Retooled Oilers Are Beginning to Jell

After a disappointing start this season the Edmonton Oilers decided to shake up their team, and over the last two weeks they added five new players to their roster.

Their willingness to make changes seems to be paying off as they completed a two-day sweep of Southern California’s NHL teams with a 4-3 victory over the Kings on Saturday before a sellout crowd of 16,005 at the Great Western Forum.

Tony Hrkac, picked up off waivers from Dallas, and Bill Guerin, acquired in a trade with New Jersey, each scored goals and Doug Weight and Kelly Buchberger also scored for the Oilers, who defeated the Mighty Ducks, 5-1, in Anaheim on Friday.

The Kings, who now hold only a five-point lead over Edmonton in the Pacific Division, got goals from Vladimir Tsyplakov, Nathan LaFayette and Rob Blake.

Special teams again hurt the Kings, giving up three power-play goals. A fourth Oiler score came on a delayed penalty against the Kings.

“We probably played half the game short-handed,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “Five on five, we’re doing fine but we keep taking penalties with bonehead plays.”

What upset Robinson most is the type of penalties the Kings get called for, many of them being the result of retaliation.

“Maybe we should wait a little bit and get [an opponent] back later,” center Jozef Stumpel said. “I guess no one wants to let up. . . . We need to stand people up and give more checks [instead].”

Edmonton outshot the Kings, 46-31, but had to withstand a furious late third-period rally to win for the second time in three games against the Kings this season.

The Kings, notorious for their slow starts, played a strong first period as they tried to take it to an Edmonton team they hoped would be a little tired after playing the night before.

Oiler goaltender Curtis Joseph, who finished with 28 stops, made a couple of good saves early, including a low glove save on a shot by Yanic Perreault, to keep the Kings scoreless.

Later in the period, the Kings fell behind first for the 28th time in 44 games when Edmonton scored its first power play goal.

After being crushed by a check along the sideboards by Blake, Hrkac got up and beat goalie Stephane Fiset from the slot at 15:29 on an assist from Andrei Kovalenko.

Two minutes later, Tsyplakov tied the score when he faked Kovalenko to his knees inside the Edmonton blue line and then scored from the right circle at 17:29.

In the second period, the Kings let the game get away as Edmonton outshot them, 19-8. The Oilers scored their second goal when Weight came on the ice in favor of Joseph during a delayed King penalty and scored from the right circle at 7:19.

Edmonton then took a 3-1 lead with the Kings’ Sean O’Donnell in the penalty box with a double minor for high-sticking. Guerin scored his power-play goal when he deflected a shot by Roman Hamrlik, who was picked up from Tampa Bay in a Dec. 30 trade, at 13:02.

The Kings cut the Oilers’ lead to 3-2 with 4.5 seconds remaining in the second period when LaFayette deflected in a slap shot by Aki Berg.

In the third period, the Oilers scored their third power-play goal when Buchberger knocked in a bouncing rebound from outside the right post at 6:04 to give Edmonton a 4-2 lead.

The Kings made things interesting with their own power-play goal at 10:08 when Blake drilled a shot from the top of the left circle that bounced off Edmonton defenseman Dan McGillis into the net to make the score, 4-3.

The Kings, who ranked among the best penalty-killing teams in the NHL last season, have now given up 21 power play goals and rank among the league’s bottom six teams.

“I don’t think that we killed off that many last year,” said Robinson, whose team had nine penalties for 29 minutes against Edmonton. “I think that we’ve killed as many now as we did all of last year. When you take that many penalties, it’s just the law of averages . . . for one third of a game, we’re sitting in the penalty box.”