Mattias Janmark scored the tiebreaking goal at 7:12 of the third period, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 Tuesday night for their third consecutive victory and a 3-2 lead in their first-round series.
Evander Kane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also scored and Calvin Pickard made 20 saves for the defending Western Conference champion Oilers, who can advance with a win in Game 6 in Edmonton on Thursday.
Edmonton was finally rewarded for dominating possession and shots throughout Game 5 when Janmark converted a rebound of Viktor Arvidsson’s shot.
After some fraught final moments, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added an empty-net goal to finish the Oilers’ franchise-record third consecutive comeback playoff victory.
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Andrei Kuzmenko scored and Darcy Kuemper stopped 43 shots for the second-seeded Kings, who are one loss away from their fourth consecutive first-round playoff exit at Edmonton’s hands despite winning the first two games of this series at home and blowing third-period leads in the next two.
The home teams won the first four games in this series, but the Kings then faltered badly in the building where they had the NHL’s best home record this season. Los Angeles also led in the final minute of Game 4 before losing in overtime, allowing Edmonton back into the series.
After mounting a third-period comeback to take Game 3, the Oilers have tilted the series decidedly in their favor since midway through Game 4, utterly dominating possession and shots. Edmonton has outshot the Kings 79-34 since the start of the third period of Game 4.
But Kuemper made 19 saves in the first period of Game 5 to keep it scoreless, and Los Angeles went ahead early in the second when Kuzmenko tipped home captain Anze Kopitar’s shot during a power play. Kuzmenko recorded his sixth point of the postseason and his 23rd point in 27 games since joining the Kings less than two months ago.
The Oilers answered less than three minutes later with Kane’s second goal of the series from the slot. Kane went unpunished later in the period for a knee-on-knee hit on Kings scoring leader Adrian Kempe.
Edmonton’s 33 shots in the first two periods were the most allowed all season by Los Angeles, which was shut down after scoring 19 goals in the first four games of the series.
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