January 10, 2022 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers tried their darndest to make this game interesting, but the Los Angeles Kings were too much for the Oilers on this night. The Kings beat the Oilers 6-3 at the Staples Center.

Call Outs:

I’m not going to blame the referees for this game. They made a bunch of terrible and soft calls against the Oilers, but they made a few similar calls against the Kings as well. They missed a few that should’ve been called against the Kings and I’m sure they missed a few against the Oilers as well. The powerplays were 7-6 for the Kings, so it wasn’t like there was a huge disparity in the calls.

I will call out the Oilers special teams though. They allowed four powerplay goals, and they didn’t score a single one of their own. I would expect the league’s best powerplay to score AT LEAST one goal in six chances, but that didn’t happen tonight. Some credit goes to the Kings for aggressive penalty killing and having sticks in the right passing lanes; but the Oilers powerplay is capable of more. Don’t get me started on the penalty kill… I’ll stick with the adage that if I don’t have anything nice to say, then I shouldn’t say anything at all.

Who am I kidding, this is the Call Outs section! The penalty kill was atrocious! They totally lost their structure on the first goal against, Brett Kulak gave the puck away and lost positioning on the second goal, and they let one pass beat four guys standing still at their own blue line on Adrian Kempe’s breakaway goal. They also lost their structure on the glove save goal. It was a pitiful performance by the penalty kill.

Darnell Nurse made another mental mistake on the fifth Kings goal. He got caught in no man’s land at the offensive blue line when the puck was turned over. The Kings flipped the puck down the ice to Nurse’s man. Nurse had decided to pinch, but changed his mind a second after it was too late. Cody Ceci had to slide over to pressure Nurse’s man who was receiving the puck just outside the Oilers blue line. Ceci lost the battle, and his man (Alex Iafallo) got fed for a partial breakaway.

Standouts:

This will be short tonight. Connor McDavid made a brilliant individual play at a big moment to get the Oilers back in the game in the third period. He stole the puck from a Kings skater in the neutral zone, turned up ice, and ripped a wrist shot past Pheonix Copley.

Shout Outs:

I’ll give a shout out to Jesse Puljujarvi. He made a solid hit in the neutral zone, then took a fight from Philip Danault who stood up for his teammate. Danault got the best of Puljujarvi in the fight, but it was good to see Puljujarvi getting under his opponent’s skin.

Zach Hyman and Klim Kostin both fought in this game as well. Hyman had a big smirk on his face as he told Leon Draisaitl that he was going to fight Sean Durzi after a faceoff. Durzi was asking him to go, and he obliged. I didn’t mind that in a 5-2 game. I’m not sure how Kostin’s fight got started, but he did well in his fight. He has some experience boxing in Russia, so he won’t shy away from a fight. Kostin didn’t produce much in the way of offence tonight, but I like having a guy with his skill set that can play up and down the lineup.

Evan Bouchard was really good tonight. He took a penalty where he wasn’t quite subtle enough in setting his pick, but he had two assists and was a plus three on the night. Bouchard also had three hits and blocked three shots in 22:11. His xGF was 79.8% and his worst metric was his 60.87% Fenwick for percentage.

His partner Philip Broberg got an assist for the second straight game. His xGF was 71.93%, and his shots for percentage of 57.14% was his worst metric on the night. Broberg’s game is coming into shape.

Dylan Holloway was quiet, but he drew a penalty and had the referees miss another one that he should’ve drawn. He was using his speed well and he didn’t look intimidated by the lack of space out there.

Related: Call Outs, Standouts, and Shout Outs: Kraken Beat the Oilers 5-2

The Kings were the better team tonight, but it was refreshing to see the Oilers get mad. McDavid had a shift where he threw a couple of hits, and the team doubled the amount of fighting majors they’ve had this season by being in three fights. They can’t sit back and be upset about losing games. They have to do something about it. They at least tried to do something about it tonight.

Vincent Desharnais was recalled by the Oilers today. It’s great to see a guy that’s worked as hard as he has get a call up. However, the timing is peculiar. Bakersfield has several games in the next ten days, and they were just in Calgary, so it’s not like he’s joining the team because it was convenient and the farm team had a few days off. The Oilers have eight healthy defencemen available to them now, which is fine; but how many games is defenceman number eight going to get. Desharnais is a right-handed defenceman, so they might be trying to take a look at what they have in him before making a move of some kind. They could also be rewarding a guy by acknowledging his hard work and good play with a call up.

The Oilers now sit nine points back of the Kings, who are in second place in the Pacific Division. It’s needless to say that this loss really hurt the Oilers. They will move on to Anaheim where they will try to pick up a necessary two points on Wednesday.