The Oilers took the first two games of the four-game season series with the Kings, but LA was a different team by the time they met up for a pair of games over the past few days. After picking up a big road win in Edmonton last Friday night, the Kings came back and secured another two points at home Monday night. Although the final score was 2-0, the game really wasn’t decided until late in the third period. Scoreless after 40 minutes, Slava Voynov put the Kings up 1-0 just 34 seconds into the final stanza. Things stayed that way until rookie Dwight King picked up the backbreaking extra marker with less than three minutes remaining.
After the final buzzer, here’s what coach Tom Renney, San Gagner and Jordan Eberle had to say back in the Oilers’ locker room…
Eberle on the overall game – “They definitely kept us to the outside. I don’t think we had too many chances inside and we didn’t generate much, that’s why we didn’t score. It’s tough to win games when you don’t score…We were playing a team that has a lot of offensive power and it’s tough. That’s their game and we knew that coming in. We played two pretty good periods, where we kept the puck out of our net. We went into the third with a chance to win, but that’s when we got a little too fancy and that’s when we turned the puck over and they went down and scored.”
Gagner on the overall game – “It’s an exciting challenge for us. It’s a situation where we can come in here and play as close to playoff hockey as we’re going to get this year. We want to help the guys that are coming up out and make sure that everyone is pulling their weight. It’s tough when you have injuries, but I think we need to make sure that everyone steps up in those absences and plays even better.”
Gagner on the loss – “It’s a tough loss. I think we didn’t do a good enough job playing in their end and getting some sustained pressure. I think if you want to beat a team like that who is playing desperate hockey, you’ve got to play in their end a little more. You’ve got to get pucks in deep and force their defense to turn pucks over and we didn’t really do that tonight and we’ve got to learn from it.”
Renney on the overall game – Well they’re good at home and again, as with the game in Edmonton, they’re a desperate team and they’re certainly going to stick to their game plan and hope that their opponent, us in this case, makes the odd mistake to give them a chance and that’s what we did. It’s tough sledding out there and we (had to) kill a couple too many penalties.”
Renney on some of the penalties called against the Oilers – “Maybe they need Hollywood in the playoffs. I’m not sure.”
Renney on Devan Dubnyk – “Really solid, again, big and strong and in command of the net in the circumstance, no question. We battled tonight for him, too. It’s not an easy night for him by any stretch of the imagination. But, if you look at our roster, we did everything we could to be responsible in our own end and work to get the job done. Certainly we needed him to punctuate that effort by being great and he was.”
We’ll have more from the Kings locker room up later this morning.
