GAME 5 FINAL – Kings 5, Oilers 4 (OT) – Kempe, Danault, McLellan

The LA Kings took a 3-2 series lead with an overtime win in Game 5, as Adrian Kempe scored his first career playoff overtime goal 72 seconds into the extra session on Tuesday evening in Edmonton.

Kempe scored twice in the victory, while defenseman Troy Stecher and forwards Andreas Athanasiou and Phillip Danault all scored for the visitors. Jonathan Quick earned the victory with 24 saves between the pipes.

In his second game of the series, Stecher struck again for the Kings in the first period, with the game’s first goal. Stationed at the right point, Stecher took a feed from his defensive partner, Alex Edler, and sent a shot on goal that found its way through traffic and past Edmonton netminder Mike Smith to put the visitors on the board inside the game’s first five minutes.

Edmonton struck back less than three minutes into the second period, however, to tie the game at one. After serving a penalty assessed to Evander Kane, forward Zack Kassian cacme out of the box and worked his way to the front of the net, where he buried a centering feed from forward Connor McDavid for his first goal of the series.

After absorbing pressure, but not conceding again, the Kings pushed back with two goals to take a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.

First, off the rush, Kempe took a feed from Anze Kopitar, pulled it well behind him and fired underneath Smith’s far-right pad for his first goal of the series. Athanasiou got in on the action in his return to the lineup to push the LA advantage to two goals. Forward Dustin Brown, stationed in the slot, showed outstanding poise to hit Athanasiou at the far post, with the speedy winger showing poise himself to flip the puck home for the goal.

Edmonton once again struck early to pull within a goal, as McDavid collected his second point of the night with a power-play goal. Immediately off a faceoff, the Edmonton captain drove to the net and roofed his finish on the backhand from close range, his second goal of the series.

The Kings scored a power-play goal of their own, however, to retake a two-goal advantage midway through the third period. With the Kings on an extended 5-on-4 sequence, off a double minor infraction, Danault worked his way to the net and got just enough of a piece from a sharp angle to send the puck through the five hole and in, his third goal of the series.

Down by a pair, forward Leon Draisaitl scored twice down the stretch, one shorthanded and one on the power play, to tie the game and force overtime. Less than a minute after Danault’s goal, McDavid’s centering pass deflected off of a Kings skate, directly to Draisaitl, who pulled his team to within one. On Edmonton’s next power play, Draisaitl buried another feed from McDavid for his series-leading fifth goal, the third point of the night for both players.

After the overtime reset, the Kings won the game just 72 seconds into the extra session on Kempe’s second goal of the evening. Using his speed to separate down the right wing, Kempe shielded to the outside, moved around his defenseman, cut through the slot and buried on the forehand for the game-winning goal.

Hear from Kempe, Danault and Head Coach Todd McLellan following the win.

Adrian Kempe

🔊 Kempe takes us through the winner@LAKings | #GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/YQIrM5nWOH

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) May 11, 2022

Philip Danault
On the resiliency shown by the group in coming back
Character. We’ve been through a lot this year, we’ve learned a lot, we’re still learning and to come back like that against a big offensive team is huge. Obviously a big win on the road.

On how the Kings were able to reset after the third and come out strong in overtime
Yeah, I think at the beginning of the series, if somebody said you could take 2-2 in the series and overtime in Game 5, we’d have taken it for sure. That’s what we said and kept those positive vibes. We had a good first shift and the second shift followed right away and Juice capitalized. It was a great mentality we have and we wanted to steal that big game here.

On what’s improved and been better over the last two games
We’re playing better, obviously. Game 1, we played to our game, but then we sat back, started watching and after that we started playing our game. When we play our game, that’s when we’re at our best, we had it these last two games and we won. That’s a big character win. We were working hard, we were smart, we made plays and went over details. That was the difference.

On not being content just reaching the playoffs
That’s never enough. It’s never going to be enough. We don’t want to be that team that just goes to the playoffs, loses in four and goes on vacation, we want to achieve some stuff, do some good things, be proud of ourselves. We believe in ourselves and that we can do some damage. It was good the last two games and we want to be even better next game.

On handling momentum swings throughout the game
Even at the end there, we were up by two and found a way. They’re a really good team, they have a really good power play and they capitalized on every chance they had. We have to be careful there, but we came back, we stuck with our systems, and believed in ourselves. Here we are, 3-2.

Todd McLellan
On the group fighting back before overtime and playing so strongly to open the extra session
I was asked a lot of questions the other day about momentum and it can swing within the games and obviously it did in the third. They had a real good period, we were on our heels a little bit, we played hard enough and well enough just to get it to overtime and that was really important for our team. Again, the older leadership in the locker room was calm, we talked about a few things and we’ve had good starts. We’ve had good starts to periods, had good starts to games and it was like we were starting a new game. The score was tied, we went out and had a real good shift and we’re going to hand off a good shift to the next line and we did that. Good for us, but we’re going to have to be better, much better.

On Adrian Kempe’s game and the overtime winner
Adrian was one of our better forwards. He’s become a big-time player for us. He led us in goals this season, he’s got really good legs and he’s got a physical element to his game. If there’s a player I can pick, coming down the wing with any kind of speed, taking it to the net, especially with a team that was tired when they couldn’t get guys off the ice, it would be Adrian.

On his thoughts on the team’s game heading into the final seven minutes of regulation
I liked our game, but part of the game is power play and penalty kill. Those two areas obviously hurt us. I don’t if there’s much we could have done on Connor’s first goal, it was a scramble, world-class player makes a world-class move, but the next two, the shorthanded and the final power play are preventable in my mind. I think I’ve already used the term we’re going to need to be better, and those are the areas we’re going to have to be better in.

On Athanasiou producing tonight, off of a night when Grundstrom and Stecher produced
Yeah, we’ve been getting some of that. Troy coming in, scoring a couple of goals, and Athanasiou coming in tonight and producing, it’s the one thing that he has, is just that poise, that skill to hold on just long enough to wait for Smitty to go down and the puck to go up. He gave us what we needed tonight and we need more of that from him consistently.

On if the Kings need to keep doing what they’re doing in Game 6
No, we need to get better. Not keep doing what we’re doing, it’s got to go up in some areas. We have to clean some things up. These last two games that we’ve played won’t be good enough in Game 6, so we’ll have to find a way to be better.

Notes –

– The Kings won their first playoff overtime game since April 18, 2016 (2-1 at SJS).
– Adrian Kempe (2-1-3) scored his first and second goal of the playoffs, the first postseason goals of his career. It also marks his first career playoff multi-point game.
– Troy Stecher (1-1-2) scored his second goal of the playoffs in his second game, registering his first career postseason goal-streak and first career postseason multi-point game.
– Phillip Danault scored his team-leading third goal of the postseason. His five points (3-2-5) are the most he has had in a single postseason in his career.
– Andreas Athanasiou registered his first postseason goal as a King and second of his career.
– Forwards Dustin Brown, Alex Iafallo, Anze Kopitar and defenseman Alex Edler each tallied an assist in the victory. Iafallo’s was his third of the postseason and his second in as many games, his first career postseason assist streak.
– Jonathan Quick stopped 24-of-28 shots to win his 25th career postseason road game, tying Tom Barrasso for the most all-time among American goaltenders. He also started his 90th consecutive postseason game for the Kings, surpassing Pekka Rinne for the fourth longest streak in NHL history.

The Kings are scheduled to return to Los Angeles tomorrow and are not expected to practice. The team is next scheduled to return to the ice on Thursday at 10:30 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center for morning skate in advance of Game 6.