The year is 2022, the Edmonton Oilers have just beat the LA Kings in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Wait, that isn’t right – the year is 2023… 2024?

The year is 2025, and the Edmonton Oilers have just beat the LA Kings in the first round for the fourth time in a row.

LA started off the scoring early on the first shot of the night; Edmonton immediately responded with a double redirection, and LA made sure to retake their lead not thirty seconds later. 2-1 LA less than four minutes into this bout, but not for long.

Edmonton was given the first powerplay of the night; Hyman took control of the puck behind the LA net and cycled the pass to McDavid who found Ryan Nugen-Hopkins wide open for the second equalizer of the night.

Soon after, Edmonton won an offensive faceoff draw where Zach Hyman battled through the LA defence to get his stick far enough out to tip a shot sent from the blue line, right over Kuemper’s glove hand.

Calvin Pickard had to make several high danger saves to keep Edmonton ahead. For the first fifteen minutes of the second period LA looked unstoppable; The Kings were rolling all four lines effectively and neutralizing all of Edmonton’s best efforts – but then the floodgates opened. Darnell Nurse was given open ice and picked his spot perfectly to extend the lead. Two shifts later Trent Frederick and Connor Brown came crashing down on Kuemper to make the game 5-2.

LA managed to quiet the home crowd after Podkolzin took a bad line change, and they kept the pressure up in the third. To Edmonton’s credit, they did a good job holding LA off the score sheet for nearly the entire period, but with 53 seconds left, Anze Kopitar found a tip-in off Drew Doughty.

It wouldn’t be Oilers hockey without making it too close for comfort.

Connor Brown scored with 0.8 seconds remaining to pad his playoff stats just a little further, and Edmonton secured their most impactful series win against the Kings yet. Most pundits had LA as the favorite heading into this series, and not without cause. They had the best home-team record in the league, they had scoring depth, they had Darcy Kuemper playing out of his mind.

But it didn’t matter. Game 1 showed that Edmonton could win any match so long as they get league average goaltending. The Oilers didn’t shy away from the pressure after a disasterous game 2. Jim Hiller made the call to challenge for goaltender interference in game 3, and things were never the same for LA; They never quite found their rhythm after squandering an opportunity to go up 3-0 in the series. Edmonton however found their third gear during overtime in game 4, and they never looked back.

That coach’s challenge might go down as an all time blunder.

The Edmonton Oilers have punched their ticket to the second round once again, and their reward is chance at revenge against the Vegas Golden Knights.

More to come soon.