Stuart Skinner made 33 saves for the visiting Edmonton Oilers in a 1-0 win against the Los Angeles Kings in Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series on Sunday night.
Edmonton has a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series heading into Game 5 on Wednesday night in Edmonton. The Oilers will try to eliminate the Kings in the first round for the third straight season.
“As a team, we know we’ve got a long way to go still here and L.A.’s always coming hard,” Skinner said, “so we found a way to win and it’s nice to enjoy the moment, but time to get back to work after a little bit here.”
Evan Bouchard scored a power-play goal and Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl earned the assists for Edmonton. McDavid has 10 points in the series (one goal, nine assists) and Draisaitl has eight points (three goals, five assists).
Los Angeles interim coach Jim Hiller elected to start David Rittich in goal for the first time in the series after Cam Talbot posted a 5.30 goals-against average and .861 save percentage through the first three games.
Rittich finished with 12 saves in his first playoff start in nearly two years and just the second of his eight-year NHL career.
Edmonton, which was limited to four shots on goal in the first period, went on the first power play of the game after Kings defenseman Andreas Englund was called for holding Ryan McLeod at 10:46 of the second period.
The Oilers set up their offense in the Los Angeles zone and McDavid weaved through the high slot before sliding a pass from the top of the left circle to Draisaitl in the right circle.
Draisaitl made a touch pass to Bouchard, who scored with a one-timer halfway between the blue line and the hash marks for a 1-0 lead at 11:49.
From there, the Oilers focused on staying back on defense, making the one-goal lead stand up.
“You saw it in the last period,” Skinner said of the defense in front of him. “We were just getting pucks in, winning battles on the boards when they were hemming us in in the D-zone and the blocked shots I was getting from the guys the whole game, it’s a pretty incredible feeling to have guys like that just fighting for you.”
The Oilers improved to 8-for-15 on the power play in the series, while the Kings are 0-for-11 with the man advantage.
The Kings outshot Edmonton 10-4 in the scoreless first period and outhit the Oilers 41-27 for the game.
“We had some presence at the net, we had a couple good tips,” Kings forward Phillip Danault said. “We’ve just got to be more hungry, I guess. We’ve got to play the same way. We can’t control the result every time, so we’ve got to play the same way and, hopefully, the result will be better.”
It was Skinner’s first postseason shutout in his 16th start.
–Field Level Media
