Kings plan to stick to template as they face elimination against Oilers

That the Los Angeles Kings from the start Sunday night controlled the play nearly the entire 60 minutes of Game 4 is a testament to their ability to dictate the flow of a playoff match.

That the Edmonton Oilers kept the Kings from getting close to goalie Stuart Skinner and his net the bulk of it is a testament to their ability to play defensive hockey while still generating — albeit not nearly as many as hockey fans are used to seeing from Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and company — high-grade scoring chances.

In the end, the Oilers won it via special teams play, with defenceman Evan Bouchard scoring the only goal of the match on Edmonton's lone power-play opportunity via one of his patented slap shots from the point, then denying the Kings a shot on net on their only chance with the man advantage.

Kings head coach Jim Hiller said that despite the loss, his team needs to replicate Game 4's style of play in the return match on Wednesday in Edmonton.

It's do-or-die for Los Angeles. A Game 5 loss to the Oilers will end their season.

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"We didn't get perfection, but we played as well as we've played in a long, long time," Hiller told media on Monday. "So what do we do? We just go play that game again.

"I said it last night, the guys should be feeling good despite the loss — what can you do? That's playoff hockey, it goes up and down — but we've got a game that can beat them going up and down, and that was it last night."

Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch welcomed the low-scoring, defensive affair.

"There's going to be a lot of more of those games if we're going to have success long term, and we need to have the mindset of maybe we just need one to win sometimes," Knoblauch told media Monday.

He said while the Oilers didn't generate many shots in Game 4 — 13 to the Kings' 33 — the shots they did manage to put on Kings goalie David Rittich, who replaced Cam Talbot in the L.A. goal after Talbot played the first three games of the series, he felt Edmonton's scoring opportunities were the better ones.

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"If you look at the shots, I don't think that's a good indicator of how the game went," Knoblauch said.

"I know in the first period, we had only four shots on goal and I know we had four scoring chances. Leon (Draisaitl) had a great scoring chance off the rush. Dylan Holloway, a one-timer. Corey Perry driving to the net. I thought we had a lot of good looks rolling in despite only having four shots."

And as the game ground on, the Oilers snuffed many a Kings offensive assault.

Knoblauch said, in his opinion, his team didn't give up a so-called Grade 'A' scoring chance.

"(On) a lot of their looks, we didn't give up a scoring chance off the rush," he said.

"There were a lot of Grade 'Bs' (scoring chances for the Kings), they were throwing a lot of pucks to the net, and they were looking for rebounds. There were a lot of times where they almost got those rebounds, but I thought our defence especially did a really good job of clearing in front of the net, whether tying up a stick or clearing a rebound."