Has the psychological aspect of a playoff series begun?

If Joel Quenneville’s theory is true, we should’ve seen the Edmonton Oilers performance against the Anaheim Ducks comin’. If the shoe fits, after all.

 “I always find in the course of a playoff series, there’s going to be one game that you want to throw in the can… and you’re wondering, ‘well, why?’ It happens, it seems like, every year in every playoff round,” the 67-year-old coach told reporters after Game 5. 

The Ducks had yet to have the chuck-it-out game in their young playoff tenure. Edmonton’s was Game 3. When pressed, the Oilers found a way to stave off elimination. The propensity to take leads was not met with the knack of giving them up. Backs against the wall, go time, all of that.

Kris Knoblauch made multiple difficult decisions, the types that if they failed could’ve cost him his job.

After gamesmanship and an anxiety-inducing message that Connor McDavid was a “game-time decision,” he broke up the Oilers best line of Vasily Podkolzin, Leon Draisaitl, and Kasperi Kapanen, exchanging the Russian rancour with the somewhat hobbled McDavid. Between the pipes, Knoblauch went back with Connor Ingram, not Tristan Jarry, following a 34-save effort in Game 4.

For at least one game, the changes worked.

“Going into the elimination game where we had to change our fate, ultimately, we felt that we’re going to put the game in our two best players’ hands and let them dictate how this game is going to go,” said Knoblauch, who spoke to the media on Wednesday before the team flew to Anaheim. 

If Edmonton was going to win the series, Kasperi Kapanen couldn’t be their best player. That’s no offence to him, he’s been tremendous and has climbed the pending free agent power rankings in terms of priority.

But the Oilers fates are directly tied to how well McDavid and Draisaitl play. Two goals from Draisaitl, two helpers from McDavid, but arguably the biggest individual contribution was from Evan Bouchard, whose floor-to-ceiling in this series is as large as Russell Brand’s crucifix.

In elimination games, Bouchard had scored one goal and nine points in 11 contests before Game 5. Tack on three assists, including some of the best skill plays of the series, and the pressure flips back to Anaheim for Game 6. 

Just the usual young-team-nervous-in-elimination-game-jitters?

“We gotta get angry at ourselves,” said Quenneville after the game. “We gotta be excited about going home and take advantage of the crowd, and then play.”

Now things get interesting.

‘We’re a great team’

Part of the reason uniting McDavid-Draisaitl together looked so good was because Podkolzin with Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman drove play right from jump. This line was the most consistent throughout the game at sustaining shifts in the offensive zone, and scored two of the three even-strength goals for the Oilers........

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