Is this the year the Kings finally beat the Oilers?

For the fourth straight season, the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers will be facing off in the first round of the playoffs. The first three meetings went the way of the Oilers, but this year feels like it might be different. The Kings are the best they’ve ever looked in the past four seasons, and the Oilers might be the worst that they’ve looked, so at the very least, it’ll be a much more interesting series.

Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talked about how the Kings might just be the favourites in this year’s playoff matchup with the Oilers on Daily Faceoff Live.

Frank Seravalli: I think they have a better shot, and it’s mostly because I think the Oilers are more vulnerable than they were at any point over these last three years. Now, I know in saying that, if you watch Connor McDavid’s game the last few games since returning from injury, he looks like he’s in pure video game mode again. He’s a guy that also has an incredible playoff track record as being arguably one of the best playoff performers of all time, and certainly in that conversation of the best playoff performer of all time to not have a Stanley Cup to his credit.

That said, with Mattias Ekholm being out and with the question marks in the Oilers’ net, I think the Oilers are more gettable than they’ve been. Yeah, can the L.A. Kings score enough to beat the Oilers or outlast them in a playoff series is a real question mark. But I think this Kings’ team, particularly with the play of someone like Quinton Byfield of late, and I think with their ability to defend a little bit better, certainly better than the Oilers have to this point this season, that this is going to be a real close series.

I think this is going to be one of the toughest tests for the Oilers so far, and it’s definitely going to be the toughest of the four [previous series’].

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, and you look at their head-to-head this season, [they’ve played] a couple of really low-scoring games down the stretch. Now granted, Edmonton didn’t have McDavid or Leon Draisaitl for that final 3-0 loss to the Kings. So maybe Monday is a really good test as the Oilers have McDavid back, who has nine points in three games since returning.

You can watch the full episode here…