Angeles Analysis – R1, G4

A night that leads to a lot of thoughts, Insiders. I’m sure you have them too.

I think it starts with an obvious breakdown of periods. Strictly by using possession metrics, the first and third periods marked two of the team’s best three periods played in a game all series, using CF% as the metric for comparison. The second period, meanwhile, was the worst period of the series.

The Kings outchanced the Oilers by a +8 margin between the first and third periods and it was the first game of the four where the Kings had more scoring chances, at all strengths, across the entire game. The first period was the extra gear the Kings had been searching for out of the gates and the third period was the response that was needed. Unfortunately, it was the second period that necessitated a response and was utimately what did the Kings in. LA was out attempted by more than a 2-to-1 margin in the middle stanza and though the higher-quality chances were much tighter, the flow clearly shifted in Edmonton’s direction over those 20 minutes.

It’s been the theme of the series so far in many ways but some of the characters switched roles for Game 4. The Kings overturned a multi-goal deficit in Games 1 and 2 and it was Edmonton’s turn to do so last night. When reading the comments or the tweets, I saw words like resilience and character to describe the former but inexcusable and unacceptable to describe the latter. Made me wonder why there was such a stark contrast, when we literally just saw it the other way. Perhaps some of those positive traits lie on the other side of the ice as well. Listening to the Oilers post-game availabilities, the comments from Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman sounded awfully similar what we heard from the Kings after Game 1. These are two teams with similar character traits and though seeing a 3-0 lead slip away leaves a very sour taste, there’s always two sides of the coin.

“There aren’t a lot of surprises and the games go up and down, there’s flow that goes your way and that goes against you,” Todd McLellan said this morning. “You know, we were on the other side of the coin a couple times. We were 15 seconds away from not taking Game 1 and we find a way to score and then we score in overtime and then come back in Game 2. So, there’s no doom and gloom, I don’t think for either team to tell you the truth, after giving up leads.”

Overall in this postseason, around the NHL, we’ve seen seven games where a lead of two-or-more goals has been overturned. Three of those games have come between the Kings and Oilers. Only three of the seven games resulted in the team that came back eventually winning and two of the three comeback wins were in this series, one for each side. The team on home ice has had the better start in each of the four games, but the road team has yet to back down or quit. It’s a series we probably shouldn’t have seen going any other way and now it’s a best-of-three.

Will have more to follow on the concept of “moving ahead” in this evening’s feature story, so I won’t touch on it a ton here, but if you ask the team, that’s the mindset in the room. I had that same sour taste after the game last night, feeling like it was an opportunity that got away – and it was – but for whatever reason, seeing the calm mentality of the players and coaches both after the game and again this morning changed that. This group is not fazed in the slightest by last night’s game. Moving on to Game 5, knotted at two games apiece.

Todd McLellan was asked earlier today if it was a strange feeling to him that although the Kings played in perhaps their best game of the series, there was no reward for that performance. He thought of it a bit differently, noting that between these two teams, there is very little that will surprise him.

“No, I haven’t thought of it that way, I’m not sure how the players would approach it,” he said. “I think the experience of having played them now, what, 19 times or whatever it is, working our way to 22, gives everybody an understanding of what it feels like to play day after day against them and them against us. I don’t think there’s a surprised individual on either team or either organization that it’s gone this way. Maybe not so much as it would be against another team or in another series.”

McLellan also did not believe that last night’s game carried any of the same traits or tendencies that certain blown leads did earlier in the regular season. He did feel the group took its foot off the gas in the second period, sure, but it wasn’t the St. Louis game back in March or the Arizona game in February. The Kings responded in the third period to prevent that, it just wasn’t enough to overcome what happened first.

No full-team practice today, Insiders, so we won’t have a practice report to follow here this evening. A few guys did take the ice, including forward Blake Lizotte in a non-contact red jersey, but no update was provided as he was still on the ice at the time of McLellan’s availability. Others out on the ice were lower-minute forwards as well as those who did not play in Game 4, including the recently recalled duo of Tobias Bjornfot and Cal Petersen, who took their first skate back with the team today.

We’ll take a look this evening at the team’s mindset and mentality and where it will have to go from here in order to find success in the swing game of the series, as Game 5 tends to be, in a 2-2 deadlock. As we saw last year, winning Game 5 does not equate to a series victory but it’s the game that puts one team’s back against the wall and gives the other two cracks at a victory. We’ll get that situation tomorrow evening in Edmonton, for better or for worse.