Pre-Scout: Kings renew hostilities with Oilers after handing Jets first win in forever
When the Edmonton Oilers left Winnipeg on Thursday night, the Jets looked demoralized. They’d blown yet another lead and flailed down the stretch of another winnable game. Twenty-four hours later, those same down-bad Jets snapped their 11-game losing skid against the Oilers’ opponent on Saturday night – the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings may have still been reeling from a gutwrenching overtime loss to San Jose on Wednesday, where LA got Macklin’d and Celebrini’d their way to two points in a late comeback. But the underlying issues of struggling to score reared their head, and Darcy Kuemper allowed five goals on just sixteen Winnipeg shots to lose 5-1. Kuemper was yanked to start the third period. “It’s hard, you have to go back through and look at it again, but we started fine,” said coach Jim Hillier post-game. “Really, it was probably their power play, I think, got some momentum with five minutes left in the first period. I didn’t think they had much prior to that, besides the goal.” Los Angeles allowed Vlad Namestikov to end a 27-game goalscoring drought. Jonathan Toews ended a 30-gamer. It was one of those nights, perhaps, but now the Kings have a quick back-to-back for their first matchup against the Oilers this year. “I think we had a couple unfortunate bounces against us, but other than that, I........