For the Kings, the name alone has had a chilling effect because Rogers Place is where the team’s last two playoffs campaigns were put on ice in first-round losses to the Oilers.
The Kings were back in Edmonton for the third installment of their postseason trilogy Monday and the first act did not go well, with the Oilers scoring twice in the first 10 minutes on their way to a 7-4 win.
Zach Hyman finished with three goals and an assist, Adam Henrique and Leon Draisaitl each had one goal and an assist and Connor McDavid had five helpers to lead an Oiler performance that was as efficient as it was one-sided.
Mikey Anderson and Adrian Kempe each scored in the second period and Pierre-Luc Dubois and Trevor Moore scored late in the third period for the Kings who, aside from a brief span late in the second period, were overmatched all night.
It will take at least a week to find out how much that result will mean since the Kings beat the Oilers in the playoff opener in each of the last two seasons, only to lose the series. And the last time the Oilers won the first game of a postseason series, it wound up losing to the Ducks in the second round in 2017.
But for a veteran Kings team featuring 14 players off last year’s postseason roster, it was a troubling start.
The Kings wanted to set the tone for the series and instead they came up flat, conceding the first four goals while giving up 45 shots in the game.
The Kings turned shaky after the first five minutes and it didn’t take long for the Oilers to take advantage, with Hyman deflecting in a McDavid pass from the edge of the left circle to give Edmonton the lead 6:52 into the game.
McDavid made the goal, reaching to control a loose puck at the blue line, deking toward the center of the ice, then spinning to get away from Anderson before passing to Hyman in the slot for the tap-in.
Henrique doubled the Oilers’ lead less than three minutes later, scoring on a wrister from the center of the left circle off an assist from Hyman.
The Kings’ best chance in the first 30 minutes came early in the second period when a turnover in the neutral zone launched Viktor Arvidsson on a breakaway with only Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner to beat. But his snap shot was wide of the net, the Oilers controlled the rebound and 20 seconds later Hyman put it in the net at the other net to make 3-0.
McDavid again set up the goal, this time spinning away from Drew Doughty, who got caught in traffic behind the Kings net, and centering the puck for a wide-open Hyman at the bottom edge of the right circle.
The Kings, who haven’t won a playoff series in a decade, entered the postseason healthier than they were at any point during the regular season and boasting the NHL’s second-best penalty kill, something they hoped would act as kryptonite to the Oilers’ deadly power play. But even that didn’t work, with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scoring the first of three power-play goals for the Oilers to make it 4-0 at 8:44 of the middle period.
The rout was on.
Anderson finally got the Kings on the board at 10:56 of the second period, blasting a slap shot past Skinner from between the blue line and left circle, and Kempe made it a two-goal game, circling behind the net and deflected a shot in off the skate of Oiler defenseman Evan Bouchard less than two minutes before the second intermission.
But the Kings gave back whatever momentum they had earned when Draisaitl and Hyman both scored power-play goals in the opening 6:27 of the final period.
The Kings got a couple of meaningless goals from Dubois and Moore in the final 3:04 late before Warren Foegele closed the scoring for Emonton with a empty-net goal with 26 seconds to play.
They have precious little time to regroup since the series continues Wednesday at Rogers Place before moving to Los Angeles and Crypto.com Arena for Games 3 and Game 4 on Friday and Sunday.