Kings rout Oilers, clinch home-ice advantage against them for playoffs – Press Enterprise

EDMONTON, Alberta — Adrian Kempe had a goal and two assists and Warren Foegele and Kevin Fiala each had a goal and an assist as the Kings beat the depleted Edmonton Oilers, 5-0, on Monday night and officially clinched home-ice advantage against the Oilers for their first-round playoff series.

Quinton Byfield and Vladislav Gavrikov also scored for the Kings, who have won seven of their last eight games and earned the right to play the first two games of their best-of-seven series at Crypto.com Arena, where they have been dominant all season.

Darcy Kuemper had 16 saves before being replaced by David Rittich before the midway mark of the third period, seemingly for precautionary reasons. Rittich finished with five saves.

With the Lakers opening their first-round playoff series in the same arena on Saturday night, Game 1 of Kings-Oilers will presumably be played on Sunday.

Calvin Pickard had 31 saves for Edmonton, which saw its three-game winning streak come to an end. The Oilers were without several key players, including Connor McDavid (rest), Leon Draisaitl (undisclosed), Mattias Ekholm (undisclosed), Trent Frederic (ankle), Zach Hyman (undisclosed), Evander Kane (hip, knee), Troy Stetcher (undisclosed) and Jake Walman (undisclosed). All but Ekholm are expected to either start the playoffs or be available within the first couple of postseason games.

The Kings won three of their four regular-season meetings with Edmonton but will hope to carry that success into the postseason, where the Oilers have eliminated them in the first round each of the past three years. The Oilers needed seven games to knock out out the Kings in 2022, eliminated them in six games in 2023 and were victorious in five games last year. The Oilers had home-ice advantage in all three of those matchups.

Byfield now has goals in four consecutive games and seven points in that span. He is one point short of tying his career high of 55 set last season. Since Feb. 1, he leads the team with 31 points in 31 games.

KEY MOMENT

The Kings made it 4-0 with a power-play goal eight minutes into the middle period as Fiala blasted his career high and team-leading 35th goal of the season off of Pickard’s glove and in. He now has seven goals in his last six games.

UP NEXT

The Kings play at Seattle on Tuesday night in their final road game before closing the regular season on Thursday night at home against Calgary.

More to come on this story.