Remember a few years ago when the Oilers beat the Calgary Flames in five games, sending them spiralling into a rebuild? Of course you do!

Now, the joke that Oilers fans love to remind their provincial rivals about isn’t exactly true. It’s not like the Flames lost that series and then decided to pull the pin on things and go into a rebuilding period.

No, it was more Johnny Gaudreau’s indecisiveness, which left then-GM Brad Treliving high and dry, and Matt Tkachuks’ dislike of cold weather that led to the Flames taking a step back. It wasn’t like the Flames front office sat there and decided that they had to rebuild their entire roster because they weren’t good enough to compete with the Oilers.

Why am I bringing this all up right now? It’s because late on Wednesday night, as the Oilers and Kings shook hands at centre ice following another playoff series win for the Oilers, I started to think about just how far away the Kings looked this time around.

In the first meeting, it went to seven games and honestly, the Oilers were a bounce away from losing that series in six games.

Last season, the Oilers took it in six games but there was a feeling that the Kings were getting a little closer. There was some young talent coming up through their roster and there was a sense that they were going to be ultra-aggressive in the offseason.

They did make a big swing, moving out a handful of pieces in exchange for Pierre Luc-Dubois and it was a massive swing and a miss. Dubois looked disinterested for long stretches of the season and that carried over into the playoffs. His most noticeable moments involved him sitting in the penalty box.

Now, the Kings head into the offseason in a very interesting spot. Most of their best players aren’t getting any younger. Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty were both very good in this series, but they’re both in their mid-thirties and who knows how many more truly elite seasons they have left.

They do have skill on their roster and some quality young pieces like Quinten Byfield and Adrian Kempe, but this series against the Oilers showed that there is still a very sizeable skill gap between these two and I don’t think the Kings are just one good trade away from closing that gap.

They do have just north of $20 million in cap space for this upcoming season, but they have some key players hitting unrestricted free agency, like Viktor Arvidsson and Matt Roy and no goaltenders under contract at the NHL level.

Frank Seravalli recently brought up the idea of the Kings buying out a player like Pierre-Luc Dubois, who is under contract for seven more seasons. That would be crazy, but I do think everything should be on the table for Kings this summer, even potentially a GM change.

ON TO THE NEXT