Edmonton Oilers Playoff Thoughts: Round 3, Game 1

You know, Stu. Just when we think you couldn’t possibly allow any more pucks, you go and do something like this… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!

This is what makes Playoff hockey so thrilling. Whatever you did in the regular season, whatever you did in the previous game, whatever you did in seasons prior, none of it matters in the present moment. Stuart Skinner had to finish Round 2 with an .817 SV%, he posted two consecutive shutouts. His postgame interviews were emotional; he “shut a lot of people up that were talking about him,” as Connor McDavid would say. Our captain either reads every Oilers fan’s tweets or reads articles from people who write about them before every game. Oops. The goalie we’re waiting for to come back from injury is still the only undefeated goalie in these rounds, by the way. From now on, when we do have Calvin Pickard back, I vote for him to start Games 1-3 and for Skinner to start Games 4-7. The last series may’ve ended in 5 games, but it felt so much longer than that. It’s kind of like our team’s Winnipeg series back in 2021. Even though the Oilers were casualties of a 4-game sweep, three of them were in Overtime and could’ve gone either way. Four of the games against Vegas were much tighter.

Two years ago, when the Golden Knights knocked the Oilers out in the second round, Leon Draisaitl ended his Playoffs with 13 goals. Nobody inched close to that until Jonathan Marchessault won the Conn Smythe trophy with the same number of goals. It’s not that there aren’t other good forwards in Edmonton, but consistent depth scoring has always been a leaguewide question mark surrounding this team. Draisaitl has only two fewer Playoff points than what he finished with in 2023, but he also has 8 fewer goals. Last year in the postseason, it wasn’t until the middle of Round 3 that the Oilers started getting more point production from players not in the top 6. Evan Bouchard highlighted Round 1 in this postseason with four goals, the last 2 being extra clutch. But of all the teams still remaining, Edmonton has the most skaters with three or more goals. The lone Game 5 goal in Overtime to end the series was scored by an extra playing just his second game in this postseason run. This bodes well against a third-round opponent that had seven 20-goal scorers in the regular season. McDavid was visibly frustrated with a question that a reporter asked him after Game 5 about defensive improvements, as he’s answered many times that his team can in fact defend and does care about it. Mattias Ekholm has been reported to still not be available for Games 1 and 2 of this Round, but looks promising for the middle of it. How many people believed 100% that this team would absolutely make it this far without him? We’re only halfway to the finish line, there’s still a lot more hockey left, but they’ve been silencing past accusations; even if they may still have the one odd game.

Nothing against the Dallas Stars, the way they won their second round series with Winnipeg sucked. Just emotionally, it sucked. The hockey world is with Mark Scheifele after he lost his father the day of the Game 6. It reminded me of Martin St. Louis’s Mother’s Day goal in 2014. No matter what team you root for, any player deciding to play any game after that has all of my respect for days on end. I’m not a Winnipeg Jets fan, I just wanted to throw that out there. Scheduled games still need to be played, but some things in life deserve more attention than sports. After seeing Scheifele wait before stepping out of the penalty box, I don’t know if I’ll ever see a handshake line like that one again.

We have ourselves a Western Conference Final rematch. I’m just relieved to now be in the Playoff phase of earlier start times. This Toronto native can barely handle going to bed at 1 am every night. The keys to the series are…

Edmonton Oilers Thoughts

Rantin’ About Mikko: If Dallas wins it all this season, Mikko Rantanen would be their Conn Smythe frontrunner. When the Avalanche traded him, some hockey fans felt that his career point totals may’ve been a product of playing with Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. Though his first trade destination in Carolina was a bust, he’s proven his skeptics wrong while in the state of Texas. The third period of Game 7 in Round 1 against the team that drafted him is one of the best singular performances I’ve ever seen in the sport.

Injury Relation: The Stars started the Playoffs without both Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen in their lineup. They returned against the Jets, it felt like our team without Ekholm. The Oilers, being more rested, may want to pressure Robertson and Heiskanen the most, given the grind of a longer postseason run while coming back from nagging injuries.

Old Friends: Last year in Round 3, Corey Perry and Mattias Janmark squared off against a team they went to the Finals with in 2020. You know who else was on that Stars team? John Klingberg, back in his prime having a 21 point postseason that year. Cody Ceci, an Oilers meme of a defenseman for 3 seasons, joined the Stars blueline from San Jose at the Trade Deadline. How the group of 6 in Dallas looks on paper, outside of Heiskanen and Thomas Harley, isn’t my favourite, and Edmonton’s forwards need to attack it mercilessly. Just make sure this series doesn’t go to Game 7, or there could be something else to joke about, to our chagrin.