The Los Angeles kings can rest lightly.
On the way into the game Tuesday on the road against Seattle Kraken and Thursday at home against Calgary Flames to close the regular season, Kings has already climbed home ice benefit in the opening round in the NHL’s Western Conference Playoffs.
And maybe no team could use Hemis anymore.
Kings’s opening round season enemy will be the defending conference champion Oilers, led by stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl-The fourth season in a row such as Los Angeles and Edmonton will be cited in round 1. Kings lost their first round series against Oilers and one of the last three years, and one of the last three years, of 202 matches.
The Oilers had the home ice cream in all these series.
So maybe it was appropriate that Kings, who has the league’s best home record this season (31-5-4), dressed its first round fate with a 5-0 victory on Monday in Edmonton. Los Angeles’ Adrian Kempe registered one goal and two assists in the victory.
“It means a lot,” Kempe said about sealing the home is the advantage. “We have established our home game all season. We have really good confidence there, and we have shown in recent weeks that we can also play better on the road. I think to consider (The Oilers) missed many guys tonight, we still played for our strengths and played a consistent and solid game.
“We did not cheat for crime, and special teams have been really good in recent weeks too, which will be really important to go into the playoffs. I think we are quite happy with our game right now.”
Kevin Fiala and Warren Foegele each had a goal and an assist for Los Angeles (47-24-9, 103 points), which has won three games in a row and seven of the last eight.
Darcy Kuemper and David Rittich combined on the shutdown, with Kuemper who made 16 rescues before leaving 11:47 after Kings took a lead on five goals. Rittich stopped five shots the rest of the way.
“Just late in the game. We thought that when we got five that we were pretty comfortable, and ‘Ritter’ will play (on Seattle),” said Kings coach Jim Hiller about the goal change. “He has not played in a long time (since March 30), and it was a chance to get him some pucks before playing back-to-back. It probably serves both purposes, to get him heating up a bit and give Darcy a rest.”
The kings got a potentially large blow when the Young Standout Quinton Byfield, which scored the fourth straight game halfway through the first period, left late in the second after being drawn to the ice and crossed the control on the back of the helmet by Darnell nurse. Oiler’s defenders were evaluated as an error in the game.
It was a chippy game between the Pacific Division rivals, with 21 penalties whistled.
“No update,” Hiller said about Byfield Postgame. “He couldn’t end, that’s all. It doesn’t matter how I saw it.”
The Kraken (35-40-6, 76 points) will end the fourth season in franchise history by missing the playoffs for the third time.
Seattle has won four of his last six matches, including a 2-1 victory April 7 at Los Angeles.
The Kraken comes from a 4-3 victory against the visiting St. Louis Blues on Saturday, when Jaden Schwartz scored his team -leading 25th goal.
“It’s special to score every time,” said Schwartz, who played parts of ten seasons for Blues from 2011-12 to 2020-21 and helped them lift the Stanley Cup 2019. “I have many good friends there and many good memories, so it’s nice to get the victory and to contribute.”
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