The Edmonton Oilers are on the ropes, and their quest to return to a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final has run into trouble in Anaheim.
It’s been an exciting first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and most of the series are proceeding as expected. The Colorado Avalanche and Carolina Hurricanes – arguably the two best teams entering the fray – made quick work of their first-round foes.
Expectedly, more competitive matchups have also lived up to the billing: the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild are locked at two games apiece, as are the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens. Already, those series seem inevitably bound for a seventh game finale.
The one result that has undoubtedly caught me off guard? It’s been this plucky Anaheim Ducks team giving a veteran-led Edmonton Oilers club all they can handle.
After Sunday’s overtime thriller, the Ducks – who had not reached the playoffs in eight prior seasons – are one win shy of advancing to the second round. And this would be a meaningful upset. Edmonton was priced at 69 per cent implied probability of winning this series before it started; now, they are down to just 21 per cent.
What’s shocking is how this is playing out.
We had serious reservations about Edmonton’s goaltending, and those reservations have been validated once more. The combination of Connor Ingram and Tristan Jarry has been dreadful, the duo stopping just 85 per cent of shots faced in the series.
But bad goaltending isn’t shocking! Getting outplayed by this Anaheim Ducks team at even strength is however, given the talent in the Oilers lineup. Anaheim’s outscored Edmonton and is getting 55 per cent of the shot share in the process.
What’s going on? In playoff matchups I love to analyze head-to-head performance because it can be illuminating as to where the performance gaps exist. The below head-to-head shot table has been built over the first four games:
What stands out immediately? Edmonton’s top line is getting outplayed by Anaheim’s top line. In the Connor McDavid era you can count the amount of times his line has been outplayed on one hand, but the young guns in Anaheim are giving this group fits. Spending so much time defending the run of play is death by a thousand paper cuts for the Oilers big guns – they’re not a great defensive group to begin with and now are spending inordinate amounts of time in the defensive third trying to protect an already besieged goaltending group.
Not only is that risky business, it means you aren’t spending much of any time in the attacking third. And these big negative differentials have proved meaningful: the McDavid line is getting outscored 6-to-2 (-4), as is their top pairing of Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm.
Looking back at just game four for example, you can see the Ducks are not having much of an issue finding their way to dangerous scoring areas in Edmonton’s zone. Shots (and goals) are coming from between the circles and near the net-mouth (via Evolving Hockey):
The exclamation point on all this? Edmonton’s supernova power play has been anything but. We have seen struggling Oilers teams many times over saved by a man advantage that looks unstoppable; right now, the Ducks power play is +6 in the series, the Oilers power play just +2. Bad goaltending, shoddy even strength play, and special teams disadvantage? This is how you can lose a series in five games.
Make no mistake, the Oilers are in real trouble here and if there’s ever been a time for the likes of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to put the team on their backs, this is it. Anaheim has shown up impressively and frankly look the better team in every respect.
Either the Oilers run the table here, or we are headed for a long, painful offseason in Alberta.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference, HockeyDB
