The Los Angeles Kings can rest easy.
Heading into games Tuesday on the road against the Seattle Kraken and Thursday at home against the Calgary Flames to close the regular season, the Kings have already clinched home-ice advantage in the opening round of the NHL’s Western Conference playoffs.
And perhaps no team could use home ice more.
The Kings’ opening-round postseason foe will be the defending conference champion Oilers, led by stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — the fourth consecutive season that Los Angeles and Edmonton will square off in Round 1. The Kings lost their first-round series against the Oilers each of the past three years, with each matchup getting progressively shorter — seven games in 2022, followed by six games in 2023 and five games last spring.
The Oilers had the home-ice edge in all of those series.
So perhaps it was fitting that the Kings, who have the league’s best home record this season (31-5-4), clinched their first-round fate with a 5-0 victory Monday in Edmonton. Los Angeles’ Adrian Kempe registered a goal and two assists in the win.
“It means a lot,” Kempe said of sealing home-ice advantage. “We’ve established our home game well all season. We have really good confidence there, and we’ve shown over the last couple of weeks that we can play better on the road as well. I think considering (the Oilers) were missing a lot of guys tonight, we still played to our strengths and played a consistent and solid game.
“We weren’t cheating for offense, and special teams have been really good over the last couple of weeks, too, which is going to be really important going into the playoffs. I think we’re pretty happy with our game right now.”
Kevin Fiala and Warren Foegele each had a goal and an assist for Los Angeles (47-24-9, 103 points), which has won three games in a row and seven of its past eight.
Darcy Kuemper and David Rittich combined on the shutout, with Kuemper making 16 saves before leaving with 11:47 left after the Kings took a five-goal lead. Rittich stopped five shots the rest of the way.
“Just late in the game. We thought once we got five that we were pretty comfortable, and ‘Ritter’ is going to play (at Seattle),” Kings coach Jim Hiller said of the goaltending change. “He hasn’t played in a long time (since March 30), and it was a chance to get him a few pucks before he plays back-to-back. It probably serves both purposes, to get him warmed up a little bit and to give Darcy a rest.”
The Kings sustained a potentially big blow as young standout Quinton Byfield, who scored for the fourth straight game midway through the first period, left late in the second after getting hauled to the ice and cross-checked in the back of the helmet by Darnell Nurse. The Oilers defenseman was assessed a game misconduct.
It was a chippy game between the Pacific Division rivals, with 21 penalties whistled.
“No update,” Hiller said of Byfield postgame. “He wasn’t able to finish, that’s all. It doesn’t matter how I saw it.”
The Kraken (35-40-6, 76 points) will wrap up the fourth season in franchise history by missing the playoffs for the third time.
Seattle has won four of its past six games, including a 2-1 victory April 7 at Los Angeles.
The Kraken are coming off a 4-3 shootout win against the visiting St. Louis Blues on Saturday, when Jaden Schwartz scored his team-leading 25th goal.
“It’s special to score every time,” said Schwartz, who played parts of 10 seasons for the Blues from 2011-12 to 2020-21 and helped them hoist the Stanley Cup in 2019. “I’ve got a lot of good buddies over there and a lot of good memories, so it’s nice to get the win and to contribute.”
–Field Level Media
