All Oilers, all the time as Edmonton pulls away from Los Angeles

Things were close for a few games, but that sound you heard Tuesday night in Los Angeles was the Edmonton Oilers pulling away from the Kings — probably for good, if the last five periods are any indication.

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A series that started in L.A.’s favour, with the Kings up 2-0 and a break or two away from putting Edmonton in a place they couldn’t recover from is now All Oilers All The time.

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If it’s possible to blow a team away 3-1 with an empty-netter, that’s what happened in Game 5 in Los Angeles, where the Oilers outshot the Kings 46-21 and took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with a chance to wrap things up for good Thursday night at Rogers Place.

“They executed way better than us, they were stronger, they beat us in every area of the game,” sighed L.A. coach Jim Hiller, whose team looks like it is in deep trouble. “They were just better in every way.”

This was as good as the Oilers have looked all year.

“Probably, for a full 60, I think so,” said winger Zach Hyman. “I don’t remember the last time we played as good a game as that. Everybody chipped in and did their job. It was probably the best performance this year that we’ve had. And it was a 2-1 game, so it takes everybody.”


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The Oilers controlled Game 5 from the start, outshooting Los Angeles 19-4 in the first period and 14-8 in the second period, a carry-over from the third period (16-6) and overtime (17-7) of Game 4.

They swarmed them from the opening shift and the Kings couldn’t do anything to keep them off.

“I felt like we started something in the second part of the third period last game,” said Mattias Janmark. “We found the upper hand and tried to not let go of that and pretty much executed for 60 minutes.”

The only thing preventing Edmonton from being up about 4-0 by the halfway mark was Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, who took an .881 save percentage into the game. He was all-world when Los Angeles was under siege so the Oilers had nothing to show for it but 0-0 after 20 minutes and 1-1 after 40 on goals from Andrei Kuzmenko and Evander Kane.

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That was fine with them, though, given that they outscored Los Angeles 11-5 in the third periods of the first four games.

They only needed one this time. Janmark, from Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin, scored the game-winning goal 7:12 into the third period to give Edmonton its first lead of the series. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added the empty-netter.

“The feeling after the first period was we’re outplaying them and we have them where we want them and we have to keep pushing the gas,” said Janmark. “There was a feeling in the room that we’re playing like we should and we’re the better team tonight, we’ve got them where we want them.

“They got one on the power play and I don’t think anyone said anything — we just went back and scored to tie the game and away we went from there.”

LATE HITS

Officiating in the playoffs continues to be substandard and there were some key misses Tuesday, none worse than when Quinton Byfield covered the puck with his hand in the L.A. crease during a second-period scramble.

Referee Kendrick Nicholson, who was standing on the back of the net watching the play from five feet away, either missed it or chose not to call it, robbing the Oilers of what should have been a penalty shot.

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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