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What Edmonton Oilers players said after eliminating Kings for fourth straight season

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
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May 2 2025, 12:00 pm
What Edmonton Oilers players said after eliminating Kings for fourth straight season
Perry Nelson/Imagn Images

The Edmonton Oilers are headed back to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It took four straight comeback victories to make it happen, but the Oilers eliminated the LA Kings for the fourth consecutive season. It was all thanks to a tense 6-4 Game 6 victory at Rogers Place on Thursday night that sent the home crowd into a frenzy when the final buzzer rang.

That wasn’t how many people thought this series would wind up. Edmonton lost the first two games and trailed late in Game 3. If it wasn’t for this team’s ability to persevere, things could have ended up very different.

Luckily, the Oilers got contributions from not just their star players, but also a handful of depth guys. Adam Henrique, Trent Frederic, and Connor Brown all scored goals in the series clincher, while Mattias Janmark nabbed the winner in Game 5.

Oilers captain Connor McDavid was held to just three points over those last two games and praised the depth for helping Edmonton turn the tide on the Kings.

“We got offence from all over the lineup today, it was great,” McDavid told reporters after the game. “You need different guys stepping up. I thought [Brown] had his best game as an Oiler, he was fantastic.

“Go down the list, we had guys step up… A lot of guys have confidence, you need that at this time of year. You need everybody feeling good about themselves, and everybody should.”

The way this series played out was telling for this Oilers group. A younger, more inexperienced team may have folded under the pressure of going down 2-0 in an opening round series. That is not the identity of this current iteration of the Oilers.

Instead of lying back, they fought to swing things back in their favour. They’ve been in this position before, and Edmonton showed they are more than capable of fighting through adversity.

“Two of the gutsier wins that I have been a part of here in Edmonton for Games 3 and 4,” McDavid said. “Just not being denied, and that’s credit to everybody in this room. Dug ourselves out of tough, tough spots against a stingy, stingy team.

“We should be proud of this one. LA is a great team. Not easy to beat a team four years straight. It was a fun series to be part of, fun to come out on the good side.”

Calvin Pickard may have been the biggest story of the series for Edmonton. He came into the Oilers’ net in Game 3 and was the catalyst for four-straight victories to win the series. Pickard improved his career playoff record to 5-1 and came up big in the final moments.

“[Pickard] has overcome so much in his career. He’s been down and out, so he knows what he can overcome,” Connor Brown said of his goaltender. “I think that’s why Picks is able to come in and give us such solid performances night after night.”

Darnell Nurse also had himself a big night. Not only did he score his first of the series, but he also assisted on Zach Hyman’s goal earlier in the game. He knew the Oilers weren’t the series favourite in the eyes of most of the media, but that did not faze the team one bit.

“You guys thought we were gonna lose, that was different,” Nurse told the media with a laugh. “I think, for us, we stuck to our game… It’s a series that we earned, and we earned every inch of it.”

This one will feel good for the Oilers, but the job isn’t done yet. The Vegas Golden Knights await Edmonton in the second round of the playoffs in what will be a 2023 rematch.

This time around, the Oilers are hoping to be on the better side of that matchup.

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