EDMONTON, Canada _ Drew Doughty propped an arm on the crossbar and chatted up members of the Rogers Place ice crew as they drilled in a goal peg into place. Blake Lizotte razzed goalie Jack Campbell for robbing him in the shooting line with an exaggerated glove save. Todd McLellan hardly raised his voice, leaving only the clatter of sticks and pucks to echo through an empty arena.
On the first morning of the first day of the Los Angeles Kings' first season under McLellan, a long-lost feeling pulsed through their pregame skate Saturday, a sensation that was short-lived and soon forgotten last season: hope.
"I've never been so excited to start a hockey season," defenseman Drew Doughty said. "I think everyone here is feeling that same energy."
A year ago, belief dwindled quickly for the Kings. Dustin Brown broke a finger in the preseason finale. The team lost on opening night in overtime to the San Jose Sharks. The next day, goalie Jonathan Quick suffered a lower-body injury in practice and went on injured reserve. They won just two of their first 10 games overall, fired coach John Stevens four days into November, and languished in the basement of the Western Conference standings the rest of the year.
"You look at last year, and when you don't have a good start to the season, you're digging yourself into a hole," forward Kyle Clifford said. In this league, it's not easy to get out of."
But, before the Kings' 6-5 season-opening loss against the Edmonton Oilers, the pregame positivity was palpable.
Said center Adrian Kempe: "We're excited for a new season, a new opportunity."
Said Clifford: "I think, as a group, we did a really good job in the preseason getting ready, getting attention to detail, learning the new systems. I believe that we're going to have a good start to the year."
Some of the players' sentiments, of course, sounded like platitudes. McLellan, however, was more direct. He turned a question about facing Oilers stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl a credit of his new veteran core.
"The pride in the locker room is the one thing I've noted, being around these veterans," McLellan said. "They're proud. They've won championships because of pride and pulling through some of the crap during the season that occurs ... I expect a lot of players to bounce back this year."
In their first game, the Kings were asked to do so time and again. But, in a back-and-forth affair played largely at a hackneyed pace, they couldn't keep up, eventually succumbing to James Neal's game-winning goal with less than seven minutes to play in the third period.
Less than a minute into a season with the lowest of expectations, the Kings were dealt an early blow. A quick Oilers breakout sent Connor McDavid flying into the offensive zone and around defenseman Matt Roy. McDavid got hooked and went wide, then flung the puck in front. It deflected off Roy's skates and into the net. The Edmonton crowd came to life, reveling in the Kings' deflating start.
Then, the Kings did something that rarely happened last year. They responded.
Oilers goalie Mike Smith helped. Twice, the stick-happy netminder got caught out of the crease trying to play the puck, leading to de facto empty-net goals for Dustin Brown and Kyle Clifford.
Neal tied the score 2-2 with a power-play tally, but the Kings retook the lead late in the first. In the span of eight seconds and three passes, the Kings went from end to end. Defenseman Sean Walker passed from behind the net to partner Ben Hutton. Hutton fed Brown in the neutral zone. Brown left a drop pass for Kopitar, who beat Smith down low.
McDavid helped level the score in the second, stealing the puck from Doughty in the corner and finding Zack Kassian on the back post for a tap-in. Early in the third, the Kings twice went up a goal with tallies by Michael Amadio and a power-play one-timer from Drew Doughty. But, they couldn't hold either lead. Joakim Nygard buried a four-on-four goal off a faceoff and Darnell Nurse buried a shot past Quick.
Neal made it 6-5 with a power-play tally with 6:32 left. After that, the Kings were out of answers, including a squandered power-play opportunity in the final 45 seconds.
