3 reasons the Los Angeles Kings didn't win the Stanley Cup
The Los Angeles Kings won't win the Stanley Cup as they have been eliminated.
The Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings played each other in the postseason for the third straight season.
In 2022, the Oilers won the series in seven games. In 2023, the Oilers won in six games. In 2024, the Oilers have now won in five games.
Their domination over the Kings is only getting more and more clear as the years go on. Right now, they have their number for sure.
The Kings won't be winning the Stanley Cup this year and there are a few big reasons why:
Pierre-Luc Dubois was a non-factor for the Kings against the Oilers
Pierre-Luc Dubois had a disappointing regular season for the Los Angeles Kings. This was his first year with the team as they made the big trade to get him from the Winnipeg Jets.
He had 16 goals and 24 assists for 40 points. That would be a great total for a third liner but he is paid like a high-end top-six forward and didn't even come close to looking like one this season.
In this series, he was a non-factor. He scored a goal in the first game and didn't register a single point the rest of the way.
If the Oilers wanted to win this series, they needed Dubois to be one of many players contributing to the scoresheet and he provided almost nothing.
This was a very disappointing season for him as he now looks like he has one of the worst contracts in the NHL. He better take a good hard look in the mirror this summer when preparing for 2024-25.
Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl played with the Kings' food
The Edmonton Oilers have a lot of talent that goes beyond their two stars but Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are two of the best in the business.
They went full Conn Smythe Trophy mode in this series against the Kings. McDavid had 12 points in the five games and Draisaitl had 10. They are the two leading scorers in the playoffs. It is absurd what they are able to do.
It isn't the Kings fault that the Oilers have these two studs. It is their fault that they were able to be as productive as they were. It seemed to be a tad bit too easy for these two to dominate.
Having elite players like that is they key to Edmonton's success but it was also a huge contributor to the Kings' failure.
Special teams absolutely destroyed the Los Angeles Kings in this series
It is one thing to be considerably worse at five-on-five in the NHL. When a team is as fast and talented as the Oilers, it makes sense.
However, the domination of special teams killed the Kings in this one. We talked about McDavid and Draisaitl already but not their work on the power play. These two and the rest of the squad clicked at a remarkable 45.0 percent when on the man advantage.
With complementary pieces like Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Evan Bouchard amongst others on the unit, it is not surprising that they are this good.
The 45.0 percent leads all playoff teams through the first round. Taking penalties against the Oilers is a bad idea and the Kings did it a lot.
It doesn't stop there. The Kings went a solid 0 percent on their power play. That's right. The Edmonton Oilers penalty kill operated at a 100 percent rate during the first round.
You simply aren't going to win a playoff series (let alone a Stanley Cup) if you can't score a single power-play goal. That is especially true when you give up power-play goals like nobody's business.
It just wasn't a good series for either unit (PP, PK) and it cost Los Angeles big time. They aren't as good of a team as the Oilers in a lot of ways so they won't be winning the Stanley Cup this year.
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