The Los Angeles Kings ran into their kryptonite in the NHL: the Edmonton Oilers, for the fourth straight season. Following the first round elimination against Connor McDavid and the Oilers, Warren Foegele dropped a candid admission.
The Kings cannot change the course of history, despite their desperate attempts. It seems the script is already written for Los Angeles, with Edmonton destined to be the stone in their shoe.
McDavid and the Oilers have now eliminated the Kings in four straight years—each time in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Warren Foegele had been on the winning side of that rivalry in the past, but after Edmonton parted ways with the 29-year-old forward last offseason, he joined Los Angeles and couldn’t help turn the tide.
This loss carried an extra burden for Foegele, it meant a little bit more for him as he hoped to prove the Oilers wrong about letting him go, but eventually couldn’t defeat McDavid, Draisaitl, and the rest of the star-studded roster in Edmonton.
Connor McDavid #97 of the Edmonton Oilers reacts after his game winning goal against the Dallas Stars during the second overtime in Game One of the Western Conference Final of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center on May 23, 2024 in Dallas, Texas.
“Losing to your former team isn’t fun,” Foegele admitted during his end-of-season press conference. “I wasn’t offered a contract by them so a little bit more personal in that regard, too. The frustrating thing is I thought we were actually the better team. That’s the way it goes sometimes, you ought to be able to close games and we weren’t able to do that.”
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Summer nightmare
The Kings are still making their peace with the recent elimination, trying to put it in the back burner and move on, but it’s way easier said than done. Especially after losing to the same team for the fourth straight year, when it felt like this year was going to be different. Los Angeles and its players cannot help but wonder: where did it go wrong?
Kings star Quinton Byfield might know exactly when things unraveled for his team—a crushing Game 4 loss that proved to be the turning point. After leading comfortably most of the night, Los Angeles gave up the tying goal to the Oilers with less than a minute left in regulation and eventually lost in overtime.
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That collapse triggered a domino effect, as the Kings went on to drop Games 5 and 6, bringing their season to a sorrowful end. It will certainly be a game Byfield, Foegele, and the Kings won’t be able to live down fast. “I’ll think about that all summer,” Byfield said, per Dennis Bernstein on X.
