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Pre-Game Talk: The Only Series We’ve Ever Known: Oilers @ Kings

Who wins?

  • Total voters
    225
K1984 said:
Another Kings thing - as much as they are feared at home, they're terrible on the road. Considering the environment we play in at home, that issue should compound for them.

I feel a lot better about the Oilers taking one in LA than I do the Kings taking one here.
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Who knows. Edmonton has a better record in LA in the playoffs than they do at home. I don't know if anything matters in the first round.

Home ice to me was always more important for later on as the mileage on the team by the time they got to Florida was intense. Would have been nice to force them to travel more in the final since they hadn't done much travel at all.

Fortunately, most of the ground they've lost was to Western teams rather than Eastern so perhaps there's still chance for home ice if it went that far and for the Western teams they'll all have faced similar levels of travel.

That said, with losing home ice for likely most if not all the playoffs now makes it crucial to put in a couple short series to recharge and save at least one long flight if not 2 per series.
 
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bone said:
Who knows. Edmonton has a better record in LA in the playoffs than they do at home. I don't know if anything matters in the first round.

Home ice to me was always more important for later on as the mileage on the team by the time they got to Florida was intense. Would have been nice to force them to travel more in the final since they hadn't done much travel at all.
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I think part of that dichotomy in the past was due to the team's general inability to figure out what they're doing until Game 3. If we started all of the past 3 years in LA I think you would see the results flip.

Each year we have pretty much pissed one of Game 1 or 2 into the wind - so if we're going to do it anyways we may as well do it in LA.
 
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CycloneSweep said:
I believe you are right. The X Factor is La has an elite goalie this year, we have below replacement level goaltending.
Kuemper can absolutely steal a series and has won a cup so he knows what it takes. So it’s less so us having to outplay LA but more outplay our own goaltending.
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Skinner can get hot. He was great last night.

But yes, I like to forget about the goalie mismatch. I'm still dumbstruck that we did nothing there. Not even a cheap insurance policy like Reimer
 
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Mr Positive said:
Skinner can get hot. He was great last night.

But yes, I like to forget about the goalie mismatch. I'm still dumbstruck that we did nothing there. Not even a cheap insurance policy like Reimer
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Skinner had nothing to do last night. Jets had about 2 scoring chances all night and one was flown over the net on a wide open net.

The great word gets bandied about easily at times. The D was great, Darnell Nurse was great. We might have won this game with Jacques Plante in net. ;)
 
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Mr Positive said:
Skinner can get hot. He was great last night.

But yes, I like to forget about the goalie mismatch. I'm still dumbstruck that we did nothing there. Not even a cheap insurance policy like Reimer
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He didn't see enough shots to be great.
 
BlackDogg said:
He didn't see enough shots to be great.
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That's it's own kind of challenge though. I am a believer in base stats when it comes to goalies. Skinner's big issue is his save percentage and GAA and those were solid last night. The Jets still had a lot of their top guys. There were some decent shots in there and he wasn't leaky.

It doesn't mean he had a great season. But I'll cling to some hope that he's trending up
 
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Drivesaitl said:
Skinner had nothing to do last night. Jets had about 2 scoring chances all night and one was flown over the net on a wide open net.

The great word gets bandied about easily at times. The D was great, Darnell Nurse was great. We might have won this game with Jacques Plante in net. ;)
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Skinner looked good. But be didn't face much. He doesn't have to be GREAT he has to be average and we will do just fine. Again .910 save percentage we make the finals. Anything less we done second round
 
Zerotonine said:
Skinner looked good. But be didn't face much. He doesn't have to be GREAT he has to be average and we will do just fine. Again .910 save percentage we make the finals. Anything less we done second round
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Mr Positive said:
Skinner can get hot. He was great last night.

But yes, I like to forget about the goalie mismatch. I'm still dumbstruck that we did nothing there. Not even a cheap insurance policy like Reimer
Click to expand...

He used to get hot for more than one game at a time...

I just looked it up and the last time Skinner had two back-to-back .900 games was January 25th and 30th. Granted, Four Nations and his injury make that less terrible than it sounds, but that's still 16 games ago for him... His previous two good games were one-offs sandwiched between a few middling performances. And he wasn't playing behind Josh Brown or five D-men in two straight games like Pickard has been...

Anyway, it sounds like he's starting Game one, so I hope it's the start of a resurgence for him...
 
Skinner - McDavid - Brown
Podkolzin - Draisaitl - Hyman
Kane - Nuge - Perry
Kapanen - Henrique - Frederic
 
Kings clinch home ice and boast the defence / goaltending along with the best home ice record in the league bolstered by California reffing and Gary’s inane daily interpretations of what passes for a rule book, which shrinks to half a page come playoff time.

Oilers are majorly banged up and desperately need 2023/24 playoff Bouchard to show up. Skinner also needs to get on one of his hot streaks. We get the inconsistent Skinner and it doesn’t matter how we play.

My head tells me LA in 6 but my heart says Edmonton in 7. So I’ll go with my heart.
 
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Oilers are limping into this a wounded animal with literally everything except for Leon’s magical season having gone wrong for them this year (and even that has been tainted by injury). LA has a stellar record on home ice and looks better than ever, with a legit goalie this time around.

Nearly every contender experiences a 1st round exit or playoff miss in the middle of their contention window, and all signs are pointing to this year being the Oilers turn. I’ve got Kings in 6 and hope it leads to Bowman being fired.
 
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barry halls said:
Oilers are limping into this a wounded animal with literally everything except for Leon’s magical season having gone wrong for them this year (and even that has been tainted by injury). LA has a stellar record on home ice and looks better than ever, with a legit goalie this time around.

Nearly every contender experiences a 1st round exit or playoff miss in the middle of their contention window, and all signs are pointing to this year being the Oilers turn. I’ve got Kings in 6 and hope it leads to Bowman being fired.
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No one will get fired over this except like, maybe whatever scout decided Josh Brown was an NHL player.
 
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MessierII said:
You forget Arvidsson? Help play with Leon I think. Frederic I don’t think will play until the home games maybe.
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No. Arvidsson can sit. He brings so damn little. Gets gravy minutes and does so little with it. I don’t think he can play on a 4th line and I take Hyman/Brown/Perry over him.
 
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