By Dom Luszczyszyn, Sean Gentille and Shayna Goldman
It wouldn’t be the NHL playoffs if it didn’t have yet another showdown between Wayne Gretzky’s first team and Wayne Gretzky’s second team.
It’s Oilers-Kings III, baby!
The first two matchups went in Edmonton’s favor — first in seven games, then in six games last year. There’s a lot of reason to believe this time won’t be any different, especially with the gap between the two teams growing larger each year.
The Oilers have been a juggernaut since changing coaches (and since The Best Player In The World became healthy) and are the unsurprising favorite to start the series.
The odds
In 2022, the Oilers’ odds were 68 percent. In 2023, their odds were 69 percent. This year, their odds are 71 percent. New year, same story.
The Kings are a better team than they were a year ago, but any incremental improvement made has been matched the other way by Edmonton. Los Angeles just can’t seem to close the gap in a matchup that’s already twice not gone its way.
If there’s any solace for Kings fans, it’s in the cliche of “third time’s the charm,” where it’s notable that the Kings’ odds have essentially been one-in-three each of the last three years. At some point, the dice have to roll their way, right?
That’s not quite how probability works — this series is independent of the other two. A path to victory won’t come because the Kings are due to win one of these. It’ll be about what they do to change their fortune.
The numbers
No series has a bigger offensive disparity than this one — a gap of plus-70 (!) in Offensive Rating.
It’s no surprise that the team led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl leads the entire playoff field in Offensive Rating. Edmonton boasts a lethal power play which helps fuel their offense. But they’re really dangerous at five-on-five as well. The Oilers are a top-three team in shot volume, quality, and scoring. They’re one of the best rush teams in the league and set up a lot of their chances with dynamic passing.
On the season as a whole, the Kings’ biggest issue is converting on their chances. But breaking it up into two segments — the Todd Mclellan era and the Jim Hiller era — tells a different story. The Kings generate fewer shots (about 10 attempts less per 60) and scoring chances but score at a clip relatively close to expectations.
The real improvements since Hiller took over come back in the Kings’ own end. After a great start to the season, Los Angeles fell apart defensively and started allowing a ton of rush shots back. Hiller implemented a 1-3-1 system to tighten the Kings up, which seems to have a positive impact on their goals as well. Now, the Kings limit their opponents in transition and suppress passes. Their hope has to be slowing down the Oilers, but the question is whether containing them will be enough to win the series.
The Oilers went through their own coaching change earlier in the season, which seems to have solidified their five-on-five game. There hasn’t been a huge swing in their numbers below the surface, but Edmonton doesn’t look as out of sync in their own zone since and seems to have a better handle on their defensive coverage. That has benefited their goalies who struggled to open the year. But even after those adjustments, the Kings still have the defense edge. It just isn’t to the same margin as offense.
The big question
Can the Kings flip the script?
In 2022, the Kings pushed the Oilers to the brink in their first-round series, winning Game 1 and then going up 3-2 before eventually losing in Game 7. It was one of the more memorable series of a wild first round and set off plenty of alarms in Edmonton. Last year’s sequel fell a little short of the original; Los Angeles won Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead, then the Oilers won three straight. Now, the Kings are getting another bite at the apple, and it’s fair to wonder what, exactly, has changed.
The Kings’ regular-season numbers in each of the past three campaigns are similar. At five-on-five, their expected and actual goal shares are all within a few points of each other. The power-play production has improved a bit but not all that much. The penalty kill? Maybe a bit more.
The book on the Kings over the last few seasons, really, has been incremental improvements. They’re a better offensive team on paper today than back in 2022 after adding a few (theoretically) high-end offensive pieces through various means. Kevin Fiala was a major piece acquired via trade who’s generally done his job and scored at a reasonable rate regardless of his linemates. No. 2 overall draft pick Quinton Byfield, at the ripe old age of 21, has broken out (20 goals, 35 assists). PL Dubois, acquired via trade, has … well, they’ve got Fiala and Byfield in the fold, along with players like Trevor Moore who’ve spent the last two years improving. Putting up 3.09 overall goals per 60, as they’ve done this season, is better than putting up 2.82, as they did back in 2022.
Despite all that, the biggest reason to think this season’s result could be different for the Kings remains their defense: They were one of the five best teams in actual and expected goals at five-on-five. Up front, that starts with Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault, still two of the league’s better top-six defensive centers. The fact Los Angeles can roll them out in some capacity against both the McDavid and Draisaitl lines is a major coup.
They also have two blue-line pairings (Mikey Anderson–Drew Doughty and Vladislav Gavrikov–Matt Roy) that add major defensive value. All four players have Defensive Net Ratings that are well above the average for their spots in the lineup. In net, Cam Talbot (.913 save percentage, 15.3 goals saved above average) is an upgrade on the 2022 version of Jonathan Quick and, on balance, just turned in a solidly above-average regular season.
Is all that enough to flip the script on their third crack at the McDavid/Draisaitl Oilers? The odds aren’t in their favor; Edmonton has spent the last two years improving, too. But it’s possible to at least see a path to victory for the Kings — and if they come out and make things interesting, nobody should be surprised. They’ve done it before.
The X-factor
What can the Oilers expect from Adam Henrique?
Given the Oilers’ cap situation heading into the deadline, they could’ve done worse than acquiring Adam Henrique from Anaheim. They had several low-grade needs without much money to spend, so adding one player with the ability to play wing or center in a variety of spots made sense.
At the moment, the move hasn’t paid off particularly well. In 22 games, Henrique has six goals and, somehow, just three assists (two of which came on April 15) and five-on-five numbers that are generally worse than the rest of the Oilers. Since he joined the team on March 7, in fact, he has the worst expected goals percentage on the team (48.8). They’ve outscored their opponents 17-8 with him on the ice, but that’s due more to the play of Edmonton’s goalies and 14-percent shooting by the skaters. It’s not like Henrique has been setting up those looks, either — remember that assist number?
None of that is to say that the trade is guaranteed to be viewed as a wasted move. Henrique has a solid track record in the playoffs going back to New Jersey, and Edmonton didn’t get him to be a game-breaker. Versatility was (and is) the point. But the positive contributions need to come from somewhere.
The rosters
Everyone knows the deal when it comes to Edmonton: The Oilers’ top end is sickeningly good. Part of that simply stems from being in McDavid’s orbit. The Best Player In The World knows how to make everyone around him better, whether that’s his own slick play-making, his sublime puck-moving or the space he creates for everyone else by just existing.
But it’s not just The McDavid Show anymore. He alone hasn’t previously created a 50-goal scorer or a point-per-game defenseman. McDavid’s immediate support crew brings more to the table than ever, and that ups the ante for Edmonton’s contending pedigree. It’s not McDavid carrying everyone, it’s an Oilers team that has placed enough high-end support around him to create a team worthy of winning it all.
There’s no better one-two punch down the middle than McDavid and Draisaitl. There aren’t many wingers who provide more value than Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the top six. There isn’t a top pair that matches what Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm bring to the table. Put them all together and the team’s top-six skaters come in with a whopping plus-118 Net Rating — well above the playoff team average of plus-69. Only one other team, Florida at plus-93, is even above plus-90.
Edmonton’s top end is lethal. It’s what makes the Oilers the scariest team in the West, and it’ll be the reason they come out on top in any series. But here’s the other crucial detail — the team otherwise isn’t quite so different from what the other playoff teams can offer. Sure, there are some teams that are deeper in general, but the playoff average from outside the core skating group comes in at a collective Net Rating of minus-25. The Oilers’ depth sits at minus-29.
That does mean the Oilers group is below average, though. An unimposing bottom six is one reason why. A defense core with holes after the top pair is another. Still, it’s worth noting that without either McDavid or Draisaitl on the ice, the rest of the Oilers have mostly held their own. A 53-percent expected goals rate while only being outscored 68-65 is something most playoff teams will gladly take without their top-two lines on the ice.
All of that doesn’t even mention Stuart Skinner, who has settled in as a more-than-adequate starter. His rookie season was strong and, after a rough start to the season, he’s proven it was no fluke. Since Kris Knoblauch was hired, Skinner has saved 20.6 goals above expected in 50 games, good for the league’s sixth-best mark. He’s an asset on this team.
Cam Talbot has shown he can be equal to the task on the other side during long stretches this season. But his track record does make him a slightly riskier bet. Los Angeles’ skaters do provide much stronger defensive insulation to make Talbot less of a worry, but against the Oilers that defense is going to face a lot of heavy pressure. The Kings will need Talbot to be at his best on top of the team’s brand of lockdown defense.
That brand has the team carrying the league’s third-best Defensive Rating. That’s a byproduct of an incredible defensive one-two punch down the middle, some capable defensive wingers for support and a top four whose defensive acumen might be the envy of the league.
It’s a group designed specifically to stifle the Oilers as best it can: Two lines and two pairs capable of the heavy matchup minutes necessary when playing against a team with the best player alive and another guy who often finds himself in the top five.
On the defensive front, the top pair of Doughty and Anderson carries a combined plus-14 Defensive Rating that is a result of allowing just 2.2 expected goals against per 60 and 1.7 goals against per 60. The next pair with Roy and Gavrikov isn’t bad itself at 2.3 and 2.1 respectively. That’s a difficult top four to get through and is what may make this series closer than expected.
That the group is aided by lines anchored by Kopitar and Danault is part of the master plan. The two remain among the best defensive forwards in hockey, adding support to an already stellar quartet on the back end.
The Kings need depth beyond that, though, and that’s where things begin to unravel. And that’s before talking about a third pair that doesn’t look very imposing despite playing extremely easy minutes.
Hiding a player of Fiala’s stature on the third line is a luxury few other teams could afford. But playing him on a line with Blake Lizotte and Trevor Lewis defeats the purpose given how offensively bereft that duo is. The trio has technically worked in 68 minutes together with 55 percent of the expected goals, but it comes at a grave cost to Fiala’s offensive creation.
Bad as Dubois has been this season, it doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t be with Fiala on the third line. That pairing has the potential to do some real damage to Edmonton’s top six and really blow this series open — if Dubois can look anywhere close to the player he once was. To his credit, it doesn’t help when he’s being shackled to bottom-six talent as he often has been this season. It’s worth noting that in 260 minutes with Fiala, the duo has a 60 percent expected goals rate (but only 46 percent of the goals, mind you).
Maybe that duo can be Los Angeles’ secret weapon in this series. The Kings will need a few other tricks up their sleeve to prevail, though.
The key matchup
Connor McDavid vs. Phillip Danault
The Kings have their work cut out for them against the Oilers. That is going to put a lot of attention on their best defensive players shutting down Edmonton’s stars.
The Oilers have successfully kept McDavid and Draisaitl apart for much of the year for an elite one-two punch. With two shutdown centers at their disposal in Koptiar and Danault, the Kings can match up to both.
Danault tends to have a slightly heftier workload against top competition, which likely means a lot of minutes versus the McDavid line.
That was the matchup last year in Round 1 when these two met, and McDavid managed to keep playing to his strengths despite having to share the ice with Danault. And that’s the matchup the Oilers should be pushing for with home ice. In 26 head-to-head five-on-five minutes this year, Edmonton has the clear edge: 31-14 in shot attempts, 26-4 in scoring chances, and 1-0 in goals.
If McDavid manages to skate circles around the Kings against Danault, then the Kings will probably want to swap that matchup on home ice. That could create a problem for the Oilers, who were out-shot 28 attempts to 19, out-chanced 18-11, and out-scored 2-1 when Kopitar faced off against McDavid in 20:30 minutes of five-on-five play. But it may be their best chance of trying to slow down McDavid’s game-breaking play.
The bottom line
Everyone loves a rematch, and the Kings shouldn’t necessarily be counted out, but there’s simply too much good stuff going on with the Oilers to believe the results will be any different than 2022 and 2023. If the expected result becomes the actual one, maybe the fourth time will be the charm for L.A.
References
Understanding projection uncertainty
Resources
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
(Top photo: Gary A. Vasquez / USA Today)
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2024-04-20 21:00:40Z
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