Five reasons why Oilers are facing elimination against Kings after Game 5

The Oilers looked like a freight train charging full steam ahead, unable to be stopped.

Down two goals with less than nine minutes left in regulation, Leon Draisaitl scored twice — one shorthanded and one on the power play — to tie the game. It felt like it was only a matter of time before they’d net the winning goal.

That’s what made the result, a 5-4 overtime loss on a goal by Kings winger Adrian Kempe 1:12 into the extra period, feel like such a sudden turn of events. The Oilers now trail their first-round series 3-2.

“We had we had the momentum going in,” Draisaitl said. “The break (intermission) didn’t come at a time in our favour, but that’s the way the game works.”

Kempe picked up a turnover at centre ice, bolted along the right wing and by Connor McDavid and Duncan Keith — two Oilers who hadn’t changed — and beat goaltender Mike Smith to the far post.

“I saw McDavid was still out there and I knew he started (the overtime),” Kempe told ESPN. “I had a step on him. He’s still really fast, but I got him there and their D-man as well. That was nice.”

The Oilers’ valiant third-period comeback was all for naught.

“There hasn’t been a ton of momentum carryover through game to game, period to period,” McDavid said. “We didn’t carry the momentum over to the overtime period.”

But the loss came down to more than one shot or one bad break. Truly, they were lucky to even get to that point considering how poorly they played for much of the night.

That they pushed the game to a fourth period masked many of their issues.

That is what’ll be assessed here. These are the five reasons the Oilers are now facing elimination.

Poor start — yet again

The Oilers entered the first intermission down 1-0. The score flattered them.

They were outshot 16-5 through 20 minutes. At five-on-five, they were out-attempted 24-16 with the Kings holding the edge in high-danger chances 5-2, per Natural Stat Trick.

They struggled to complete passes, bobbled pucks and lost battles.

“We didn’t have enough people (going) early,” coach Jay Woodcroft said. “As the game wore on, we started to find more players and made a game of it. But we chased the game from the opening puck drop.

“We did a good job coming back, but it was too big a hill to climb.”

This isn’t a one-game outlier, either.

The Oilers have typically been the second-best team in the opening frame throughout the series. They’ve been outscored 5-3 in the first over five contests. They allowed the opening goal three times — and lost each of them.

Try as they might, they couldn’t overcome yet another subpar start on Tuesday.

“The answer lies in the room,” Draisaitl said. “We’ve got to come out a little harder. We’ve got to come out with our skating legs underneath us. We haven’t had that the last couple of games — really, not in any games in the series.”

The Oilers simply can’t keep doing this.

“They showed their heart in fighting back, but we didn’t help ourselves by finding ourselves down early,” Woodcroft said. “We have to correct that.”

Turnovers and transition defence

A look at each of the Kings’ five-on-five goals tells a similar story — that of the Oilers heading north and the puck heading south.

Ryan McLeod was unable to control a puck at the offensive blue line, which led to a Kings rush. Eventually, Troy Stecher scored off a broken play to open the scoring.

Duncan Keith’s clearing attempt got just outside the Edmonton blue line, but right to Alex Iafallo. He passed to the right side and found Kempe, whose shot went off Keith and past Oilers goalie Mike Smith.

The Kings’ third marker came after a nullified icing call. Brett Kulak threw the puck up the middle, it was picked up by Dustin Brown, who found former Oiler Andreas Athanasiou for an easy tap-in.

Finally, there was the winning goal, which started after Keith launched the puck up the ice and Evander Kane fell, leading to Kempe’s counterattack.

Turnovers, and how the Oilers reacted to them, were costly.

“We scored four tonight. That should be enough to win a game,” Woodcroft said. “I thought we turned over some pucks that ended up coming back the other way. We were slow in D-zone coverage when normally we’re fast and physical.”

Veteran mistakes and odd decisions

Praised before the game — as he has been for weeks — for helping to nurture young defenceman Evan Bouchard, Keith was asked if his role required him to be a good player, too.

“The biggest thing is trying to be at my best,” he said. “That’s how you get the best out of your teammates. You can talk a lot and say different things, but it’s execution on the ice and making it easier on your teammate.”

Keith’s execution was far from at its best Tuesday.

If he was not completely at fault for the second and winning goals against, then he was a major reason why the chances occurred. The Oilers were outscored 3-0, out-attempted 26-21 and outshot 16-6 at five-on-five in 16:08 with Keith on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick. High-danger chances were 4-1 in the Kings’ advantage during that time, too.

He shouldn’t have played 21:19 in this game — third among all Oilers.

GM Ken Holland paid full price for Keith in a trade with Chicago last July for big playoff moments like this. He didn’t get his money’s worth in Game 5.

Not only that, but Woodcroft and Dave Manson made a vexing choice by starting Keith and Kulak on defence in overtime. The two lefties played a grand total of 3:31 together at five-on-five over 18 games following Kulak’s acquisition from Montreal at the trade deadline.

They couldn’t get a line change and Keith, venturing too far to the middle of the ice, was burned wide by Kempe.

“Just something we thought would help us at the start of overtime,” Woodcroft said. “We were trying to find the right mix, it but didn’t work.”

Undisciplined penalties and sitting stars

The Oilers gave the Kings five power plays and a couple of them were thanks to boneheaded penalties.

Kane got away with a couple of jabs to Phillip Danault at the end of a play before the final one connected with his head, and he was sent off.

Zack Kassian cross-checked Sean Durzi in the back during a scrum right in front of the official.

Neither move was bright.

“We do have to watch our sticks and be a little more disciplined going forward here,” Draisaitl said. “We can’t play (nearly) a quarter of the game shorthanded. It takes a lot of guys out of the game. We’ll fix it.”

Neither infraction cost the Oilers on the scoreboard. In fact, Kassian, who served part of Kane’s penalty because he got a double minor as part an offsetting call, came out of the box and scored Edmonton’s first goal.

McDavid had a tripping penalty in the third and McLeod received a four-minute high-sticking call. The Oilers allowed a goal and scored one with McLeod in isolation.

The more important thing to note was how the penalties cut into McDavid’s and Draisaitl’s ice times.

They played 12:20 and 12:17, respectively, through two periods. Woodcroft seemed intent to ride or die with them in the third, which made sense considering they entered the frame trailing by two. They started the period together on a line with Kailer Yamamoto. The two superstars played nearly five minutes together in Game 5.

But penalties held them back. McDavid played 6:23 of the final 20 minutes. Draisaitl skated for 6:42.

Draisaitl scored twice and added an assist in the third. McDavid had a goal and a helper as part of his three-point night. Perhaps they could have chipped in one more goal in another minute or two.

“There were a lot of penalties. You saw in the third period when we were killing penalties, I was just trying to get them out there to get more ice time,” Woodcroft said. “They were feeling it in the third period.

“It was just a product of the way the game was going. They gave us good minutes and a chance to win the game in overtime.”

McDavid played 19:55 of a 61:12 game. Draisaitl was at 20:37. That’s not enough considering the Oilers were trailing most of the way in a pivotal playoff game.

Goaltending disadvantage

Smith wasn’t the reason the Oilers lost, but they could have used a big save on a goal against somewhere in this game.

There were errors by his teammates on each goal. However, three goals against could have been played better.

Kempe’s first goal went through him even though it went off Keith. He was out too far and gave Athanasiou an empty net on the third Los Angeles tally. He left Kempe cut across on the overtime goal.

Smith still made 38 saves. It’s just that he was outduelled by Jonathan Quick — something that’s happened each time the Oilers have lost.

The Oilers need the Smith of Game 2 or 3 to appear in Los Angeles on Thursday.

To be clear, however, this is more an overall team issue than one solely on netminding.

“This is on us,” Draisaitl said. “We’re not playing to our standard. We’re not working to our standard.”

(Top photo: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)