There’s a copied-and-pasted feel to the circumstances surrounding Monday’s series opener –– the third-place Kings will visit the second-place Oilers for a first-round Game 1 in Edmonton for the third straight year –– but the Kings hope to rewrite the script by bringing a more emotive portrayal to their roles as underdogs.
“Going into this year’s playoffs, we really want to challenge ourselves, our emotional level and our level of passion. We want to push ourselves to a higher level,” said interim coach Jim Hiller, who was an assistant for the Kings this time last year.
For Hiller’s players, it’s the moment they’ve been waiting for since being eliminated for the second consecutive postseason by Edmonton.
“I didn’t even think about the regular season during the summer, I thought about playoffs only, and that’s what I’m sure a lot of guys did in here, too,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “This is the best time of year, the most fun, the highest pressure. And I love the pressure, so it’s great.”
Doughty asserted that there was little if any additional heft because of the rivalry factor, saying the Kings’ motivation stemmed more from the team’s desire to move beyond the first round and under brighter lights.
“I don’t want to dwell on this redemption thing so much, obviously that’s what you think of when you play (the Oilers), but it’s just winning a playoff series, that’s all we’re worried about here,” Doughty said. “We didn’t care who we played, we just knew that we had to get it done this year. There’s no more waiting around, it’s winning a playoff series, and that’s the bottom line.”
Last year, a healthy Doughty and Viktor Arvidsson gave the Kings an edge they didn’t have in 2022, but bottom-six driver Blake Lizotte, marquee acquisition Kevin Fiala and bust-out performer Gabe Vilardi all missed time during the series. This time, the Kings will have every skater and their two top goalies healthy and at their disposal to start the series.
That included Trevor Moore, who boosted his career-best mark of 17 goals all the way up to 31 to lead the team, and Quinton Byfield, who catapulted from 22 points last season to 55 this year. It also includes the man who cost the Kings Vilardi, a gaggle of other assets and $68 million, Pierre-Luc Dubois.
He was billed as a 200-foot, three-zone player who was tough to play against and dominant by Kings management. What they got was a 40-point scorer whose lack of intensity and defensive deficiencies left him with the worst plus-minus on the team by a wide margin for most of the season before he had a late flurry of pluses to surpass his most consistent linemate throughout the campaign, rookie Alex Laferriere.
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Dubois was held scoreless in five of the final six regular-season games. In four meetings with Edmonton this season, he had one point, a goal. In 23 appearances against Western playoff teams this season, he had three goals and four assists for a modest seven points. Even so, the lofty calculations had not ceased.
“We’re expecting big things. We’re expecting him to be great,” Hiller said of Dubois. “We talk about the passion, the size, the energy, the physicality and all those things that get increased in the playoffs, he has all those qualities and we’re expecting them to bring them.”
The Kings will try to establish a cohesive, five-man defensive effort with their formidable top four on the blue line and two Selke-Trophy-vote-garnering centermen, Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault, spearheading the effort.
They’ll need that to abate an Edmonton attack that includes scoring champions Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl as well as the industrious Zach Hyman, speedy Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, silky Evan Bouchard and Evander Kane, who had 10 goals in 13 playoff games against the Kings in 2022 and 2023. Edmonton added depth up front during the season with former Ducks forwards Corey Perry, Adam Henrique and Corey Perry.
“It’s going to take us as a collective, we know that, and I really like where we are as a collective,” Hiller said. “We’re healthy, we’re confident, we’re excited and I think you’re going to see a passionate hockey team.”
