The Kings know they owe the “stellar” Darcy Kuemper a better showing in Game 6 tomorrow

Have to take a moment to acknowledge Darcy Kuemper’s performance in Game 5.

Per SportLogiq, Darcy Kuemper saved 3.9 goals above expected in a Game 5 defeat. To date in the postseason, it’s the highest total posted by a goaltender in a single game and it hasn’t even been close. There hasn’t been another goaltender within a single goal of that metric in a game thus far in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“He’s clearly been our best player and you don’t want to rely on him as much as that,” Hiller said. “If there’s a player in a series you want to be your best player, I would would probably take the goaltender if you had a chance to choose. He’s in a good place. We know what we have to do. When Darcy gives us those saves, we’ve got to play better in front of him.”

Two ways to look at that, right?

I’m going to start with the brilliance in Kuemper’s game. Yesterday evening, Kuemper faced 29 high-danger scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick, and made 28 saves on those plays. There were saves of the highlight-reel variety, such as Kuemper’s robbery of defenseman Evan Bouchard with the glove hand, as he slid from right to left to make a dazzling stop, which kept the game 0-0 in the early goings. There were the scramble-drill moments, which were aplenty, as Edmonton did a good job of flooding pucks towards the crease, with Kuemper and the Kings defensemen forced into evasive action for the bulk of the 60 minutes. There were the routine plays, certainly, but on a night in which Kuemper was tasked with all of those and more, he was equal to the challenge, turning in a performance that deserved a better outcome.

“Darcy gave us a chance,” Hiller added this morning. “For as bad as we played, he still gave us a chance. We’ve got to bounce back.”

😮 https://t.co/TDFGArWLy0 pic.twitter.com/axLaugtaCm

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) April 30, 2025

The other part of it is why he didn’t get a better outcome. Why the Kings need to “bounce back”. That was the game the Kings played. No one would say Game 5 was good enough. The Kings were good enough for long stretches of Games 3 and 4. They just didn’t get the job done. In Game 5, the only reason the game was 2-1 in the final stages was the performance of Kuemper.

The Kings knew it wasn’t there. There was very little going for the group and very little to build on, minus the performance of their goaltender.

“Darcy was stellar tonight, as he’s been the whole season and the series,” forward Anze Kopitar said after the game. “He gave us a chance and we couldn’t get a whole lot going.”

Simply put.

In some ways, it’s hard to imagine it gets worse than it did in Game 5, as Hiller acknowledged this morning. If it doesn’t improve, and vastly at that, Game 6 will likely have the same result.

Part of the sentiment in the room after Game 5 was that the Kings owe their goaltender a better showing in front of him. Specifically in the defensive zone, they know they can do a lot more to make life easier on Kuemper, who has been the team’s best player over the last two games specifically.

“He’s been unbelievable for us and we want to make it easier on him,” defenseman Joel Edmundson said. “He’s been playing unbelievable hockey. We’ve relied on him too much in this series. We’ve got to block more shots, we’ve got to take care of our d-zone and limit their chances.”

By playing more in the offensive zone, though, it would naturally limit Kuemper’s workload, as it did specifically in Games 1 and 2, when the chances against were far fewer. The Kings controlled far more of the puck in the first two games of the series, winning both and making life much easier on the veteran netminder.

Kuemper has been under siege really since overtime of Game 4, when he faced nine high-danger chances in 18 minutes of game action, which accounted for nearly 2.5 expected goals against. Kuemper allowed only the one off a broken clearance while shorthanded, keeping the Kings in that game for its entirety. For the better part of four periods, he’s been the only reason the games have been as tight as they have been.

Kuemper has played his best two games of the series in his last two games, as the Kings have relied too heavily on him in those moments.

“We don’t want to rely on him too much, but he’s there and he’s been making unbelievable saves,” Edmundson added. “They could have a lot more goals in this series if it wasn’t for him.”

pulled my groin just watching this save pic.twitter.com/xI540wTEi4

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) April 28, 2025

So now the series shifts back to Edmonton and it does so with the Kings in a 3-2 hole, facing elimination for the first time this season.

As I said above, if the Kings deliver another Game 5 showing tomorrow night, there won’t be much to play for. The series will be over in six games. And they know that. So it brings the question of how do they need to approach Game 6 in order to change the momentum, to change the narrative, when just about everything is currently going against them?

“They took it away from us, we’ve got to go win a hockey game and take it back,” Hiller said. “It’s just the way it goes. There’s no tricks. We’ve proven we’re a pretty good hockey team, go there and take it back, because they just took it away from us.”

In moments like this, you have to find something to hang your hat on. Something to drive you forward.

Perhaps for the Kings it’s the feeling of letting their goaltender down, because they certainly did that in Game 5. If Game 5 was rock bottom then it should be a group that is extremely motivated to not let that happen again. It should be a group playing without fear in Edmonton. While the Kings are 0-2 in this series at Rogers Place, they’ve controlled enough of the play in both games that they know it’s in there. They haven’t closed it out. But it’s in there to get to that point.

“I think we’ve got a blueprint there, obviously we didn’t get to the final buzzer with the win, which is what we really needed to do, but we gave ourselves a really good chance because we were there,” Hiller added. “If we can execute better in a few situations or block an extra shot – it’s not just offensively, it’s defensively – then maybe it’s a different story. Those games were well played by us. We’ll go back with the intention of playing the same game and get a different result.”

Not much more you can say or do, right?

If the Kings get the same type of showing from their goaltender, they cannot waste it again. Kuemper was as dialed in for 60 minutes as I’ve seen a goalie be for the Kings over the last few playoff series. Vezina-caliber performances. For a team that has to be disappointed in the way they played in front of him, they owe him their best game of the series. If the Kings can get both, when they need it most, they’ve got a good chance of forcing things to Game 7.