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LOS ANGELES — The Kings are better than the team that exited the playoffs in the first round a year ago. They’re also still not good enough. And, as they digest this early exit, they’ve got some Alberta-sized steps to take before they can be considered elite.

Game 6 was a microcosm of a series in which the Edmonton Oilers ran up against a resilient Kings club that wouldn’t go away easily. As they did in stealing Game 1, the Kings battled back from a two-goal deficit Saturday. After falling behind once again, there was new life found with a gift of a tying goal.

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These Kings always pushed back. But the Oilers are better. They were when the teams went the full seven games last year and they are still so, with Kailer Yamamoto’s winning goal with 3:03 remaining in Game 6 moving them on to a second-round matchup against Vegas. An eventful season for the Kings is over just like that, with one game fewer played and no shot to visit Rogers Place and avenge last year’s Game 7 loss.

KAILER YAMAMOTO WITH THE SERIES CLINCHING GOAL! 🍠 #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/wfNv0c0TWM

— NHL (@NHL) April 30, 2023

In the end, there wasn’t enough time for L.A. to get up off the mat this time. There is no question that the Kings have plenty of fight. It showed in Game 6 when they peppered Stuart Skinner with a series-high 44 shots. This club embraced heightened expectations at the start of training camp and followed through on a return to the postseason. But it also couldn’t reach the next step that is winning once there.

This is how the Kings should be judged now. General manager Rob Blake shaped this team the last two summers, with the additions of proven veterans, to accelerate out of the patient three-year rebuild. Blake doubled down at the trade deadline to reward a team that charged out of the All-Star break, proving they were leveling up as an organization and that last year was no fluke.

All of that is fine. Now it is time to see if Blake can make the moves that can make the Kings a true championship contender for the first time in his six-year reign. The first decision remains assessing his conviction that Todd McLellan is the coach who can push the Kings past the likes of the Oilers, Golden Knights and any other Pacific Division hopefuls that may rise and challenge the hierarchy. (Hi there, Seattle!).

But that’s just one decision. There will be movement within the roster. There must be. Goaltending and defense were addressed with the acquisitions of Joonas Korpisalo and Vladislav Gavrikov and the two were upgrades from what they had before. But they didn’t get any further with them and it’s very possible that both flee to free agency. (Though Korpisalo’s fade as the series went on might call into question whether Blake will even make a push to re-sign him).

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So, the Kings are still unsettled both in net and on the blue line. Pheonix Copley, who was passed over for playoff starts, was re-signed for next season, but can you count on the 31-year-old putting up a 24-6-3/2.64/.903 line again? And they’ve got the issue of Cal Petersen, whose $5-million salary was buried in the minors from December on. They’ll also need to clear space on the blue line for ballyhooed 20-year-old Brandt Clarke and possibly work in Jordan Spence more. But while Gavrikov was a terrific fit on the left side, it will be costly to retain the 27-year-old who will be looking to land his career deal.

An effective power play, which got L.A. back into Game 6 with strikes by snipers Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala, was a big part of a vastly improved offensive attack this season, but the Kings must be better defensively and find either a high-level No. 1 starter someone to form an effective tandem with Copley. Gavrikov helped the size and shutdown quotient on defense, but it’s still a unit that can be bigger and have more of a rugged element.

In this series, the Kings scored 20 goals over six games. They allowed 25 — including nine on a penalty kill overwhelmed by Edmonton’s wicked power play. That simply won’t cut it.

“We did score four goals,” Kings captain Anže Kopitar said. “Normally that’s good enough. They’re a high-scoring team over there. In order to win in the playoffs, you’ve got to prevent pucks going into your net. Very rarely are you going to outscore a team in the playoffs. A learning curve. Something we’re going to take away from it and move forward.”

Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the Kings’ second Stanley Cup-winning team. Kopitar and Drew Doughty are the last two pieces remaining from that championship era. The Kings have not won a playoff series since. There was the inevitable rebuild that must be factored into that lack of success. But the Kings are now back in a time when results matter. Blake made sure of that when he traded for Viktor Arvidsson, signed Phillip Danault as a free agent, traded for and signed Fiala to a big extension and kept Kempe in the fold long-term.

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It is time to build on that. It will also be a test of Blake’s management skills as he goes into the summer having pawned off his first-round pick for a second straight year. The key players are locked up, but he’s also only got what Cap Friendly currently projects as $2.5 million available under the $83.5-million cap figure for 2023-24. Salary-clearing deals should be in the offing as Gabriel Vilardi and Rasmus Kupari need new deals as restricted free agents — that’s in addition to any attempt to re-sign Gavrikov.

It is time to demand more from the youngsters — Vilardi, Kupari, Quinton Byfield, etc. — who need to more consistently complement the veterans. In Game 6, the Oilers got an early score from Connor McDavid and another goal from Leon Draisaitl. But they also got two from unheralded Klim Kostin and the clincher from Yamamoto, whose goal was his first point in the series. The Oilers’ depth delivered while the Kings didn’t.

“Our team, our organization, has done a really good job of getting to this point,” McLellan said. “We have some steps to take now and some lessons to learn. This team that we played two years in a row isn’t going anywhere. They’re going to stay in our conference, our division. And for us to move forward, to get to where we want to go, we’re probably going to have to play them again and again and again and we’re going to have to find ways to beat them.

“Another good lesson. I think we’ve closed the gap. I really do. I think we were better this year than we were last year. We should be. We have more experience. I think we were a better team. We added some pieces that made us better. Our power play improved. But it’s still not good enough.”

McLellan then went on to state how “everybody, from the coaching staff through the players, the organization has to take full accounting of their areas and look at what we can do better and how we can push.” The Kings can’t turn back now, not with the need to make the final seasons of iconic figures Kopitar and Doughty count for something more than sitting at their stalls analyzing first-round defeats.

They’ve just got to get better. On the ice. Behind the bench. Within the board room. Because Edmonton, with McDavid and Draisaitl as fearsome obstacles, isn’t going away. Because Vegas and owner Bill Foley’s eternal win-now mantra is hell-bent on not fading away.

“To be the best, I think you’ve got to beat the best,” Kings defenseman Sean Durzi said. “Having them have the best player in the world over there makes it that much more special to kind of compete and go against him and that team. The divisional (format), that stuff, I leave that up to the league. Whoever they put in front of us, we’ve got to be able to come together and go through them.

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“We had no doubt in our mind that we had something special in here and obviously for it to not go our way, it sucks.”

(Top photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

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