Hyman gets 1st playoff hat trick, McDavid has 5 assists as Oilers beat Kings 7-4 in Game 1
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Zach Hyman had three goals and an assist in his first postseason hat trick, Connor McDavid had five assists and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Los Angeles Kings 7-4 Monday night in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
Adam Henrique, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl and Warren Foegele also scored and Evan Bouchard chipped in with four assists for the Oilers, who had lost the first game of their last seven playoff series and had not won Game 1 of a series on home ice since 1990.
Stuart Skinner finished with 33 saves.
Mikey Anderson, Adrian Kempe, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Trevor Moore scored for the Kings, who were eliminated in the opening round by the Oilers in each of the previous two seasons. Cam Talbot had 38 saves.
Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is Wednesday night.
Hyman, who rang a shot off the post a few minutes earlier, started the scoring 6:52 into the opening period. McDavid spun off a defender and then sent a backhand pass in front to Hyman, who beat Talbot. Hyman had 54 goals in the regular season.
Edmonton made it 2-0 less than three minutes later as Henrique, who was picked up at the trade deadline from Anaheim, fired a perfect wrist shot top corner for his first goal in his first postseason appearance in six years. Henrique set a Stanley Cup playoff record for the longest span between goals, his last goal coming 4,333 days earlier when he was in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final in 2012 with the New Jersey Devils.
McDavid continued to work his magic 4:50 into the second period as he once again spun out from behind the net and sent another pretty backhand pass in front to Hyman for his second of the night. The goal came right on the heels of the Kings’ best opportunity to that point when Viktor Arvidsson was stopped on a breakaway by Skinner.
Edmonton added another goal on the power play 8:24 into the second period as Draisaitl spotted Nugent-Hopkins at the backdoor to make it 4-0.
The Kings finally got on the board with 9:04 to play in the second period as Anderson sent a long shot through traffic that got past Skinner for his first career playoff goal.
Los Angeles looked to have struck again less than two minutes later, but was waved off a video review indicated that a shot went off of Trevor Lewis’s glove and was directed into the net.
The Kings did score with 2:04 to play in the middle period as Kempe sent a shot on net that deflected off of defender Bouchard and into the Oilers net to make it 4-2.
Draisaitl scored from a tough angle on a power play at 1:08 of the third.
The Oilers scored a third power-play goal at 6:17 of the third period as Hyman took up position at the side of the net and allowed McDavid to bank it off his stick. Hyman had four of his five career hat tricks this season.
The Kings made the score line look a bit better with three minutes to play as Dubois’ shot that was way off target hit defender Darnell Nurse’s skate and surprised Skinner.
After Oilers defenseman Cody Ceci’s stick shattered to give the Kings a turnover deep in Edmonton territory, Moore scored with 71 seconds to play to make it 6-4.
The Kings pulled Talbot, but Foegele scored an empty-netter to seal the win.
Anze Kopitar played in his 93rd career playoff game, passing Dustin Brown, Dave Taylor and Jonathan Quick for second- most in Kings franchise history. He is only one game back of all-time playoff leader Luc Robitaille.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL