the Oilers allowed the first goal of the game. Rasmus Kupari took a pass in tight and flipped it past Mikko Koskinen 2:01 into the first.
“It’s not like we weren’t prepared,” Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. “They came out hard and we couldn’t match that right away, but as the game went on, we started to push back a bit and find our game and create some looks.”
Listen Below: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins & Warren Foegele
“We know every team we play against, we’re going to get their ‘A’ game because of the start we’ve had to our season,” Darnell Nurse said. “As a team, we don’t go out there and try to give up the first goal–that’s not our objective. For us, we’ve just got to push the envelope a bit more and bring the game to other teams, because we know they’re trying to bring it to us.”
Listen Below: Zach Hyman & Darnell Nurse
The Kings scored less than two minutes into the second when Adrian Kempe’s wrister from the right side eluded Koskinen. The Oilers finally got on the board halfway through the second when Nurse scored shorthanded, beating Jonathan Quick from a sharp angle. Nurse was back in action after missing six games with a broken finger. It was his first goal of the season.
“The first period, you get back into the groove of things a little bit, and then it’s just like it was before,” Nurse said of his return.
The Oilers had just four shots on goal in the first 13 minutes of the third, then suffered a big blow when Connor McDavid was slapped with a five-minute major and a game misconduct for boarding Kempe. After being bloodied by the hit, Kempe returned to score on the power play to make it 3-1. Drew Doughty and Trevor Moore would also score on the man advantage.
“(Kempe) turns out to him,” Tippett said. “I don’t know if Connor just nicked him, but he goes down and looks like he’s hurt, then he’s on the next first power play. I’ll look at it again. I didn’t see an injury on it, but they said there was an injury.”
Listen Below: Dave Tippett
The Kings finished with 40 shots and improve to 10-9-4.
The Oilers, 16-7, will host the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday.
With files from 630 CHED’s Brenden Escott
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