Oilers’ 1-0 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on SundayAnd that’s perfectly fine for Edmonton’s superstar captain. The grind-it-out victory that gave the Oilers a 3-1 lead in their first-round series is exactly the type of performance that shows they’re ready for a deep playoff run this spring.
Stacked with dynamic offensive talent, the Oilers are accustomed to winning by the 7-4 and 6-1 score lines seen earlier in the series. McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are regularly putting up post-season numbers that put them in a category with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.On Sunday, the Oilers mustered just 13 shots — a category they led the NHL in this season — against a smothering Kings team to tie their lowest playoff total in franchise history.
“These are the types of games you have to win in the playoffs,” said Oilers veteran Corey Perry, a Stanley Cup champion and three-time finalist. “It’s not going to be 6-5, 7-4 every night. You’re going to have to dig deep and play defence and grind one out, and we found a way.”“It’s a real strength of ours showing we can win games this way,” defenceman Mattias Ekholm added. “Having in our portfolio that we can play a lot of different games is going to be huge here coming down the stretch.