"Feed off the crowd": McDavid excited for rowdy Oilers fans tonight

The Edmonton Oilers can punch their ticket to the second round for the third straight year with a win over the LA Kings tonight.

After dropping Game 2 by a 5-4 overtime final, the Oilers dug deep and won both games on the road at Crypto.com Arena to give themselves a 3-1 series lead. While the odds are in their favour, a strong effort will be needed tonight.

“This is always the hardest game, is to knock a team off,” Zach Hyman told reporters at today’s morning skate. “We’ve never had the opportunity to do it against LA in Game 5. This is a big game for us. You don’t want to give a team life, you don’t want to give them hope. They’re a really good team, so we’ve gotta come out and have our best.”

Despite picking up a 1-0 win in Game 4, the Oilers were far from their best, registering just 13 shots on net. While the offence was quiet, Connor McDavid believes there was still positives from that game that his team can build off of moving forward.

“I thought we defended really well,” said McDavid. “We gave up shots, but I thought a lot of them were from the outside. [Stuart Skinner] saw a lot of pucks, and when there were breakdowns he was there and he was solid. With that being said, obviously we want to spend a bit more time in the [offensive] zone.”

Coming out with a good start will be crucial, as the first team to score has won every game so far in this series. The Oilers are hoping that a loud crowd at Rogers Place can help them do just that.

“We want to come out of the gates hot, feed off the crowd, feed off the energy of our building,” said Connor McDavid. “[Try] and put them on their heels in the first 10 minutes.”

Both McDavid and Hyman, along with the Oilers entire power play unit, have been exceptional so far this series. They have converted on eight of their 15 opportunities on the man advantage so far for a playoff best 53.3% power play. That said, they were only able to draw one penalty last game, something they hope to change tonight.

“For us to draw more power plays, we have to make more plays with the puck and attack the net more,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “The more you do that, the more opportunities to go on the power play.”

Should the Oilers advance tonight, they will await the winner of the series between the Vancouver Canucks and Nashville Predators to determine who they will play in the second round.

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