Evander Kane scored two goals in a three-point game and Mike Smith collected the shutout as the host Edmonton Oilers evened their Western Conference first-round series with a decisive 6-0 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.
One game after his third-period puck-handling miscue led to the game-winning goal in the series opener, Smith snapped a 10-game playoff losing streak with a 30-save outing to post his fifth career playoff shutout. His last win was a 4-0 playoff-opening victory for the Calgary Flames over the Colorado Avalanche in 2019.
Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse, Ryan McLeod and Jesse Puljujarvi also scored for the Oilers.
Kings goalie Jonathan Quick stopped 30 shots.
Game 3 of the best-of-seven series will be Friday in Los Angeles.
Draisaitl’s power-play goal opened the scoring 82 seconds into the middle frame. Draisaitl set up at the right face-off dot and blasted a short-side, top-corner slap shot for his second goal of the playoffs.
Nurse doubled the lead with a short-handed goal at the 6:03 mark of the frame. The defenseman joined an odd-man rush and after taking a cross-ice feed from Connor McDavid, sent a wrist shot that ricocheted off a defender’s stick into the top shelf.
McLeod made it a 3-0 game with 3:55 remaining in the period when he deflected Evan Bouchard’s waist-high point shot.
The Oilers weren’t done. Kane was credited with a lucky goal 3:02 into the third period. He and Kings defenseman Sean Durzi both hit a loose puck and then Durzi hit it with another swing and it bounded past the startled Quick.
Puljujarvi scored 21 seconds later when he buried a wrist shot after taking a cross-ice feed from McDavid during an odd-man rush, before Kane made it a 6-0 affair midway through the third period with another power-play marker.
–Field Level Media
