The Team That Wouldn’t Die does it again — Edmonton Oilers win Game 4

With desperation on their side and a sold-out Rogers Place trying to will them to victory, the Edmonton Oilers came out with a whimper and were staring down the barrel of a devastating first-round exit.

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A team that has been plagued by slow starts all year served up another one at the worst possible time, spotting the Los Angeles Kings a 3-1 lead through 40 minutes Game 4. The Kings were in complete control, outshooting Edmonton 28-15 and showing no signs of weakness.

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It was hard to tell which emotion was stronger among the Oilers faithful — doom or gloom.

Then, the Team That Wouldn’t Die did it again. Two days after scoring twice in 10 seconds to come back and win Game 3, they dropped another stunner on the shell-shocked Kings.

Evan Bouchard, who was minus three after L.A.’s first three goals, closed it to 3-2 with 12 minutes left, then scored again to tie it with just 28.4 seconds separating the Oilers from the end of their season.

Then Leon Draisaitl, who finished the night with a goal and three assists, won it with 1:42 left in overtime to even the series 2-2 heading back to Los Angeles.

This was Edmonton’s last chance to make a series out of it (in the 347 previous times an NHL team has been up 3-1 in a playoff series, it’s gone on to win the series 315 times for a 90.8% success rate), but for 40 minutes they couldn’t even make a game out of it.

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Outshot 14-6 in the first period, the Oilers trailed 1-0 at the first intermission on a not-great goal from Trevor Moore at 10:35, which wasn’t great news for Edmonton, given that in the first 21 games of the Oilers-Kings playoff history, the team scoring first is 19-2.

The hole got deeper and darker when Oiler Warren Foegele made it 2-0 early in the second period, and when Bouchard saved up yet another L.A. Kings goal, just three minutes after Corey Perry had closed it to 2-1 on the power play, it looked over.

But, once again, Edmonton made the Kings wilt in the third period.

A fluke goal from Bouchard cut L.A.’s lead to 3-2 with 12 minutes left in regulation, and once the Oilers smelled blood, it was only a matter of time. Sure enough, with 28.4 seconds left, Bouchard put a point shot inside the post to bring the house down.

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Draisaitl’s winner on the power play sealed the win.

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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