FINAL – Kings 4, Oilers 7 – Doughty, Anderson, Hiller

The LA Kings dropped their first game of the series, as they fell by a 7-4 final in Game 3 on Friday evening at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

Edmonton opened the scoring inside the game’s first three minutes, with forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scoring his first goal of the series. Forward Connor McDavid kept the puck alive below the goal line, finding winger Zach Hyman, who spun and hit Nugent-Hopkins, uncovered in front of the goal, where he beat Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper to give the Oilers their first lead of the series.

The hosts made it 2-0 later in the opening frame as they scored for the first time in the series on the power play later in the first. Off a won faceoff, forward Leon Draisaitl fed the puck to defenseman Evan Bouchard at the center point. Bouchard wound up and fired through traffic, past a screened Kuemper and in for the two-goal lead. Oilers forward Corey Perry made contact with Kuemper in front, but the Kings opted not to challenge, pushing the score to 2-0.

With the teams skating 4-on-4 late in the first period, the Kings got on the board through the NHL’s leader in playoff scoring, Adrian Kempe. With the extra space, Kempe took a pass from defenseman Drew Doughty and worked his way towards the net, through the right-hand circle. Kempe picked his spot and beat Oilers goaltender Calvin Pickard clean for his fourth goal of the series, bringing the game to within 2-1 at the intermission.

Skating on their first man advantage of the game, forward Kevin Fiala tied the game at two with his team’s sixth power-play goal of the series. Late in the sequence, attacking off the rush, Kempe dished the puck to his right, giving Fiala space moving his way into the right-hand circle. The Swiss winger went top shelf on the glove side for his second goal and fourth point of the series, leveling the game at two goals apiece.

For the second straight game, the second power-play unit cashed in to put the Kings ahead for the first time on the evening. Late in the sequence, forward Trevor Moore fed defenseman Drew Doughty at the center point. The Kings alternate captain sent a shot through traffic and in, clean past Pickard for his first goal of the series and his team’s seventh in three games on the man advantage.

The Oilers pushed back to tie the game, however, with forward Connor Brown converting for his first goal of the series. Edmonton’s third line made the play happen off the cycle, with forward Evander Kane working the puck into the slot and Brown doing well to get a stick on it, deflecting the puck past Kuemper and in, equalizing the game at three goals apiece.

Just nine seconds later, however, the Kings pulled back on top with a quick play in transition. Defenseman Joel Edmundson fired a long pass off the wall, which Moore caught and spun in one motion, gaining a step on defenseman Jake Walman. Despite heavy pressure from behind, Moore diverted with puck past Pickard, with just one hand on his stick, for his first goal of the series and his second point of the game, putting Los Angeles ahead through 40 minutes.

On a play that was reviewed twice before being ruled a good goal, Edmonton tied the game with 6:42 remaining in the third period, on Kane’s first goal of the series. After it was initially ruled no goal on a kicking motion, the play was overturned, with Kane getting a stick on the puck before it crossed the line. Los Angeles then challenged for goaltender interference but lost, with the goal standing and a penalty assessed as as result.

10 seconds into the ensuing Edmonton man advantage, the Oilers pulled back ahead 5-4. Forward Leon Draisaitl used forward Connor McDavid as a decoy off the rush, instead feeding Bouchard down the right wing, where he deflected the puck past Kuemper in stride for his second goal of the game and a one-goal lead for the hosts.

The hosts added two empty-net goals, one from McDavid and one from Brown, bringing the final score to 7-4.

Hear from Doughty, defenseman Mikey Anderson and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s defeat.

Drew Doughty

Mikey Anderson
On the emotions of coming back to take the lead, but ultimately falling short
Yeah, it sucks, but if look at it, we’re still in a good place. You get to come back in two nights and get another stab at it, which is the best part.

On the game-tying goal on the coaches challenge and how he saw that play
I mean, we don’t obviously know the nitty gritty of all the rules, so it’s hard to say what should have been this or that. Obviously it didn’t go our way, their crowd gets into it a little bit, and then unfortunately, we couldn’t get a kill. So big swing of emotion, but that’s way of the game sometimes.

On what he saw from the team after going down 2-0 in coming back to take the lead
It was good. We knew they were going to come out hard, it’s their their home rink, they obviously didn’t like the first two games. So, maybe a little slower start, giving up a couple, but found a way to get to regroup that last 10 minutes of the first I thought was really good from the group and something to build on.

On playing with five defensemen for the bulk of the game tonight
You get into a rhythm. I mean, I don’t think anyone really thinks about it. If you put anyone of our D out there and you’re playing a lot, it’s rhythm you want to be in. Everyone wants to play as much as they can, so is what it is. It sucks for Spenny that maybe he didn’t get a whole lot today but he’s a great teammate, and he was there the whole time everyone on.

On the confidence the group still has heading into Game 4 with a 2-1 lead
I think everyone’s feeling good. I mean, again, not the result today, maybe not liking the way the third went, but if you take the first half of the game, maybe look at it and what you like, what you didn’t like, you build on it. The vibes are good in the room. Guys know what we have as a team and just keep playing hard.

Jim Hiller
On his decision to challenge for goaltender interference on the game-tying goal
Well, we got a good look at it, took plenty of time and we felt it was goalie interference, so we challenged it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose on those. Tonight we lost and it cost us big time, there’s no way around it.

On weighing the risks of giving up a power play when deciding to make the challenge
All those things go into it and that’s why we take a timeout, we understand the situation. We don’t want to give them a power play but clearly we felt that that challenge was in our favor, but the league disagreed and we move on. The next step would have been for us to kill the penalty, that didn’t happen either. It’s a tough it’s a tough stretch for us, there’s no question. That’s hockey, that’s playoff hockey especially.

On his concern in losing a third-period lead in two of the three games
How excited am I that we were leading in the third period? Is that what I heard? I’m pretty happy that we’re playing the game well enough that we’re leading in the third period. That’s a good team, so I’ll take that, that’s the way I’ll look at that situation.

On his team’s composure and calmness when going down 2-0
I thought we had some really good looks in the first period, despite being down 2-1 going in. I thought we had some really good looks second half of the period, I thought we got going, got some really good looks. It’s a long game and we knew they were going to come. They came, in fact they scored twice, which is good for them in the first 10 minutes, or whatever it was. Got to weather the storm, got to be tough, you’ve got to get out there and play. That’s exactly what we did.

On Edmonton scoring twice on the power play, their first two PPG’s of the series
They scored on the faceoff, they scored on the entry, so they didn’t score in zone. Those are two things that are, we had a pretty good idea of what they were trying to do and they executed very well. We had a chance to break one up, we didn’t break it up, they executed. I’m sure they’d like some of the ones that we scored back to. We’ll have to be better in those situations, but it’s good hockey. I’d like to give you more but it’s two teams going at it pretty good.

On getting desperation and energy from Edmonton, right from the start tonight
I would say both those things. Yeah, I thought they came up with the energy we expected. The crowd was great, they came out with the energy we expected. I would have wished that we did a better job of just weathering that. I mean, that’s coming for sure, that’s just a fact they’re going to come and we’ve got to weather that. We didn’t do a great job of weathering that. I thought we did a better job, once we got our legs under us, of playing the game, playing our game.

Notes –
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-1=2) tallied his League-leading fourth goal, fifth assist, and eighth and ninth points (4-5=9) of the postseason.
• By finding the back of the net in three consecutive appearances to open the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Kempe becomes the fifth player in franchise history to post a three-game goal streak from the start of the playoffs. He joins Daryl Evans (3 GP in 1982), Jimmy Carson (3 GP in 1988), Wayne Gretzky (4 GP in 1991), and former teammate Dustin Brown (3 GP in 2012).
• Kempe (4-5=9) becomes just the second player in franchise history to start a postseason with a three-game multi-point streak since Zigmund Palffy (4-3=7) in 2002
• Forward Kevin Fiala (1-0=1) scored the first of two Kings power play goals tonight, his second such tally of the postseason. Fiala joins teammate Andrei Kuzmenko on a list of 11 skaters in team history to score twice on the man-advantage within the first three games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
• Defenseman Drew Doughty (1-1=2) scored his first goal of the postseason, the Kings’ seventh of the series on the power play. Earlier in the game, the Kings’ most experienced blueliner started his 98th postseason contest with his second helper of the 2025 playoffs.
• Doughty has now scored 19 goals across his playoff career, the most in team history and one of six active blueliners with as many, joining Brent Burns (23), Kris Letang (23), Victor Hedman (23), Cale Makar (21) and John Carlson (20), per NHL PR.
• Forward Trevor Moore (1-1=2) tallied his second assist of the playoffs on Doughty’s man-up strike before netting his first goal of the postseason.
• Captain Anze Kopitar (0-2=2) tallied his fifth and sixth assists to reach seven points (1-6=7) of the postseason. The pair of assists gives Kopitar 10 multi-assist playoff games, making him just the third player in franchise history with as many after Gretzky (17) and Luc Robitaille (11).
• The center played in his 100th career Stanley Cup Playoff game tonight, becoming the first skater to reach the century mark in the postseason in Kings franchise history.
• Forward Phillip Danault (0-2=2) contributed his second and third assists of the series to secure his second three-point game through the first three games of the First Round. Danault joins Adrian Kempe (2x; 2024 and 2025), Andrei Kuzmenko (2025), and Jack Johnson (2010) as the only Kings skaters to post multiple multi-point games within their first three games of a postseason in the past three decades.
• Defenseman Joel Edmundson (0-1=1) registered his first helper of 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow afternoon at 1 PM local time, noon Pacific at Rogers Place.