The Oilers lost game six last night to the Anaheim Ducks in a disappointing 5–2 loss. Goals from Ryan Poehling, Chris Kreider, Cutter Gauthier, Troy Terry, and an empty-netter from Leo Carlsson capped a complete night from Anaheim. This wasn’t Edmonton’s worst game of the series but they just weren’t the better team for more than five minutes in this game.
Here are three stats that defined this series:
The Anaheim Ducks’ Power play operated at 50% this series
The most obvious stat to point to for this series loss is special teams. Whether or not it was Edmonton not playing well on the penalty kill or if it was Anaheim playing spectacularly on the power play it doesn’t really matter. The fact remains that Anaheim’s power play operated at 50% in this series, by far the best of any team in the playoffs so far this year.
Considering that Anaheim’s power play was only 18.6% through the regular season it’s pretty easy to say that Edmonton’s penalty kill was more so the problem. That being said, Anaheim is a skilled young team with all the right pieces to have a great power play. The first power play consists of Kreider, Leo Carlsson, and Terry, who are excellent shooters. John Carlson, the man who ran the Capitals’ power play for years on end, and Mikael Granlund who is one of the more underrated players in the league.
If that wasn’t bad enough they are also sporting arguably the best second power play in the league with known bulldogs Killorn and Sennecke, a great passer in McTavish, one of the best up and coming defencemen in the league, Jackson Lacombe, and finally a soon-to-be 50 goal scorer in Cutter Gauthier. All said and done it’s a difficult power play to keep up with.
On the other end of the ice, Edmonton’s power play actually performed just fine. They scored four goals on 14 opportunities, which works out to 28.6%. That is just below their regular season mark of 30.6% but would have been tied for second best in the regular season with the Dallas Stars. Edmonton had nearly as many opportunities as Anaheim (who went eight for 16) but they were just outmatched in these six games.
The Oilers allowed 26 goals against
This will sound pretty stupid, but the Oilers lost because they got scored on, a lot. There are no underlying stats that very accurately tell the story of this series, most of those stats need a larger sample size before they can be relied upon, the truth is far more obvious.
Edmonton actually did plenty of scoring. Up to this point they scored the 4th most goals in the playoffs with 3.5 goals per game which would also be fourth most in the regular season and is more than they themselves scored in the regular season, which was 3.44 goals per game. The problem is obviously not how many goals they are scoring, but how many they are letting in.
It’s true that, statistically speaking, the Oilers didn’t get great goaltending. Ingram had a 0.876 save percentage and a 3.86 GAA in five starts, while Jarry had a 0.895 save percentage and a 3.84 GAA in one start. However, watching the games I find it very difficult to blame the goalies by and large. Here is another stat, the Oilers led the playoff teams in giveaways with 99. They just don’t play good enough defence to beat a team like Anaheim, who is full of talent and speed. Too many turnover, too many odd man rushes, and too many cases of missed coverage to win a playoff series.
What the stats cannot show
You will most certainly be sick of people yapping about it now, but the truth is that, while Leon Draisaitl had a productive series with 10 points and three goals in six games, Connor McDavid finished the series with six points. That’s not even bad, that’s a point per game but it just isn’t enough for a guy like McDavid, for a team built like Edmonton. If McDavid and Draisaitl aren’t both lights out, Edmonton is going to have a hard time winning.
The stat that I don’t have a stat for is how well the fourth line of Anaheim shut down the first line of Edmonton. That just can’t happen. Most coaches don’t let their fourth line touch the ice when the opponents first two lines are on the ice, let alone purposefully match them up. Now let’s be clear, I’m not really blaming McDavid, it’s clear he was struggling with an injury, but that doesn’t mean that’s not a huge reason why they lost.
Here is a half stat for you – Draisaitl had 10 points and was -2, Bouchard had seven and was -7, McDavid had six and was -8, Nugent Hopkins had five and was -1, and Hyman had two and was -6. On the bright side Kapanen had six points and was +7 and Podkolzin had six and was +5. They were easily the best Oiler players in this series.
Edmonton just plain and simple played worse hockey. They didn’t forecheck as hard as Anaheim, they didn’t win as many puck battles, they didn’t hit as hard or as timely, they didn’t miss coverage as much, and they turned the puck over more.
Plain and simple, they were outplayed.
