Kings @ Oilers, Pt. 3 - Round 1 Schedule - LA Kings Insider
Round 1, Part 3!
Love it or hate it, we’re here again. All roads lead to Edmonton.
With the conclusion of last night’s slate of games around the league, the matchups and schedule for the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs was finalized and released late last night. The Kings will take on the Edmonton Oilers in the first round, with that series set to begin on Monday, April 22, on the road in Edmonton. It’ll be the third consecutive season that Edmonton is the Round 1 opponent.
“There’s no question we’ve got a short history with them, but we were just excited to make the playoffs and go play whoever we we were going to play,” Jim Hiller said of the Round 1 matchup. “Like we said, it could have been a different team, we were just excited. It could have been Vancouver, could have been Edmonton, could have been Dallas, now [it’s] Edmonton. We just want to get going and we’re excited. We’re really excited.”
With a Dallas win over St. Louis on Wednesday, the Stars locked up the number-one overall seed in the Western Conference. Entering last night’s action, the Kings had two possible destinations for Round 1 – Edmonton or Dallas. With the 5-4 overtime win for Los Angeles, plus the Anaheim Ducks upsetting the Vegas Golden Knights earlier in the evening, the official schedule for Round 1 has been finalized.
The schedule for Round 1 is listed below –
Game 1 – Monday, April 22 – Rogers Place, Edmonton
Game 2 – Wednesday, April 24 – Rogers Place, Edmonton
Game 3 – Friday, April 26 – Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles
Game 4 – Sunday, April 28 – Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles
Game 5* – Wednesday, May 1 – Rogers Place, Edmonton
Game 6* – Friday, May 3 – Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles
Game 7* – Sunday, May 5 – Rogers Place, Edmonton
*If Necessary
Game 1 and Game 2 will begin at 7 PM Pacific time, 8 PM local time in Edmonton. Games 3 and 4 will both begin at 7:30 PM Pacific time in Los Angeles. The start times for Games 5, 6 and 7 are currently unknown and will likely be announced at a later date.
Regarding broadcast schedule, Game 1 will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2, while Games 2, 3 and 4 will all be broadcast on TBS. Those broadcasts will also be available in the Los Angeles market, alongside the local broadcasts on Bally Sports West. The local Bally schedule will be announced later on today. In Canada, all four games will be shown on Sportsnet, with Games 5, 6 and 7 still TBD. In terms of audio broadcast coverage, every game throughout the playoffs will be broadcast live on the LA Kings iHeart Radio Network.
With the Lakers and Clippers both in the postseason, the home schedule for the Kings really came into focus before the full series was announced. The Kings will have good dates at home, with two Fridays and a Sunday at Crypto.com Arena. All four potential dates on the road will come on weeknights. Good news here is that there is no three-day break like the one we saw last season, between Games 5 and 6. Three days to ramp up before Game 1 and two days in between Games 4 and 5. Otherwise, it’s an every-other-day approach throughout the course of the series.
As far as the matchup goes, the Kings posted a record of 1-2-1 versus the Oilers this season. The Kings won convincingly in mid-February on home ice but dropped both games in Edmonton in regulation. It’s a building they’ve won in three times over the last two playoff matchups, however, so there’s a familiarity at the very least. No secrets between these two clubs. Right back at it on Monday.
In terms of a practice schedule, the Kings will not practice today, likely returning to the ice tomorrow at Toyota Sports Performance Center. Expecting the team to release practice info later on today, so we’ll be able to update that once it arrives. Past precedent suggests a certain course of action, but this is the first playoff run under Jim Hiller, so we’ll have to see how he manages on-ice practice time versus rest days. Certainly think we’ll see at least one, intense, full-team practice in El Segundo before heading out to Alberta, though.
