Kings expecting a stiff Oilers response

After a shootout, an hour lost in transit and a late arrival at the team hotel in the early hours of the morning, the Los Angeles Kings opted for team meetings instead of an actual morning skate on Tuesday as they prepared for the second night of a back-to-back set against the Edmonton Oilers.

The Kings have played the Oilers three times this season, having won by at least three goals three times and losing once in a shootout. Excluding Edmonton’s shootout game-winner on December 30, Los Angeles has posted a 21-7 aggregate score in the season series behind an explosive 16.5% shooting percentage. The Kings scored eight goals in the teams’ last meeting, Thursday night at Staples Center.

Despite personnel challenges that have hit the Oilers late in the season, the Kings are expecting a much different game than their match-up last week.

“Yeah, I would assume so,” Jake Muzzin said. “I know when you taking a beating like that, you want to come out a little harder obviously the next time you face that opponent. For sure, I would assume a harder effort, they’ll get guys on the forecheck and they’ve got that other goalie going in, so maybe a different look in net as well will give us a little different look.”

That goaltender is Richard Bachman, who was on personal leave in the teams’ meeting last week due to a death in his family. The 27-year-old Utahn stopped 59-of-60 shots during wins in late March and has performed well in his three outings against the Kings, going 2-0-1 with a 0.70 goals against average and .979 save percentage between stints with Edmonton and Dallas.

Overall, Bachman is 2-2-0 with a 3.04 goals-against average and .908 save percentage in six games for the Oilers.

“So he’s coming in with some confidence and we’re going to have to get a lot of bodies and pucks on him early to show him it’s going to be a tough night,” Muzzin said.

Because there was no morning skate, any potential Los Angeles lineup adjustments won’t be learned until near game time. Darryl Sutter acknowledged he didn’t have any “concern” going back to Jonathan Quick only 24 hours after the goaltender turned in a stellar performance in a 2-1 shootout loss, stopping 37-of-38 shots through 60 minutes.

“Workload was heavy, yes, but I trust ‘em both,” Sutter said. “Jones came in in Minnesota, gave us a chance. Didn’t score enough goals for him.”

For Edmonton, center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is out with a lower-body injury, joining defensemen Andrew Ference (concussion) and Mark Fayne (shoulder), and center Boyd Gordon (back) amongst the walking wounded.

Regardless of personnel, the Kings are expecting a much different Oilers performance from what was shown last week.

“They’re going to come hard, for sure,” Brayden McNabb said. “They’re a team who doesn’t have much to lose and they’re going to try and come back at us, and we’ve got to be ready for it.”

Given last night’s shootout loss in Vancouver, there’s really no margin for error for a Los Angeles team that is fully aware of the circumstances of a late season game against the conference’s 13th-place team.

“I think we had some chances to, I think, get a couple more goals and bear down on opportunities and stuff like that, and letting them hang around and get a late one proved costly against us,” Muzzin said of last night’s game. “But we got a point and we know we’ve got to win pretty much every game here on, so that’s our goal.”

Brayden McNabb, on whether he expects a different type of game against Edmonton:
Yeah, for sure. Whenever you lose like that, having another opportunity at the other team, they’re going to come out hard and we have to match it.

McNabb, on how he anticipates Edmonton approaching the last games of their season:
Well, like you said, they have nothing to lose and sometimes you almost play better like that. You go out and play with confidence and knowing you don’t have anything to lose. But for us, we’ve got to be good and this is a big two points for us.

McNabb, on whether he sensed any Edmonton frustration in the third period last week:
Yeah, you could tell. It was kind of a frustrating game for them obviously. But its’ what we have to do and we’ve got to go out and try to do the same thing tonight.

McNabb, on what he liked about the penalty kill in Vancouver:
Yeah, it was great. Vancouver has a great power play and they’ve got a lot of good players. Greener made a lot of great blocked shots and it just comes down to competing and doing the little details right.