Quinton Byfield leads Kings past Oilers
LOS ANGELES — Making his NHL head coaching debut for the team he first stepped on the ice with as a player, Jim Hiller and his hungry Kings offered a strong statement about what the remainder of the season could bring, stifling the Edmonton Oilers 4-0 at Crypto.com Arena.
Goaltender David Rittich secured his first shutout in a Kings uniform thanks to 26 saves and 25 blocks from his teammates, whose struggles after a torrid start to the season cost Todd McLellan his job on February 2.
Two goals and an assist to Trevor Lewis by Quinton Byfield, along with a power-play goal from Pierre-Luc Dubois, propelled the Kings and their newly-named head coach in a positive direction on Saturday.
For Hiller’s group, the Oilers presented a stiff test following the All-Star break, which provided the Kings a nine-day stretch between games to physically and mentally recover.
Following their own coaching change in the middle of November, Edmonton turned into the hottest team in the league under Kris Knoblauch prior to losing for the first time in 17 games this week in Las Vegas.
Playing the latter game for the first of eight back-to-back affairs over the remainder of the regular season, Edmonton got squeezed as the rested Kings put in an intense and energetic hour.
After a scoreless and chippy opening 20 minutes, Dubois got on the board on the power play, which Hiller oversaw as an assistant and will continue to do in his elevated role.
The inconsistent Dubois, who made his presence felt early in the game with physical forechecking, collected a second-period pass from Jordan Spence inside the right circle and snapped a knuckler under the armpit of goaltender Stuart Skinner for his 11th goal of the season.
Forty-nine seconds later, the Kings made it 2-0 when Byfield stole the puck from three-time Hart Memorial Trophy winner Connor McDavid along the boards in the defensive zone. The Oilers star captain, fresh off a three-assist performance, was far less effective at Crypto.com Arena than he was at the Honda Center.
“I think playing defense is very important,” Byfield said. “It’s kind of built into our identity as well. We’ve got a lot of two-way guys who really care about the defensive end. So I was just trying to do my part to contribute on that side.”
Byfield barreled down the length of the ice with his head up, giving Lewis a chance to skate into the play. Byfield’s 22nd assist of the season came on a centering pass behind a pair of Oilers as Lewis roofed his seventh goal.
“I wanted to reward [Lewis] for his good effort there and just try to make a pass over to him,” Byfield added. “It was an unbelievable finish.”
Playing with speed, intensity and physicality, the Kings leaned on their penalty kill and goaltender to hold Edmonton down.
Halfway through the second period, Rittich stretched wide in a full split to stone defenseman Corey Perry. He then reacted to a quick rebound attempt between his legs by Evander Kane, who scored a hat-trick against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday.
“January was a tough, tough month,” Rittich said following his fifth career shutout. “We played every other day. It was nice to have a couple days off, refresh ourselves, recharge and get back to work. I think we took a step in the right direction and have to keep building.”
Rittich, 6-1-3 with the Kings after a call-up from the Ontario Reign in December, delivered in three penalty killing sequences during the back-half of the second period, including a pair for too many men on the ice. Those infractions, however, did not ruin the evening for Hiller and his team, which celebrated twice more in the third period while it sealed the result.
Byfield increased the Kings’ advantage at 7:08 of the third by cleaning up a rebound. And an empty-net contribution at 17:18 gave him 16 goals on the season.
“In recent years they’ve knocked us out of the playoffs twice so that’s a big win for us coming off a new coaching change as well,” Byfield said. “I think we all played for each other tonight. I think we all had a lot of fun.”
The result moved the Kings (24-15-10, 58 points) to within three points of the third-place Oilers (30-17-1, 61 points) in the Pacific Division.
Playing the most grueling schedule of any NHL team in January, the Kings have 33 regular season games left to round into form. Hiller said changes will come, but for the time being they’ll be subtle — the kind of stuff the guys in the locker room will see but others may not.
From Hiller’s perspective, the team he now leads is “really good” and it would be a “mistake to overreact.” The critical piece to their success, he surmised, will manifest from the players’ frame of mind.
“We’re trying to have fun because those guys are out there working,” Hiller said. “You can’t just go out there and work and not enjoy it. I think when you do it and it’s hard and you do it together you can appreciate it more. It becomes more fun. So that’s what we’re trying to get back to. We were that team for the first 24 games. This is nothing new. It’s just been a tough stretch for us and we got back on it a little bit.”