LOS ANGELES — The Edmonton Oilers were supposed to be like the Florida Panthers. Get to the Stanley Cup one year, win it the next.

Then the Dylan Holloway/Philip Broberg offer sheets came along. Then Ryan McLeod was traded for a player who has spent the season in the minors. Then Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson weren’t the free-agent signings they were hoped to be.

Then a tidal wave of injuries arrived, with Mattias Ekholm out for the foreseeable future, Evander Kane not healthy enough to start the playoffs and Trent Frederic limping around the practice ice, looking like a guy who won’t be himself until next September — when he could be wearing a different uniform altogether.

As they begin to get healthier, and another run begins against the Los Angeles Kings, it’s hard now to draw parallels between the Game 7 Oilers of 2024, and the Game 1 Oilers of 2025.

“We’re not the same team that went to the Cup Final last year,” said Zach Hyman. “Are we better? Are we worse? You’ll find out, I guess.

“That’s the beauty of playoffs: you find out pretty quick, right?”

The regular season has become somewhat of a necessary nuisance to this team, as it does for any club in a championship window.

Who can blame a team that played 107 games last season —ending in bitter, bitter disappointment in the final week of June — for wandering through a regular season with less than their best stuff on many nights? The Oilers were always going to be a playoff team, but right when the time came to power past Vegas and into first place in the Pacific, injuries laid Edmonton low.

They finished third, and as such, open on the road here in Los Angeles on Monday.

What, of all that, leaves Leon Draisaitl confident about his team’s playoff journey this spring?

“We had another 100-point season and probably at times, didn’t play the best hockey,” Draisaitl reasoned. “That’s what makes me very optimistic about us being a good team. We have some of the best players in the world that can make a big-time difference.

“Yeah, I like where our heads are. I like where (our) group is at.”

Small picture, the Kings have garnered more belief around the hockey world this year than the past three series combined that they can beat Edmonton. They’ve improved with Darcy Kuemper in goal and ex-Oiler Warren Foegele up front, but the Kings are still a defensive-minded, low-risk team that’s trying to figure out how to beat one of hockey’s best offensive clubs.

Edmonton is three-and-oh against L.A. in Round 1 series, and absolutely confident about beating L.A. again.

Is this matchup really any different than any of the previous ones?

“I don’t know if it is,” said Draisaitl, who has 17 goals versus L.A. in the last three post-seasons. “We’ve got to stick to our game plan and do what makes us a good hockey team, and they’ll have the same game plan.”

Connor McDavid and Draisaitl, who have crushed the Kings with 36 and 30 points over the past three Round 1 series, are right in their prime years, aged 28 and 29, respectively. Meanwhile, Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault, the two Kings centres charged with shutting them down, are each a year further from their best years, at 37 and 32.

Yet, it is Edmonton that finds itself having to find a way to play long enough, so that players like Frederic, Kane and perhaps even Ekholm can return to help the cause.

The experience that nine playoff series over the past three springs has given them will help with that, said McDavid.

“You just know more what to expect in a playoff series. The momentum swings, the highs and the lows throughout the series’,” he began.

“Think about all four series last year. The highs and lows throughout the course of the series.

“I think back to that Round 1 four years ago: we came in here for Game 6 and needed to find a way to get a win (while) missing our top defenceman (a suspended Darnell Nurse). That was kind of a defining win for our group, that set a lot of things in motion.

“We’ve had a lot of good memories in this building. We’re excited to make a few more.”

If they do, the Oilers will make some bettors happy. They’re the ‘dogs in this series, with Vegas favouring the Kings.

“I think a lot of people have a lot of questions about our team,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “We didn’t finish as high in the standings, we weren’t pulling off as many victories as we had in the past, and we’re playing a team that a lot of people believe is a stronger, more powerful team … that we walked over before.

“We’re fine being the underdog, being underappreciated. We’ve got some good players.”

There are teams and coaches that would use the moneyline as ammunition, or post a list of predictions on the dressing room wall, with eight of 18 Sportsnet pundits choosing the Kings over Edmonton.

But this team, they’re past all of that. They’ve been to the altar, been in the building where the Stanley Cup would be awarded.

They don’t need some contrived “us against the world” pep talk, as another playoff journey begins.

“The biggest ammunition we have is our goal, what we want to accomplish. It’s been on our minds for 10 months — since June 24 last year,” said Knoblauch. “Does being the underdog give us any extra motivation? Maybe a little bit.

“But I think there’s a bigger picture that we want to accomplish.”