The Los Angeles Kings have forced the Edmonton Oilers to play their physical style for long stretches of their Western Conference first-round series.That’s been less than desirable for the skillful Oilers, who find themselves backed into a corner heading into Game 4 on Sunday night in Los Angeles.The Kings won Game 3 in overtime on Friday night, getting a controversial goal from Trevor Moore to secure the 3-2 victory and a 2-1 series lead.”It’s a tight-checking series, we’ve said that all along,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “It’s little breaks here and there. It’s little calls here and there. We haven’t seemed to get many of the bounces.”After scoring 64 goals during the regular season, McDavid was held without a goal in the first two games before tallying twice in Game 3.Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored 37 goals during the regular season, is still looking for his first one of the series, as is 36-goal scorer Zach Hyman.The Kings have been giving a lot of credit to goalie Joonas Korpisalo, who has a 2.53 goals-against average and .931 save percentage through the first three games.”He’s done an amazing job for us,” Kings forward Alex Iafallo said. “He’s making huge saves on the power play, he’s been great for us and that gives us energy.”Korpisalo said he’s enjoying the experience of playing in front of a playoff crowd. His only other NHL postseason experience came in nine games with the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, which were held without crowds because of the COVID-19 outbreak.”That crowd was electric,” Korpisalo said of Game 3. “We just fed off of it, and just seeing the building erupt on the last goal, it was pretty cool.”
Kings aim to keep high-flying Oilers under wraps in Game 4
