Death, taxes, and Kings vs. Oilers in the NHL playoffs

The Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings can't escape each other. Unless the Vegas Golden Knights tailspin out of first in the Pacific Division, these familiar foes will place second and third for a fourth consecutive year. They're on course to collide in yet another opening round of the postseason.

These incessant brushes stem from the star-studded Oilers' surprising inability to win a division title. The franchise hasn’t done that since Wayne Gretzky menaced the Smythe Division in 1987. L.A. leapfrogged Edmonton in this year's standings to engineer a small shakeup, but it probably won't be enough to catch Vegas and overhaul the Pacific bracket.

Kings-Oilers 4.0 is the logical result of a playoff format that stokes rivalries through repetition. The NHL ditched the 1-through-8 pathway through each conference to adopt the current divisional gauntlet in 2014. The change produced a blizzard of common matchups over the next decade.

For legions of fatigued fans, the format is too predictable - and Kings-Oilers helps explain why. It's about to become the most frequent first-round playoff showdown since divisional realignment.

As visualized below, a pair of teams in every division has met three times in Round 1. If L.A. and Edmonton renew hostilities, they'll rewrite that milestone in one uninterrupted swoop while tying the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins for most meetings under the present format.

(Note: This table excludes matchups from the 2020 and '21 postseasons, which were configured differently because of the pandemic.)

Some magnetic property connects certain teams. By theScore's count, the Kings and Oilers were the 37th set of opponents in league history - and just the sixth this century - to clash in three consecutive postseasons.

There are 11 historical examples of rivals extending a playoff matchup streak to four years. If the Kings and Oilers join that list, it would be the seventh four-peat since NHL expansion began in 1967, and the first to be confined to this century.

Coincidentally, the Oilers were part of the past two endlessly repetitive matchups, including against the Kings right after their titanic Gretzky trade. They could become the second set of teams, following the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens, to face off four consecutive times in multiple eras. In fact, they'd join the Bruins and Habs as the only squads since '67 to meet four straight times in the same round.

Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid deluged L.A. on the power play as Edmonton won its past three opening series by an aggregate score of 74-50. But the 2024-25 Kings battened the hatches: They're a defensive force that's allowed the second-fewest goals (2.44 per game) and the fewest expected goals (2.62 per 60 minutes, according to Natural Stat Trick) in the NHL. Their .816 points percentage and plus-59 goal differential on home ice bode well if the next series reaches Game 7.

These Kings revived veteran goalie Darcy Kuemper and count on Adrian Kempe, Anze Kopitar, Kevin Fiala, and Quinton Byfield to lead the offensive charge. They've gotten strong production from Warren Foegele, the free agent who changed sides from Edmonton. Foegele can't avoid this matchup, but like the Oilers' Viktor Arvidsson, he has the rare opportunity to experience it from a new perspective.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.