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Why Quinton Byfield Is the X-Factor in the Kings' Quest to Topple the Oilers in the Playoffs

karo blikian
·4 min read

It’s only January and it already feels inevitable.

Looking at the Pacific Division standings, the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers are likely on yet another collision course in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It would be the fourth consecutive postseason meeting between the two teams–a matchup soundly dominated by Edmonton by a greater margin each time.

In 2023, the Kings looked to have their best chance to eliminate Edmonton, but ultimately fell due to a lack of depth. Players like Klim Kostin, Kailer Yamamoto and Nick Bjugstad emerged as impact players in the Oilers’ bottom six, scoring key goals at key times to send the Kings to an early off-season. That series underscored the importance of being able to match Edmonton’s depth beyond their star players.

In response, the Kings got aggressive that summer, pursuing and acquiring center Pierre-Luc Dubois in a massive deal. The idea was that Dubois’ presence on the third line would create matchup issues against teams like the Oilers, but Dubois himself failed to even make a dent in the 2024 series. Edmonton steamrolled the Kings in 5 games and sent LA into a tumultuous off-season that forced General Manager Rob Blake to make significant changes.

Arguably the biggest change was the revelation that Quinton Byfield would transition to a full time role at the center position, essentially replacing Dubois as the team’s third line pivot. The move didn’t inspire confidence in the early parts of the 2024-25 season, but things have changed.

After a shaky start to the season, Byfield seems to have figured things out, with the most recent performance against Edmonton serving as a prime example. His line (with Warren Foegele and Tanner Jeannot) accounted for four goals in the game, including the deciding marker. Yes, it was just one game, but it was a perfect example of what Rob Blake envisioned when he acquired Dubois–A third line that could expose Edmonton’s bottom six.

If Anze Kopitar and Philip Danault are expected to spend much of their energy matching up with Edmonton’s top unit’s, Byfield and his linemates could have a real opportunity to tilt the ice.

And if Byfield gets tasked with shutting down Connor McDavid, it could free up the Danault line to focus on creating offense, rather than shutting down the world’s best player. That flexibility—something the Kings lacked in the previous three series’—could present opportunities to give Edmonton different looks.

As a pair, Byfield and Foegele currently hold a 66% Goals For percentage and a 70% High Danger Goals For at 5-on-5. No two-player combination that has played over 25 minutes together on the Oilers bottom six even comes close to those types of numbers.

Head Coach Jim Hiller praised Byfield after a 2-1 victory against Tampa Bay on January 4th:

"Even when he wasn’t scoring, I know there were a lot of people talking about it, he’s not scoring, but he was getting better and better defensively. He wasn’t cheating and he was learning the position defensively in the NHL all over again and he got ahead of his defensive game, got ahead of his offensive game. Now he’s scoring a little bit more, but the defensive game is really solid. We’ve thought for some time that he’s going to start taking on some of the tougher matchups. Him and Foegs are a pair, Foegs is a penalty killer, a good forechecker, checking-type player, dependable, so for us, it was a natural progression. This wasn’t just all of a sudden. We’ve had this in our mind for a while."

While the center of Edmonton’s universe will always be McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Kings have likely accepted that those two cannot be stopped. Instead, for the first time, LA could have a significant edge with Byfield, against an Oilers team that, while star-studded, remains vulnerable in its lower-tier matchups.