EDMONTON, Alberta — In recent history, Game 2’s haven’t been pleasant playoff experiences for the Kings against the Edmonton Oilers, but they were able to change that history on Wednesday night.
Anze Kopitar scored just 2:07 into overtime, firing a wrist shot past Stuart Skinner’s glove and into the top corner on a breakaway to give the Kings a 5-4 victory in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series at Rogers Place.
Kopitar picked up the puck near the Edmonton blue line after a weird bounce gave him a lane up the center of the ice, moved in on Skinner and shot from the slot as Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse dove to try to block the shot.
The Kings rebounded from a 7-4 loss in Monday night’s series opener to send the best-of-seven series to Los Angeles tied, 1-1. Game 3 is Friday night at Crypto.com Arena.
It wasn’t pretty, as the Kings squandered a 3-1 lead in the first period and a 4-3 lead early in the third before Kopitar, who also had two assists, played the hero.
Adrian Kempe scored twice in the first period for Los Angeles. Drew Doughty also connected in the first for the Kings, making it 3-1. Kevin Fiala scored in the third, and Cam Talbot came up huge with 27 saves.
Dylan Holloway scored twice for Edmonton, tying it at 4-4 early in the third period. Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman also scored for the Oilers, and Skinner stopped 21 shots.
The Kings wanted to get back to their identity after their disappointing Game 1 loss, and they certainly did that.
They jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Kopitar picked off an outlet pass from Evan Bouchard and made a nice pass to Kempe in the slot, who ripped a shot past Skinner for the lead, just 3:19 into the game.
Kempe and Kopitar were at it again later in the period. Kempe would have made Dodgers star Mookie Betts jealous when he batted the puck out of the air off a Kopitar backhand shot and beat Skinner under the crossbar.
Edmonton was able to cut the Kings lead to 2-1 when Kulak took a drop pass from Leon Draisaitl and wired a shot over the shoulder of Talbot, but the Kings had a quick response.
Just 29 seconds later, the visitors took advantage of a neutral zone turnover and Viktor Arvidsson stopped at the red line and made a nice feed to a streaking Doughty, who scored despite losing control of the puck, as the momentum took it through Skinner’s legs. It was Doughty’s first playoff goal since 2014 and gave his team a 3-1 lead.
But Edmonton responded in a big way in the middle frame as Holloway, playing just his second career playoff game, scored his first playoff goal to cut the Kings lead to 3-2.
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Then, Blake Lizotte took a hooking penalty, and the Oilers potent power play went to work and Hyman scored his fourth of the series to tie it at 3-3 at the 10:33 mark of the second period.
Fiala gave the Kings a 4-3 lead just 1:46 into the third period when his shot from along the wall and just a few feet from inside the blue line beat Skinner.
But the Oilers were quick to respond as Holloway scored his second of the game with a hard wrist shot just 1:37 later.
POWER OUTAGE
The Kings went 2 for 10 on the power play against Edmonton during the regular season, but through the first two games of the series they’re 0 for 5 with the man advantage.
More to come on this story.