Our final Oil Check of the season looks at the team’s last 10 games before heading into the playoffs. When we last checked in, the Edmonton Oilers were starting to reel and the injuries were piling up.
The Oilers started this final stretch with the Battle of Alberta in a must win game for the Calgary Flames while the Oilers were missing Connor McDavid, Mattias Ekholm, and Stuart Skinner due to injury. Leon Draisaitl showed why he should be the frontrunner for the Hart Trophy in that game, scoring his 50th of the season to tie the game and then potted the overtime winner in a 3–2 victory.
Edmonton sealing their first round fate
The Oilers would then reel off another two 3–2 wins against Vegas and San Jose, although Draisaitl would end up leaving the game against San Jose early due to suffering an injury.
This would result in the Oilers being without both McDavid and Draisaitl for a crucial game against the Los Angeles Kings, where the Oilers would fall 3–0, essentially sealing their fate to finish third in the Pacific Division.
The Oilers would then be on the wrong side of a 3–2 score the next game in losing to Anaheim, but rattled off three straight wins over St. Louis, San Jose, and Winnipeg, buoyed by the return of McDavid and his nine assists over those three games.
McDavid would miss the next game against the Kings however, along with Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ekholm, and Jake Walman. The Kings won 5–0, officially locking up second place and home ice advantage.
The Oilers finished the season off with their third victory over the Sharks in as many weeks, ending the season 48–29–5 with 101 points.
Let’s take a look at some of the storylines over these last 10 games and how the team is looking heading into the playoffs and their 4th straight first round matchup against the Kings.
The return of McJesus
While it was a week before Easter, Connor McDavid appears to have risen again. After missing eight games due to injury, McDavid returned with a bang, posting three assists in the victory over St. Louis, followed by four assists against San Jose and another two against Winnipeg.
He would miss a game against L.A. (potentially for strategic reasons?), but would return for the final game of the season to notch a final assist that made sure he hit the 100-point mark for the eighth season of his career; this puts him alongside Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Marcel Dionne as the only players to do so.
So despite playing only four of the team’s last 10 games, McDavid was tied for the lead in team scoring with 10 points.
It’s been a season where McDavid hasn’t quite looked as superhuman as usual, but no one will care if he ends up going supernova in the playoffs when it really matters. McDavid had six points in his last four games of the regular season last year and went on to put up an absurd 42 points in 25 games in the playoffs. So by putting up 10 points in the last four this year, clearly that means we can look forward to 67 points in 25 playoff games this year (that’s how math works right?).
The Oilers are dealing with too many injuries
The biggest concern going into the playoffs for the Oilers is the health of many key players. The last game of the season saw Draisaitl, Ekholm, and Walman still out, along with deadline acquisition Trent Frederic.
It sounds as though everyone but Ekholm will be available for Game 1, but given the amount of times players have returned to the lineup just to get injured again, one can’t help but worry about how these guys will fare in a tough playoff atmosphere.
McDavid dismissed this idea of the team being the “walking wounded,” instead insisting the team and the players are good to go once the puck drops on the playoffs.
Still, when only 12 players were able to play all of the last 10 games (mind you, Darnell Nurse would have but for a one-game suspension), you have to take that kind of a quote with a grain of salt.
However, if McDavid is correct and the team will be healthy, there still remains the question of whether there will be any rust that needs to be shaken off. If there is, doing so in the playoffs isn’t exactly an ideal situation.
Will Jeff Skinner be this year’s Connor Brown?
Jeff Skinner has had an up and down season this year, which has seen him being healthy scratched on multiple occasions and playing an average of just 13 minutes a night, the lowest of his career.
But Skinner appears to be finding his game at just the right time, scoring five points in these last 10 games as part of a new impressive first line alongside McDavid and Connor Brown.
Brown had his own, well-documented struggles last year, but found his groove again in the playoffs, albeit more on the defensive side than the offence.
If Skinner has indeed found his legs, adding the adrenaline for playing his first ever playoff games after over 1000 regular season games could be just the mixture for a legendary playoff performance.
Veteran leadership paying off
In addition to Skinner, other veteran players have been maligned this year for not performing as well, especially in light of the younger players lost by the team to make room for them (see: Philip Broberg, Warren Foegele, Dylan Holloway and Ryan McLeod).
But with the big guns out, these veterans did start to come out of their shells.
In addition to Skinner, Adam Henrique, Viktor Arvidsson, and Corey Perry also stepped up. Henrique had seven points in these 10 games, while Arvidsson scored five goals and Perry had five points. That accounted for over a quarter of Henrique’s point totals for the season and a third of Arvidsson’s goal totals.
If this is a sign of the old guys kicking it up a notch for the playoffs, then maybe that will help shut down the talk about the loss of young talent who all set career highs this year that were higher than all of these veteran guys (save Perry’s 30 points being one more than Broberg’s 29).
Draisaitl adds to his trophy case
Despite missing 11 games, Draisaitl led the Oilers with 106 points in 71 games (although his 1.49 points per game is the same as McDavid’s).
While Nikita Kucherov won the Art Ross Trophy, Draisaitl’s 52 goals paced the league, with no one else hitting the 50 goal mark. As a result, he won his first ever Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy.
The real question is whether or not Draisaitl will win the Hart Trophy and/or Ted Lindsey Trophy. Do those missed games end up hurting or helping his case? He only had six more points than McDavid, while MacKinnon had 24 over his next closest teammate (which granted was a 92 point scoring defenceman in Cale Makar), and Kucherov had 31 points over Brandon Hagel. Not to mention that Connor Hellebuyck was unquestionably the biggest reason the Winnipeg Jets won the Presidents Trophy this year.
That being said, I’m sure if you asked Draisaitl he couldn’t care less and instead just wants the Stanley Cup in his trophy case. But given how he has played, if the Oilers win the Cup you have to think he would end up being the front runner for the Conn Smythe. So really, Draisaitl could end the season with just the Rocket, or with five new trophies (or six if you are really gung-ho on his defensive improvement to be Selke worthy).
What’s next for Edmonton
What we know with absolute certainty is that the Oilers will play at least four more games this year.
Like the past three years, the Oilers start the postseason against the Los Angeles Kings. However, this is the first year the Oilers will be the road team to start the playoffs—not just in this rivalry with the Kings, but in the entirety of the McDavid Era.
Does that make any difference? Does that change the mentality from the favourite to the underdog? Especially with the “walking wounded” narrative plus the fact that L.A. won the last two games by a combined score of 8–0?
It really is anyone’s guess on how this matchup will go, but one thing is certain—given the hate that has grown between these teams from the past three years, it will be one hell of a series.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
