LOS ANGELES — Evander Kane and Zach Hyman had one crummy empty net goal between them through three games and almost 57 minutes of Game 4 of this playoff series. Jack Campbell had gone from being the final piece of the puzzle, to a puzzled guy down at the end of the bench, opening the gate for the boys.
As a team, the great offensive machine that is the Edmonton Oilers had cashed in just one of its past 11 playoff overtime games.
But it’s a funny thing about stories that get penned down here in the land of the Hollywood screenwriter. Somehow, a hero always emerges — against all odds.
Campbell came off the bench trailing 3-0 after 20 minutes, stopped 27 of 28 shots he faced — including a circus stop on Viktor Arvidsson with 5:46 to play in a game led 4-3 by the Kings. Then Kane rifled home the game-tying goal with 3:02 left in regulation.
Then finally — and you would groan if it went down like this in a Disney movie — it was Hyman who was rewarded on his 16th shot on goal of the series, beating the irascible Joonas Korpisalo in overtime.
Roll the credits on a thrilling, 5-4 win that evens this series at two games apiece.
Let the MGM lion roar. We’ve got a series here.
“Evander Kane is an absolute warrior. He's built for this time of year,” head coach Jay Woodcroft said. “Zach Hyman had a career year this year. It's not an accident he put up the numbers that he put up.
“He wore the cape for us tonight.”
There are moments in almost every playoff run where, suddenly, everything is on the line. Sometimes those moments don’t arrive until the second or third round. Rarely, like for that 2012 Kings team that played just 20 games in winning a Stanley Cup, they don’t arrive at all.
For these Oilers, this was the first truly critical moment in what is supposed to be a lengthy run. Down 3-0 after one period, facing a 3-1 series deficit that would have been just this side of impossible to overcome, they were being outskated, out-goaltended and out-worked.
The Oilers limped to the dressing room like Rocky after Round 3.
Woodcroft pulled Stuart Skinner. He benched big Vincent Desharnais.
And a dressing room from which much is expected, emerged in the second period and began chipping away at the Kings.
“They're all big tests, but this one was really big,” admitted Leon Draisaitl, who scored twice in a three-goal second period that left this building in shock during the second intermission. “In that moment, it was massive for our group. I felt we responded really, really well.
“We just came in waves in the second period and put ourselves back into in.”
To retrieve this game — and possibly the series — in one dominant period was the first true muscle flex by the NHL’s top offensive team in this series.
“We realized we had all 40 minutes to tie up the game,” Kane said. “That was the mindset, but to get it done and tied up in 20, we were more than happy with that.”
Edmonton had blown leads throughout this series. Now, it was the Kings’ turn.
“It’s been a strange series,” wondered Kings coach Todd McLellan. “It seems like the team that takes the lead sits back and takes their foot off the gas a bit.”
If the worm turned Sunday for Kane, for Hyman and for an Oilers team that hasn’t had much OT love in the post-season — other than the Game 5 clincher at Calgary last year — then it also swivelled when it came to the breaks and the bounces in this series.
Edmonton lost Game 1 on a power play given to L.A. when a Kings player stepped on a broken stick and blew a tire. In Game 3, three of the weakest calls went against Edmonton, and a high-sticking review in OT went against the Oilers as well.
But in Game 4, the inevitable occurred.
Connor McDavid was spared a possible tripping call when he upset Drew Doughty seconds before Draisaitl’s first goal. Draisaitl drew an iffy tripping penalty that set up his 3-3 goal, a call that — like Doughty on McDavid — easily could have gone the other way.
The penalties that have been a stone in Edmonton’s shoe disappeared, just as surely as three of the key performers rose out of the mist.
“We went into this game with a purpose of staying out of scrums,” said Kane. “If we have to take a shot, we're going to take a shot. If we have to take a slash in the back of the knees, then we’ve got to take a slash in the back of the knees.
“You've seen a little bit of what L.A. has been trying to do throughout this series, when it comes to the embellishment and the diving, and people are starting to catch on to that. Those plays aren't getting called as penalties, now which is which is the right thing.”
So now, a year after Edmonton defeated L.A. in seven games, Kings vs. Oilers II is down a best-of-three.
Who does Woodcroft start in goal in Game 5? Can the Kings handle an Oilers team with their Top 6 fully engaged?
How wild will Rogers Place in Edmonton be on Tuesday night?
“I don’t think anyone thought … we could challenge this team,” McLellan said. “We lost 6-0 and 8-2 last year. We’ve closed the gap, but where we’ve improved, they’ve improved too.
“We've prepared for a long series. We're bunkered in for a long series,” said Woodcroft, McLellan’s former understudy. “It's best-of-three now.”
Said McLellan: “Good series.”
A good series indeed.
Episode 5 will be available on Tuesday night.
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