Edmonton Oilers vs. Los Angeles Kings: 2023 Stanley Cup playoff series preview and pick

Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Edmonton Oilers: 2^nd in Pacific Division, 109 points

Los Angeles Kings: 3^rd in Pacific Division, 104 points

Schedule (ET)

Monday, April 17: Los Angeles at Edmonton, 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday, April 19: Los Angeles at Edmonton, 10:00 p.m.
Friday, April 21: Edmonton at Los Angeles, 10:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 23: Edmonton at Los Angeles, 9:00 p.m.
*Tuesday, April 25: Los Angeles at Edmonton, TBA
*Saturday, April 29: Edmonton at Los Angeles, TBA
*Monday, May 1: Los Angeles at Edmonton, TBA

*If necessary

The Skinny

Ho-hum, just another series between the Oilers and Kings. These two teams have serious playoff bad blood dating back decades and are coming off an underrated seven-game quarterfinal series just last year. The Kings gave the Oilers all they could handle before falling by a 2–0 score in Game 7 at Rogers Place.

The Wayne Gretzky trade. The Miracle on Manchester. Countless battles at Northlands Coliseum and the Great Western Forum. These two franchises (and their fanbases) know each other extremely well by now. And what better way to kick off the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs than with the NHL’s best player taking on Hollywood once again? Like all good sequels, this one could very well be bigger and better than the last.

Head to Head

Edmonton: 2-2-0

Los Angeles: 2-2-0

It was very much a tale of two seasons for the Oilers, and that’s reflected in their season series against the Kings. After going 21–17–3 in the first 41 games of the 2022–23 campaign, the Oilers flipped a switch and posted a blistering 29–6–6 record down the stretch.

The Kings defeated the Oilers 3–1 at Rogers Place on Nov. 16 before prevailing 6–3 in L.A. on Jan. 9 in what was Edmonton’s 42nd game of the regular season (the Oilers only lost five times in regulation thereafter). Likewise, the Oilers skated to a 2–0 win over the Kings in Edmonton on March 30 and a 3–1 victory at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on April 4, with both included in the Oilers’ season-ending nine-game winning streak.

Top Five Scorers

Edmonton

Connor McDavid, 153 points
Leon Draisaitl, 128 points
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 104 points
Zach Hyman, 83 points
Darnell Nurse, 43 points

Los Angeles

Anze Kopitar, 74 points
Kevin Fiala, 72 points
Adrian Kempe, 67 points
Viktor Arvidsson, 59 points
Philip Danault, 54 points

X-Factor

There’s really no sugarcoating it: Connor McDavid is the engine of the best power play the NHL has ever seen. At 32.4 percent, the Oilers are flat-out terrifying with an extra skater. Edmonton enjoyed 275 man-advantage opportunities during the 2022–23 regular season, comfortably above the league average, and scored on 89 of them. And here’s something truly nuts: McDavid factored in on all but 18 of those goals.

If the Kings can stay out of the box, they might be able to beat Edmonton. Make no mistake, the Oilers are a strong 5-on-5 team — and they got even better down the stretch — but their PK is below average and their goaltending is hit-and-miss. But the Oilers will dictate this series if they get enough calls to go their way.

Offense

We’ll start with Los Angeles, which boasts a reasonably talented but ultimately middling forward group. L.A. ranked 15th in the NHL in terms of expected goals per 60 minutes at full strength during the regular season (Edmonton finished sixth in the same category). The Kings still finished top-10 in goals — their power play was pretty strong, too — but their 5-on-5 play-driving left a little to be desired.

Old standby Anze Kopitar is going to be counted upon to handle big matchups while also regularly chipping in on the scoreboard during this series. Kopitar only scored once during last year’s series against Edmonton — if the Kings are going to win this time around, he’ll need to do better than that. Fortunately, he should have much more help this time around … provided that Kevin Fiala and Gabe Vilardi can return to full health in time for Game 1. If not, the Kings will have to rely even more upon the likes of Quinton Byfield and Arthur Kaliyev to break through on the big stage, while also banking on big outings from Adrian Kempe, Viktor Arvidsson, Phillip Danault, and Alex Iafallo.

We probably don’t need to spend much time talking about what the Kings are going up against. McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are capable of taking over games at any time. Zach Hyman and Evander Kane combined for 24 goals in the playoffs last year. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is coming off his first 100-point season.

The lingering question in Edmonton, however, concerns what comes after those players. Sure, Evan Bouchard and Darnell Nurse are both more than capable of providing offense from the back end, but the Oilers’ supporting cast at forward has been inconsistent all year long. There’s reasonable upside in the likes of Nick Bjugstad, Derek Ryan, Kailer Yamamoto, Warren Foegele, and Ryan McLeod, but what if the unthinkable happens and McDavid goes cold (or gets hurt) for a few games? It’s a scary thought.

Defense

The Oilers transformed their defensive group with the acquisition of Mattias Ekholm from the Nashville Predators ahead of the 2023 trade deadline. So far, the big Swede looks to be exactly the tonic Edmonton needed on the point. The Oilers went from being a high-flying offensive machine before the trade to an all-around juggernaut after the fact. It remains to be seen whether Edmonton will be able to ride that wave of momentum to a series win, but the early returns have been nothing but positive.

At this point, the Oilers would probably be more content paying $9.25 million to Ekholm and $6 million to Nurse. The Ekholm contract might not necessarily age all that well, but nobody in Edmonton cares about that right now. For the moment, the Oilers have a solid top four with Ekholm, Bouchard, Nurse, and Cody Ceci, with Brett Kulak anchoring the bottom pair with Vincent Desharnais. Philip Broberg is the wild card. The Oilers certainly aren’t the strongest defensive team out there, but they became a lot harder to play against as soon as they added Ekholm into the equation.

The Kings also added a defender at the deadline. Like Ekholm, he’s been pretty great. Vladislav Gavrikov has eaten huge minutes since arriving in L.A. from the Columbus Blue Jackets and has been a seamless fit on a pairing with Matt Roy. The Kings now boast two truly formidable top-four duos on the blueline, with Drew Doughty and Mikey Anderson combining to form the other; Sean Durzi and Sean Walker have also been effective in bottom-pairing usage. Reliable veteran Alex Edler is currently day-to-day with an upper-body injury and could be a factor against the Oilers.

What the Oilers truly lack compared to the Kings is defensive depth. Beyond their current NHL options, the Kings can also draw from the likes of Tobias Bjornfot, Jacob Moverare, and Jordan Spence, and if things get really thorny with injuries, they could even potentially call upon top OHL prospect Brandt Clarke. With all due respect to Cam Dineen and Jason Demers, the Oilers don’t have nearly the same quality of reinforcements.

Now, can Doughty, Gavrikov, and Anderson shut down McDavid and Co.? From this vantage point, that’s still a bit of a tough sell. But, in the end, it may all just come down to …

Goaltending

It doesn’t matter how good your team is if your goaltender can’t stop pucks. Both the Kings and Oilers have dealt with unreliable goaltending at times this season. If anything is going to sink one of these teams, it might just be who’s in net.

The Oilers thought they’d solved their goaltending issue last summer when they signed Jack Campbell to a huge five-year deal in unrestricted free agency. It didn’t really work out that way. Campbell posted a dismal .888 save percentage in 36 appearances with the Oilers during the 2022–23 season and watched upstart Stuart Skinner steal his starting job down the stretch, and for good reason. Skinner was the better of the two Oilers goalies nearly all season long, going 29–14–5 with a decent .914 save percentage. But while he’ll probably factor into the Calder Trophy race, Skinner isn’t exactly a Vezina candidate just yet — and he’s never played a minute in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That’s a whole different ballgame.

Joonas Korpisalo is very much not untested. The Kings acquired the veteran goaltender from the Blue Jackets in March as part of the Gavrikov deal, sending longtime starter Jonathan Quick packing at the same time. Korpisalo has certainly been a major upgrade on Quick, and the Kings are banking on him being the same guy who made 85 saves in a single playoff game back in the 2020 bubble. But if Korpisalo reverts to his 2020–21 or 2021–22 form, the Kings don’t exactly have much in the way of insurance. Are Pheonix Copley and Cal Petersen really viable options to start playoff games at this point? It’s going to take a Herculean performance to keep McDavid at bay, but Korpisalo is more than capable of stealing games when he’s at his best.

Injuries

Both these teams are entering the playoffs relatively healthy. The only Oiler on the mend is depth defenseman Ryan Murray, who has appeared in 13 NHL games this season (veterans Mike Smith and Oscar Klefbom have been on LTIR all year long with career-ending injuries). The Oilers assigned Murray to the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors earlier this week on a conditioning stint, and he’ll likely be available if called upon by the big club during the playoffs.

The Kings’ situation is a little less certain. Fiala, the club’s No. 2 scorer during the regular season, hasn’t played since April 1; Vilardi, who broke out with 23 goals in 63 games this year, has been out since March 26. Kings head coach Todd McLellan said this week he’s “hoping that they’re both going to be out there” for Game 1, but neither player has a concrete timetable.

Intangibles

This really feels like the year the Oilers could go all the way, doesn’t it? They lost to the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final last year, but the Avs have taken a step back while the Oilers have shifted into a new gear. Edmonton finished the 2022–23 regular season on a 15-game point streak. Connor McDavid is the first NHLer to score 150 points in a season this century. Unlike previous years, the defense and goaltending both look strong. If this isn’t the year for the Oilers, it’s hard to fathom if they’ll ever get over the hump.

But the Kings aren’t just happy to be here. They’re coming out of a very successful rebuild with a young, deep group that still features a few standbys from their 2012 and 2014 Cup wins. While there were fears that trading Quick at the deadline may have alienated parts of the locker room, it appears Korpisalo and Gavrikov were able to smooth everything over down the stretch. It really all comes down to the young guns. If Quinton Byfield, Arthur Kaliyev, Sean Durzi, and Mikey Anderson can be difference-makers in this series, we might see yet another Game 7 between these two teams.

Series prediction

This year’s Oilers almost feel like a team of destiny. What exactly that destiny is remains to be seen. Perhaps they’ll go out in a fiery blaze like the 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning. But for our purposes, we’ll say they continue their dominance from the stretch drive into their first-round series. Skinner will stand on his head and McDavid will record 10 points on the power play as the Oilers win Games 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Oilers in four games.

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