Kings helpless against Oilers’ high-powered scoring attack in Game 3 loss

The bronze likeness of former Kings’ broadcaster Bob Miller, frozen in mid-wave outside Crypto.com Arena, was dressed for a celebration Friday, with dozens of black, white and silver balloons floating above and behind him as he stared, unblinking, over a stretch of Olympic Boulevard that had been taken over by a street festival.

Give Los Angeles a reason to party and you won’t have to ask twice for someone to throw one. In this case, it was the return of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“There is pent-up excitement for sure,” said Arthur Whang, 48, a Woodland Hills employment lawyer and longtime Kings season-ticket holder. “There’s nothing worse than irrelevant games in the second half of the regular season.

“Hockey’s been rough the last few years.”

How rough? Until Friday, the Kings hadn’t played a postseason game at home in more than four years; they haven’t won one here in eight years. The last home win was so long ago, in fact, the arena was still called the Staples Center then and Miller was a flesh-and-blood announcer, not a statue.

So call it the Curse of Bob Miller because the Kings haven’t tasted victory in a home playoff game since the Hall of Famer was cast in bronze. And even though the real-life Miller came back for a cameo during the pre-game show Friday, briefly sharing Star Plaza with his heavy-metal doppelganger, the hex continued with the Edmonton Oilers riding a hat trick from Evander Kane and two-goal performances from Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to an 8-2 victory.

That result extended the Kings’ playoff losing streak to six games and gave the Oilers a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, which continues Sunday in Los Angeles.

The mood was buoyant outside the arena three hours…