Danault scored in the 14:46 of the third, shortly after Oilers goalkeeper Mike Smith turned the ball around trying to clear the middle, which was knocked down by Alex Iafallo. After a head-on collision, the elf came to Sean Durzi on the spot and his shot was passed by Danault. “I was just trying to make something happen; obviously I was trying to do a lot there,” Smith said. “In a tight game like this you can not afford to make such mistakes. It ended up costing us the game. Obviously disappointed, but it’s a game and we move on.” Video: LAK @ EDM, Gm1: Danault is diverted to the goal Trevor Moore had one goal and two assists, Iafallo had one goal and one assist and Jonathan Quick made 36 saves for the Kings, the third seed in the Pacific Division. Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is in Edmonton on Wednesday. “I obviously believe, no matter how it ends, if you have one more goal, that’s the best ending,” Danault said. “We got stuck with it. They came back into the game and had a good PP. I think we showed the character again tonight and we got stuck with it and a big win.” Keiler Yamamoto and Conor McDavid each had a goal and an assist and Smith made 31 saves for the Eilers, the second seed in the Pacific. “There’s a lot of emotion with the fans back in the building and I thought we just didn’t handle it that well; they took our leap,” McDavid said. “I thought we did a very good job of getting back into the game and giving ourselves a chance. It’s the end of a bounce. We didn’t make a good start. We missed some opportunities and got back by two. It wasn’t. “Our home. It’s something we have to work on.” [RELATED: Complete Oilers vs. Kings series coverage] Moore gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 11:00 in the first period. He took a pass from Jafalos and scored from the tall fruit. Jafalo made it 2-0 at 16:48. He converted a pass behind Moore’s net. “I thought we did a good job, as we did all year, relying only on our leadership,” Moore said. “You know these guys are going to have pushes. With two of the best players in the world, they will spend their time. I thought ‘Quicky’ made huge rebounds when we needed them and he did a good job.” McDavid made it 2-1 at 19:17. He turned the Kings defender Olli Maatta under the right wing, cut in and scored from the right circle. Video: LAK @ EDM, Gm1: McDavid speed halves deficit Yamamoto equalized 2-2 in power play at 2:39 of the second period, re-directing to a pass by Duncan Keith. “I liked our special teams, I thought the power play kept us in that,” McDavid said. “I liked the way we fought back in the game. We did not give up. There are things we like and things you do not like. We will learn from this and apply it to Game 2.” Brendan Lemieux restored the Kings’ lead to 3-2 at 3:50. He got a pass from Adrian Kebe in a hurry and scored from the tall fruit. “I thought we did the things we needed to do most of the time,” said Kings coach Todd McLellan. “We’ve used the word ‘identity’ a lot over the years and played it again. It’s what gives us a chance.” Leon Draisaitl tied 3-3 in the power play at 9:56. He took a pass from McDavid in the right circle, after hitting a broken stick on the ice and picked the corner in Quick. “I did not like the way we started the game, obviously, we gave a chance to a neutral zone, we took a penalty early, things like that allowed them to feel good at the beginning of the game. “I thought we worked our way through things and found a way to compete in the end, it ended in a mistake in the third period and they took advantage of it,” said Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. NOTES: Victor Arvinson did not fight for unknown reasons. “Obviously I could not go tonight, we will see how it is tomorrow,” McLellan said. Ilers Oilers defender Darnell Nurse is back after missing the last four games of the regular season with a lower body injury. The nurse had an assist at 20:27 icy time. “There were some good things from Darnell tonight,” Woodcroft said. “Obviously, he’s been off the ice for a little over a week and there are times when he’s just getting back into speed. We tried not to use him too much tonight, but he was competitive and he’s very good on penalties.”
