Well, Oil Country, it is that time of year. The elimination post. This year, it comes far earlier than it has in recent years as the Edmonton Oilers will not be playing hockey into the month of May for the first time since 2019 (not including 2020 when the league was shut down through May). Unfortunately, the Oilers have been eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs after being defeated in six games by the Anaheim Ducks.
Series overview
Generally considered the favourites heading into the series, the Oilers were looking to take a somewhat finally healthy roster into the playoffs to make yet another long playoff run. Healthy is a very loose term, however, as most of the key players on the team were already hurt or got hurt very quickly in the series, putting them at an immediate disadvantage.
Still, however, things started promising. The team we know that can and does step up in big moments showed up for Game 1. Despite struggles with the top of the line-up, the depth stepped up and won this game, including a late game-winning goal from Kasperi Kapanen.
That was the high point of the series. From then on, things trended downwards immediately for a number of reasons. Anaheim won three straight games to take a 3–1 series lead, scoring 17 goals in those three games, leaving Edmonton on the edge. One final push from the Oilers gave them a Game 5 victory, but that was all they could muster.
Game 6, despite solid possession play in the first, was tilted for the Ducks with favourable bounces and capitalizing on opportunities. Edmonton could not match. Anaheim took the series on home ice for their first series victory since 2017, when they also beat the Oilers, though in the second round.
For the Oilers, this is their shortest playoff run since 2020–21, when they were swept in four games by the Winnipeg Jets in the first round.
What went wrong for the Edmonton Oilers?
This section could really be just one word. Everything. Very little about this team’s game was clicking for this series, or for most of the season for that matter.
To start with, we have the overall health of the team. At no point this season was the entire lineup healthy and dressed for the same game. Perhaps the closest we got was Game 1 that was only missing Mattias Janmark. Added on to that was the team’s best players clearly playing injured, with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl struggling to make an impact due to their ailments. Draisaitl still managed nine points, showing just how good he is, but the typical cheat code impact he can have when healthy was absent.
When the team’s most potent weapons are being stifled by injury and opponent’s defence, that leaves the depth. Which, as much as they tried, is not enough. Massive props to Vasily Podkolzin, Jason Dickinson, and Kasperi Kapanen for doing what they could to drag this team to victory, but they cannot be the best players on a Stanley Cup Playoff team.
From there, we can move on to a familiar topic for us Oilers fans. Goaltending. Connor Ingram was great in the regular season, and although he was not necessarily the problem in this series, he did not help the cause. A Stanley Cup-contending team needs a goalie to make big saves. Game-changing, momentum-swinging saves that energize the team. Ingram was not able to provide that during this series.
Perhaps the most concerning factor was the abysmal penalty kill, ending the series below 50%. This is an entirely different series if the penalty kill allows five fewer goals and is closer to average.
Overall, this was a disappointing season and disappointing result. Maybe on the bright side is that the team will now have nearly two extra months of rest to recover after a long stretch of short offseasons. And some time for the organization to do some soul searching on how to make a meaningful tweak with the expected rise in the salary cap this offseason.
