Amen to what Herby says
Kings are great against almost anyone in the league but Colorado and Edmonton. They can't defend MacKinnon/Makar or McDavid/Draisaitl to death, nor can they outscore them; their team defense is smothering against anyone else, but those guys can cut thru systems--yet the Kings' defensive personnel cannot physically match them in any way (prime Doughty sure, but he doesn't have the footspeed anymore). The only player on the Kings roster who can physically handle either is Byfield and he can't pull double duty. Kopitar is too old and slow for that; Danault, for all his brilliance against the rest of the league, doesn't have the speed or the size. The Kings' aggressive PK is phenomenal against most teams, but those guys almost welcome it. Kuemper is an absolute wall unless guys can snipe him...guess who can? It's like the Oilers are built to absolutely destroy the Kings, which is actually kind of hilarious given we're coming up on half a decade of trying to figure out how to handle it.
And the biggest thing at this point might be the psychological advantages. The Kings play gutsy against any other team--against the above two, they turn into timid, passive system sheep, with no one playing physically--they play not-to-lose hockey with predictable results. Only guy with any moxie in any Edmonton game is Adrian Kempe. And Arvidsson, but...well...I guess we'll see what Foegele and Kuzmenko get up to? Or maybe this is the year Byfield remembers he's Draisaitl's size and starts playing like it?
I don't like the matchup one bit. I don't hate seeing it because the teams hate each other enough and it's fun watching the best players in the world, but even if this is arguably the best Kings team since 2014, they're walking into the worst possible situation.
