{"id":621810,"date":"2026-04-22T20:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/621810\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T20:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:43:11","slug":"oilers-notebook-why-mcdavid-looked-mortal-under-ducks-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/621810\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers notebook: Why McDavid looked mortal under Ducks coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 If there was one thing in Game 1 of Anaheim-Edmonton that stood out as strange, it was Connor McDavid<\/a> not being able to gain the zone on entries during an Oilers power play.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> went 0-for-2 with the man advantage, and McDavid looked a tad mortal as the Ducks penalty killers stripped him of puck after puck on his way into the offensive zone.<\/p>\n

Was it some new strategy that the Ducks devised? Or was it simply McDavid mishandling pucks? (Game 2 is Wednesday, 8 p.m. MT \/ 10 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was me just not being clean enough,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cThat’s an area we’re obviously very good at, (and I am) not too concerned about it. That being said, they threw some different things at us, and we’ll adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDavid\u2019s assessment of a 4-3 win in Game 1 was blunt: \u201cThe first period was good, the second period was no good, and (in the) third period we found a way to win a game. There’s positives in that, and lessons as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one unique situation in this matchup is that Anaheim assistant Jay Woodcroft spent two-plus seasons as Edmonton\u2019s head coach from 2021-23, and another three as Todd McLellan\u2019s assistant in Edmonton (2015-18). The guy we call \u201cWoody\u201d would definitely provide the rest of Ducks staff with plenty of Oilers intel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’d have lots,\u201d agreed McDavid, who went pointless in Game 1. \u201cBut I don’t think anything on our power play is hidden. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we know what we do really well. So I don’t know how many secrets you can really tell \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach Kris Knoblauch isn\u2019t losing any sleep over McDavid\u2019s ability to return to being the most automatic power-play zone entry in the game today.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime I see Connor do something, maybe not at his best, it usually doesn’t last very long. He usually finds a way to correct it,\u201d Knoblauch said. \u201cI could see the frustration with him on the entries. Once we got set up, we had some looks. But I think there should be a lot of credit to Anaheim. They did a great job of making it hard for us to get into the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first two injuries of this Round 1 series go to Adam Henrique and Radko Gudas, who will both miss Game 2 for their respective clubs.<\/p>\n

Henrique\u2019s knee buckled when he ran into teammate Kasperi Kapanen in Game 1, while Gudas brought an injury into this series and likely aggravated it Monday. Rookie Josh Samanski will draw into his first-ever NHL playoff game for Edmonton, centring a fourth line with Colton Dach and Trent Frederic, while Drew Helleson will take Gudas\u2019 spot on Anaheim\u2019s third pair alongside Gatineau, Quebec\u2019s Tyson Hinds.<\/p>\n

The experience of playing for Team Germany in the Olympics will help Samanski handle the nerves Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a big stage, playing with and against the best players,\u201d he said. \u201cIt definitely helped me make the jump in regular season (to playing 24 games).\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Dickinson, who re-injured his bad ankle in Game 1 but missed only a shift or two before returning to score his second goal of the game, did not take the morning skate Wednesday. Knoblauch called him a \u201cgame-time decision\u201d<\/a> and Curtis Lazar centred the third line at practice, but we suspect he\u2019ll play \u2014 and this won\u2019t be the last morning skate he skips as he drags an injury down the playoff road.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how Edmonton stacks up for Game 2:<\/p>\n

Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Kapanen<\/p>\n

RNH – Dickinson – Roslovic<\/p>\n

Dach – Samanski – Frederic<\/p>\n

Anaheim looks to be going with the same forward lines:<\/p>\n

Kreider – Carlsson – Terry<\/p>\n

Killorn – Granlund – Sennecke<\/p>\n

McTavish – Poehling – Gauthier<\/p>\n

Colton Dach grew up in the Edmonton suburb of Fort Saskatchewan, just two doors down from Ducks defenceman Olen Zellweger, who’s been a healthy scratch in this series. A few more doors down was the home of Keaton Verhoeff, the stud, right-shot defenceman who is expected to go in the top five at this June\u2019s NHL draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played a couple of games against each other (as pros),\u201d Dach said of he and Zellweger. \u201cIt’s always pretty cool to look up and see him, have a giggle and see the smile on his face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dach and Zellweger train together in the summertime at the Shamrock Curling Club, a 70-year-old club situated just off the Mill Creek Ravine on Edmonton\u2019s south side.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few of us, my brother (Kirby, of the Montreal Canadiens), Zelly goes there too, a few other NHL players. It’s a good little group. We have some laughs, but we get our work done,\u201d Dach said.<\/p>\n

How did a bunch of NHLers end up training at a curling club?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey take the ice out in the summer, so it’s actually ideal for us. They have a smooth concrete path where we can shoot pucks. It’s a nice little area for us that sometimes it distracts us from our workout,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes it sucks because there’s no AC in there, so on a hot day we struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do they at least leave the bar open for the boys?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo bar, but they\u2019ll open the garage door to get some fresh air in there,” he said. “Sometimes it gets pretty hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long while since Edmonton had a fourth line with an identity, but Dach and Frederic have injected some physical play into Edmonton\u2019s lineup. They get in on the forecheck and bang some bodies, a job that suits Frederic, who has finally found a role he can sink his teeth into.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince probably Olympic break, I feel like it’s getting better. Playing better, more engaged,\u201d he said, after a very slow start to the season. \u201c(Dach) has been great, easy to play with. He’s been physical, and he’s good at dragging people into the fight. That\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knoblauch calls them \u201cThe Bash Brothers,\u201d two big guys having the time of their lives in these playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter how much you play, you spend a lot of time on the bench,\u201d Frederic said. \u201c(Dach) is a good guy to talk to. He\u2019s brought a lot of energy, he\u2019s from here, and he’s got a lot of passion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 If there was one thing in Game 1 of Anaheim-Edmonton that stood out as strange, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-621810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}