Philip Denalt scored his second goal with 42 seconds to play, and Los Angeles Kings scored a four goal before holding a rally to a 6–5 victory over Edmonton Olers in the fourth first-round playoff series opener of the clubs on Monday night.
“Connor and Leon made some very good plays to bring us back to that game,” Olers’ head coach Chris Novach said after the loss.
“5-on-5, I felt that we have a lot of time in the aggressive field-and then scored goals due to some breakdown.”
Kings led 5–3 in the last minutes before Zach Hyman and Connor McDawid tied it with an additional attacker. Los Angeles improperly responded, Danolt skated in the middle and cut a shot house, while a leaping Warren Foegley screening goalkeeper Stuart Skinner.
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Andrei Kuzmenco scored one goal and two in his Stanley Cup playoffs, and Adrian Kemppe, another goal and two aid pair for the second seeded Kings, who lost the last three series against Edmonton. Los Angeles became the fourth team in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs, which was about to win in regulation despite a four goal lead.
Quinton Bifield, Philip Dant and Kevin Fiala also scored, and Darcy Kumper made 20 savings in their first playoffs since extending the cup with Colorado in 2022.
Los Angeles has a home-iPal in this spring for the first time in his tetraology with Admonton, and the Kings increased a late 4–0 lead in the second period in the arena, where they had NHL’s best home record. When the oileers woke up and made it a memorable night: Leon Drasatal, Matias Jenmark and Corey Perry scored with Hyiman before scoring with 2:04 and McDavid scored an extraordinary tied with 1:28.
McDwid had a goal and three assistance for the olers, which reached the final game 7 of the Stanley Cup final in the previous season. Skinner cried 24 shots.
“Can be faster, obviously,” Olers said Zack Hymen.
“Left a lot of opportunities. They were better than us in special teams, obviously. We took a lot of punishment.
The game is 2 Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Till the late rally of Edmonton, Kuzmanco was a star. Los Angeles scored 0 runs for 0 for 12 on power play against Edmonton in the previous spring, but 29-year-old Russian-Russian-Kings have activated Kings since arriving last month-scored in just 2:49 during the benefit of a man.
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