EDMONTON — Calvin Pickard received the penetrating question from the intrepid reporter, the way a guy takes his 900th bacon B.E.L.T. double-double combo from the drive-thru at Tim Hortons on the way to the job.
“You asked me the same question last year,” he said with a grin, before giving us — what else? — the exact same answer he gave us last year.
We’re five games into Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the sense of deja vu is already overwhelming.
Connor Hellebuyck is letting in pucks in April that did not go in from October through March. The Leafs can’t close and are acting all nonchalant about their fatal flaw, like it’s just a blip and not part of their DNA.
The aggressive Oilers are pulling away from the passive Los Angeles Kings, and of course, the ref’ing is brutal across the hockey landscape.
If the Rocky series became unwatchable after Ivan Drago arrived in Rocky IV, why is the opening round of the playoffs so damned entertaining every single year — even though it’s becoming an exercise in “been there done that?”
Oh, wait… Was that another late hit by Matthew Tkachuk on an unsuspecting player?
Game 5 of Kings-Oilers was not only the most one-sided playoff game we’ve witnessed in a few years, but the fancy stats say it was the most lopsided game — in terms of goal probability — since 2017.
The 3-1 score was so far out of whack compared to the run of play, even the good folks at Natural Stat Trick couldn’t find a way to refute the eye test, charting the scoring chances as 36-12 in Edmonton’s favour. The expected goals (Sport Logiq) were 8.20 to 1.72, favouring Edmonton.
Yet somehow, the two referees — Francois St. Laurent and Kendrick Nicholson — gave the Kings three power plays to Edmonton’s two.
Impossibly, in a game so tilted that the shots were 46-22 for Edmonton — the shot attempts a whopping 78 to 51 in the Oilers’ favour — the zebras saw just two infractions against the team that was chasing the puck for 55 of the 60 minutes.
En route to this classic bit of game, uh, management, the arbitres watched Quinton Byfield cover a puck in his own crease without having the courage to award a penalty shot, and presided over Evander Kane being cross-checked in the back so hard that he blew the net right off its posts.
It’s not bias. It’s game management, another playoff chestnut that emerges every April, when the rules completely change from what we watched over the previous 82 games.
In this little corner of the playoffs, where the games start at 10:22 p.m. ET — long after officiating czar Stephen Walkom has hit the hay, it seems — the plausibility of the Kings earning more power plays in that game than Edmonton was about as likely as a coach walking away from a lucrative contract offer in Vancouver with no apparent job offer at hand. (Cough, Philly, cough…)
But here we are, watching an Oilers team that sits 15th among 16 playoff teams in power-play opportunities per game, while ranking third in shots attempts with a plus-86 shot attempt differential on L.A. Yet, the Kings are ahead 18-12 in this series in power-play attempts — 50 per cent more for the team that lines up at centre ice and is trailing the series.
Edmonton ranks first in these playoffs in total possession time — all situations, and first in total possession time — five-on-five. Yet, they sit 15th among 16 teams, with 13 penalties drawn through five games.
There was, however, a new development out of the Kings’ dressing room. Something we haven’t seen since — you guessed it — last year around this time.
Usually, the L.A. players wait until they’ve been eliminated by the Oilers before tacitly calling out their organization on the passive, line-up-at-the-centre-line game plan they’ve been trotting out since the Darryl Sutter years in L.A.
This spring, however, goalie Darcy Kuemper got an early start, in what amounts to a stunning critique of the coaching staff from a goalie who sees what we all see — a stodgy, low-risk Kings system that can’t hold off a talented, aggressive offensive team.
“When (Edmonton) turns it on, they’ve put us on our heels a little bit,” Kuemper said of the Oilers, who have come from behind in each of their three consecutive wins. “We’ve got to make sure we look at it, and uh, even when we have the lead, just keep playing the same way.
“Trying to get on the forecheck and get the offensive zone cycles going. Take it to them, a little bit. Instead of sittin’ back too much.”
Even Kuemper can’t stand anymore of the style that was supposed to have disappeared after the Oilers smoked L.A. out of the playoffs a year ago.
But like everything else in these playoffs, it’s back again.
“What? Spector is railing against the one-three-one, or whatever the Kings are calling this latest abomination of a game plan?”
“Doesn’t he do that every year?”
It must be playoff time again.
