Oilers enter Round 2 vs. Golden Knights a transformed team
Things looked bleak for the Oilers early in Round 1 against the Kings. But over the course of the series, Edmonton transformed to a team that deserves another look at the Stanley Cup.
EDMONTON — There’s an old story in the sports writing business, about the scribe who filed early, when his team was getting beaten roundly by some opponent.
Then they made a big comeback, and rather than re-file the whole story, he called his desk:
“Yeah, can you take a run through my copy? Everywhere I said brutal? Can you replace that with inspiring?”
If you could ever see the copy that doesn’t make it to the end of a game.
The things that get written when it’s 10:15 p.m. and they haven’t even started the third period yet, when us writers “pound in a few ‘graphs” for a game story that we think we’re going to be filing in a couple of hour’s time. After the podium interviews and the TV hits with Gene, when our poor editor is sitting by their laptop at 3 a.m. Eastern awaiting something resembling cogent prose.
Let’s go back to Game 3 of the Edmonton-Los Angeles series.
The Oilers had allowed 12 goals in losing Games 1 and 2. Their penalty kill had surrendered five goals in 10 opportunities, and other than a spasm of Connor McDavid brilliance in the third period of Game 1, the Kings had completely controlled the series.
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Now, we’re two periods into Game 3, the Kings are leading 4-3 on a couple more power-play goals.
It looked bleak, it felt bleak, and the words coming off this keyboard were every bit as bleak, hard and seemingly real.
“You just can’t win with this goaltending.”
“If you can’t stop taking penalties, but you can’t figure out a way to kill penalties, then how can the path lead to anywhere else but the golf course?”
Then they played the third period, Edmonton won, and the writer did the ol’ define and delete boogie. Now, here we are, setting up a second-round series between Vegas and an Oilers team that has an entirely different vibe than the one we almost wrote about that night.
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“(We didn’t know) what our lines were going to be like. Who was going to be playing well…” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch, of the start of that Rd. 1 series against the Kings. “Now, we’ve got some idea of it.
“They’re going to change, especially in Vegas (where) they’ve got last change. But for me, knowing what I’ve got, I’ll have a better understanding than I did two weeks ago.”
Edmonton gets on a plane bound for Vegas Monday as a vastly superior team to the one that opened Round 1 in L.A.
Today, they have four lines, each of them checking the various boxes we set out for playoff success. They have enough, with the surprisingly effective return of Evander Kane and also Trent Frederic, to play McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on a line together and still score goals when they’re on the bench.
(Edmonton scored nine goals in Games 5 and 6 v. L.A. — none of them scored by McDavid, Draisaitl or Evan Bouchard, the Top 3 points leaders.)
They’ve found chemistry that simply did not exist here in Edmonton for the past three months, and enough defensive structure that their backup — Calvin Pickard — has become the only goalie in these Stanley Cup playoffs with a 4-0 record.
“This group is finding its identity. For the first time in a while, we’re healthier than usual, though still missing a big piece (in Mattias Ekholm),” said Zach Hyman. “But up front, we have a lot of different lines that we can run, different lineups. We’re finding what our identity is, and what makes us successful.
“I think we’re rounding our team into form at the right time.”
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In the space of one round, the Oilers have transformed from a dinged-up team that hadn’t performed like a true contender, to a team that deserves another look.
Maybe, as it enters its 11th playoff round in the past four springs, this reigning Stanley Cup Finalist is just taking a different road to the same place.
“We’ve got as good a chance as anyone,” said McDavid, who looks back on a Round 2 loss two years ago to a Vegas team that went on to win the Cup.
It’s three years running now that the Oilers have been eliminated by the eventual Cup winner.
“We’re certainly more experienced. If that puts us in a better spot, great,” he said. “Experience isn’t everything, but it’s definitely helpful when you’re going against a veteran team like Vegas, that is also very experienced and has played in big moments.”
How can the first 10 series’ help a team win the 11th one?
“Managing the game better, understanding certain situations,” said McDavid, looking back to that six-game loss to the Golden Knights in ’23. “It’s years ago now, but I think about that Game 5 — we have the lead, and find ourselves (defending) a five-on-three. We gave up three in (1:29) there, and the game is flipped.
“All lessons learned along the way, and hopefully we use them moving forward in this series.”
And the lesson for the sports writer?
Everywhere we wrote “I think?” Can you change that to “I thought?
