LOS ANGELES — If the regular season was little more than a dress rehearsal for the “Cup-or-bust” Edmonton Oilers, then why wasn’t same thing said about Evander Kane’s season?
Kane was only OK in an injury-affected regular season, falling from a top-six regular to a third-liner by the time the playoffs opened. Yet, he still gave his team 24 regular season goals with minimal power play time, and finished sixth in the NHL in hits.
Then, on a Friday night in Los Angeles, we were reminded of his true worth, as Kane checked in with a Gordie Howe hat trick in a dominant 6-1 Oilers win.
“It’s a new year, a new playoff season,” said Kane, who had a goal, an assist, a fight with big Andreas Englund, and was generally in the middle of it all night long.
Like all NHL players, Kane’s paychecks stop coming at season’s end. But this was the kind of game you pay him for, a skilled and intimidating performance on a night where the Oilers flexed their muscles to take a 2-1 series lead.
They walked into Crypto.com Arena and spanked the hometown Kings, with Kane as the lead hand.
L.A. defenceman Drew Doughty scored to make it 3-1 early in the second period, in what stood as the one dangerous Kings push of the night. By the time the period had concluded however, the Oilers had a 4-1 lead, thanks to Kane’s deflection goal just two minutes after Doughty had breathed some life into the Kings.
“Those are those momentum shifts that everyone talks about all the time, right?” said Leon Draisaitl, Kane’s surprise centreman for Game 3. “Those are big, especially in away buildings in the playoffs. A big, big goal by Kaner.”
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch played a hunch, putting Warren Foegele on the third line and promoting Kane to right wing with Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on Line 2. It was a magical bit of strategy, as that unit scored twice at even strength, while the Oilers’ lethal power play punished L.A. for some late-game shenanigans.
“I found out (Friday) morning,” Kane said of the line change. “We’ve all played with everybody throughout the course of the year, and sometimes things get changed up. It’s nice opportunity to play with two really good playmakers, and I thought we generated some great opportunities.”
Kane is a gamer. A guy who shows up in games like this one, a series-shifting road win that left little doubt which is the better team — if Edmonton plays as well as it can play.
“He just feeds off the intensity,” Draisaitl said. “He enjoys the physicality, and he enjoys the simplicity, in a way, of playoff goals. He’s obviously really good at it. The first three games, he’s been fantastic.
“It’s just his type of game, right? He’s good at it,” continued Draisaitl. “He’s strong and he forechecks. He likes to play that way. I think he likes to be hit, but he also enjoys hitting other people. Goes hand in hand.”
Draisaitl (2-1-3) and Connor McDavid (1-2-3) each had three points while Zach Hyman scored twice for six goals already this spring.
McDavid now has 62 points (19-43-62) in his last 31 playoff games, while joining Wayne Gretzky as the only two players in NHL history to notch eight assists in the opening three games of the post-season.
Draisaitl, meanwhile, became the fastest player in NHL history to score 20 road goals in the playoffs (26 games). Kevin Stevens and Bernie Nicholls shared the record at 29 games, as McDavid and Draisaitl — each 52 games into their playoff careers — start to make their impressions on the NHL record book as they dent the playoff twine at a pace few have ever accomplished.
It’s not the “6” in the score line that will be dwelled on in Edmonton’s team meetings on Saturday, before the players enjoy a day off in the California sunshine. It’s the “1” — as in, one goal allowed, after giving up eight goals in the opening two games of the series.
To a man, the Oilers players promised they would execute the kind of defensive game in Game 3 that made them the best team in the National Hockey League since the first week of November, and they delivered in spades.
“We had a plan we executed, and it wasn’t just one or two guys,” said Knoblauch. “Five guys were committed and connected on the ice.”
Hyman, Draisaitl and McDavid each scored in a near perfect first period for Edmonton. After that, the Oilers defended their way to a 2-1 series lead by weathering a few Kings storms, then padding their lead on some late five-on-three power plays.
“Five-on-five we defended well,” said big Darnell Nurse, who headed a penalty-killing unit that was perfect in five Kings attempts. “When the PK was up we defended well there too, and our goalie was great. When all those things are going in the right direction, we’re a force.”
In the end, this is the recipe for Edmonton, and a sour stew for the overmatched Kings.
The Oilers stars were excellent and productive, one of their many support scorers came up big, the goaltending was more than sound and the defensive posture was physical and tidy.
And from that structure comes enough offensive opportunity to pot six goals.
“Every coach tries to teach it, from the time we’re six years old,” smiled Nurse. “Good defence leads to offence. It’s so true.”
