Pre-Scout: Oilers hope to prove playoff experience is understated, not overrated |
Agreed, Connor. The regular season can be a little monotonous. Whether you hung around for all 82 Edmonton Oilers games during the regular season, picked and chose the games you watched, time to hop aboard. The playoffs have begun.
The last series to kick off will finally get going against the Anaheim Ducks tonight, as both teams have had three days between games to get themselves sorted out. Take the rest as you right now. The series will follow a pattern of a game every other night.
Both teams finished on high notes with wins in their last game, setting up this Pacific Division matchup. The Oilers with Stanley Cup aspirations, the Ducks the young upstarts.
Are you ready?
“The regular season has become a little bit monotonous for this group, and I think you see that through the day-to-day. But this is what we get excited for,” said McDavid on Sunday. “It feels like it’s anyone’s year. But with that being said, we have a big challenge in front of us. We have a really good, young, skilled, exciting Ducks team coming in that we got to play hard (against) we got to be ready for.”
What about you, Jacob Trouba?
“The first time you have the opportunity to play in the playoffs, you’re pretty excited, and you’re ready to go,” said Trouba, a veteran of 73 playoff games, about his young team. “Just let guys enjoy it and ride it out. It’s a fun experience, happy we get to do it this year.”
There’s a variety of wide-lens series preview content on Oilersnation, including my detailed paths to victory column. However, let’s touch on a few factors individually.
Experience: Overrated or understated?
This is the first Anaheim Ducks playoff appearance since 2017-18 and only one player from that series will play in this one. However, it’s for the Oilers in Adam Henrique.
Troy Terry is the longest-tenured Duck and played twice that season, but wouldn’t really start his NHL career until 2018-19. Collectively, this is a green group led offensively by four players 24 or younger.
Anaheim has showed flashes of strong and simple hockey, like in January, where they went on a 9-2 stretch despite missing Terry and Leo Carlsson.
As of late, though, they’ve stumbled out of the pond. With a five-point divisional lead on March 26, a game in-hand on the Oilers and Golden Knights, Anaheim went 2-6-2. Surrendering 41 goals in that stretch, the Ducks squandered an opportunity to begin the playoffs at home.
Could be the classic ebbs and flows of a young team playing free with little expectations, to then playing games in crunch time they’re supposed to win.
“A lot of us haven’t been to the playoffs,” said Terry recently. “We’re leaning on those guys and just trying to make sure we’re not letting some of these things that have hindered us this last week or so creep back into our game.”
Against the Oilers, they get to fill the underdog role, as the majority of pundits expect an Edmonton victory. But with that said, the Ducks won more games than the Oilers, and were just one point worse.
And does........