LOS ANGELES — The problem for the Los Angeles Kings on Friday was not that they kept the lights off in the arena as long as possible before the Edmonton Oilers’ morning skate, but that they turned them on for the game.
With the stage aglow and Crypto.com Arena crackling for the first Stanley Cup playoff game in Los Angeles in more than four years, the Kings weren’t ready when the lights came up. Showtime belonged to the Oilers, who scored twice in the first six minutes and embarrassed Los Angeles 8-2 to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.
Edmonton’s advantage feels greater than one game.
Including Wednesday’s 6-0 dismantling of the Kings in Edmonton, the Oilers have pumped in two touchdowns over two games and won by a dozen goals on aggregate. And Connor McDavid has just one of Edmonton’s 17 goals in the series. Think about that for a minute. Sixteen goals have been scored by other Oilers.
On Friday, Evander Kane had a hat trick, and Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each scored twice. The Oilers chased Kings starter Jonathan Quick halfway through the second period, and Edmonton starter Mike Smith has been close to perfect since his third-period giveaway in Game 1 enabled Los Angeles’ 4-3 win.
The teams are on different trajectories. Game 4 is Sunday.
“I’m not a big believer in momentum carry over,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “I think you have to re-establish things. We expected a push from them. Certainly, you know, lots of shots on net from all angles and all that kind of stuff, but I thought we displayed some perseverance and persistence and some patience to our game and struck when the time was right.
“I feel a real esprit de corps amongst our group — people that are working hard for each other. It’s a fun group to stand behind tonight.”
Yes, these Oilers may finally be different than the teams that largely squandered McDavid’s first six seasons while winning only one playoff series. Certainly, no Edmonton coach has used “esprit de corps” to describe his team.
“It takes everybody,” McDavid said simply when asked about contributions from throughout the lineup.
“Just finding ways to win games, that’s all that matters this time of year,” he said. “Doesn’t really matter how it looks or what happens. I think we’ve done a good job of playing well, playing hard, we’ve been physical. They kind of pushed back today and I thought we responded well.”
Seven seasons and nearly 700 points into McDavid’s reign, the Oilers are trying to win just their second playoff series since 2006. Naturally, that has created a fair bit of baggage. The weight gets heavier each time the Oilers lose a series. Sometimes it feels like the burden increases by the game, like when they lost the opener on Monday.
But the funny thing about baggage is that everyone has some from somewhere. Lucky are the rare few unencumbered by disappointment and failed expectations. The Kings aren’t carrying steamer trunks on their backs like McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are, but their fanny packs may be starting to feel heavy.
As an organization, the Kings have not won a playoff game on home ice since lifting the Stanley Cup against the New York Rangers in 2014. That remarkable achievement came with some free passes. Ask fans in Toronto and Vancouver how much suffering a Stanley Cup triumph would be worth.
To be fair to the Kings, a youngish team that has evolved from its rebuild and returned to the playoffs perhaps a season or two sooner than forecast, they have neither the pressure nor expectations the Oilers face to win soon.
But the Kings lost all three home playoff games in a 4-1 opening-series loss to the San Jose Sharks in 2016, and went 0-2 at what was then the Staples Center while being swept by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2018. Friday was the return of playoff hockey to Los Angeles.
And a Kings team trying to learn how to win, largely remade but with a few key holdovers from more prosperous times, was embarrassed by the Oilers for the second straight game. Edmonton led 5-0 halfway through Game 3.
Maybe arena staff, clearly under instructions from the Kings, should not have kept Crypto.com dark and the nets hidden away when the Oilers came out for their morning skate a few minutes before their official 11:30 a.m. start time on Friday. The Kings take morning skates at their practice facility in El Segundo, near LAX airport, and it’s common for visiting NHL teams to get on the ice early when it’s unused by the home team.
Maybe the Kings lost their watch in El Segundo. An extra 15 minutes of skating and drilling might have burned a little more Oilers energy. Instead, Edmonton jumped on L.A. at the start.
Skating four-on-four – thanks largely to the Kings’ Brendan Lemieux, who shows the same respect for opponents that his father did – McDavid and Draisaitl perfectly executed a two-on-one to make it 1-0 at 3:50.
When Trevor Moore took a holding-the-stick penalty at 5:46, the Oilers’ lethal power play needed just 23 seconds to make it 2-0, McDavid making another brilliant goal-side pass for Hyman to tap behind Quick.
Smith handled 19 first-period shots – the Kings fired from everywhere but generated few quality chances – but the Oilers ended the contest before the game was 30 minutes old. Kane sandwiched a pair of rebound goals around a terrific solo effort by Hyman, all in a span of three-and-a-half minutes, to make it 5-0 early in the second period.
And after goals later in the frame by Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault at least got the L.A. crowd back into, the Oilers pumped in three more late in the third, two by Nugent-Hopkins and a third by Kane.
“Anytime you can come into someone’s building and get the jump on them, I think it’s huge,” McDavid said. “We were able to do that. But I thought they had a great first period, honestly. We made a couple of good plays and kind of held on there in the first, and I thought our game got going there early in the second.”
Woodcroft said he expected the Kings, after losing badly on Wednesday, to deliver their best effort in Game 3.
“And we were ready for it,” he said. “I thought we were surgical in taking advantage of opportunities that presented themselves. I thought they ran around a little bit to try and get physical with us. We handled it with good composure. We made more plays than them and we ended up getting the win tonight.
“What I take most joy out of as a coach is watching all of the people in our lineup contribute and bring that type of effort and intensity. Because it’s been quite noticeable.”
EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers signed defenceman Travis Dermott to a professional tryout on Friday.
Dermott, a 27-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., produced two goals, five assists and 26 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes last season.
The six-foot, 202-pound blueliner has also played for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto drafted him in the second round, 34th overall, of the 2015 NHL draft.
Over seven NHL seasons, Dermott has 16 goals and 46 assists in 329 games while averaging 16:03 in ice time.
Before the NHL, Dermott played two seasons with Oilers captain Connor McDavid for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The team was coached by current Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.
The organization released the voting results on Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.
The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.
“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”
Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.
Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.
To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.
The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.
The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The driver charged with killing NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew as they bicycled on a rural road had a blood-alcohol level of .087, above the .08 legal limit in New Jersey, a prosecutor said Friday.
Gaudreau, 31, and brother Matthew, 29, were killed in Carneys Point, New Jersey, on Aug. 29, the evening before they were set to serve as groomsmen at their sister Katie’s wedding.
The driver, 43-year-old Sean M. Higgins of nearby Woodstown, New Jersey, is charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle. At a virtual court hearing Friday, a judge ordered that he be held for trial after prosecutors described a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.
“’You were probably driving like a nut like I always tell you you do. And you don’t listen to me, instead you just yell at me,’” his wife told Higgins when he called her from jail after his arrest, according to First Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Flynn of Salem County.
The defense described Higgins as a married father and law-abiding citizen before the crash.
“He’s an empathetic individual and he’s a loving father of two daughters,” said defense lawyer Matthew Portella. “He’s a good person and he made a horrible decision that night.”
Higgins told police he had five or six beers that day and admitted to consuming alcohol while driving, according to the criminal complaint. He also failed a field sobriety test, the complaint said. A prosecutor on Friday said he had been drinking at home after finishing a work call at about 3 p.m., and having an upsetting conversation with his mother about a family matter.
He then had a two-hour phone call with a friend while he drove around in his Jeep with an open container, Flynn said. He had been driving aggressively behind a sedan going just above the 50 mph speed limit, sometimes tailgating, the female driver told police.
When she and the vehicle ahead of her slowed down and veered left to go around the cyclists, Higgins sped up and veered right, striking the Gaudreas, the two other drivers told police.
“He indicated he didn’t even see them,” said Superior Court Judge Michael J. Silvanio, who said Higgins’ admitted “impatience” caused two deaths.
Higgins faces up to 20 years, a sentence that the judge said made him a flight risk.
Higgins has a master’s degree, works in finance for an addiction treatment company, and served in combat in Iraq, his lawyers said. However, his wife said he had been drinking regularly since working from home, Flynn said.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 10 full seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets after signing a seven-year, $68 million deal in 2022. He played his first eight seasons with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as attached at the hip throughout their lives. Both women are expecting, and both gave moving eulogies at the double funeral on Monday.
