Edmonton Oilers<\/a> have packed their playoff experience to Anaheim for Game 6 (Thursday, Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 8 p.m. MT \/ 10 p.m. ET), with a welcome carry-on of confidence after finally getting a saddle on the thoroughbred Ducks in a 4-1 win Tuesday.<\/p>\n\u201cYou have to be grateful just getting to the next day. All we did is survive one more day,\u201d Oilers captain Connor McDavid said after Game 5, his team still trailing its Round 1 series, 3-2. \u201cThe pressure is still on us, but it\u2019s a big game for them too.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see both teams at Thursday\u2019s morning skates, but for now, how about something new? A mid-series report card for select Oilers, on a scale of 1-5.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with an easy one:<\/p>\n
Podkolzin leads the Oilers in hits, has become their chief settler of scores, has a point per game and is plus-6. It\u2019s crazy to think that Rick Tocchet never saw a player in this Muscovite when the two were in Vancouver. He fights, he scores, he hits \u2026 kind of like a young Rick Tocchet.<\/p>\n
When Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch shuffled his lines in Game 5 and went to the nuclear option, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman had their best games of the playoffs with Podkolzin on their left side.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe improves every line he goes to,\u201d said Knoblauch, \u201cwhether it’s the first, second, third or fourth line. A lot of it is just being able to play simple. Like, he’s a good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frederic has played his way right into the press box, as a season in which he gave his new team a grand total of seven points in 74 games rolls into a pointless post-season. Frederic is not engaged enough as a fourth-line winger playing playoff hockey, and he\u2019s not good enough to earn a spot anywhere above that.<\/p>\n
At first we thought Colton Dach was dragging Frederic into the fight. Now, Dach fights alone as injuries at centre necessitate Curtis Lazar\u2019s inclusion in the lineup. Frederic was healthy-scratched in Game 5.<\/p>\n
A year ago, Hyman was leading the playoffs in hits when he dislocated his wrist and bowed out of the Western Conference Final. This year, he ranks seventh on his own team in hits, which tells me he\u2019s playing hurt to some unknown degree.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not positive what the injury was that cost Hyman the final five games of his regular season, but it\u2019s left him unable to perform a vital part of his playoff mandate. His two goals have helped, but he\u2019s not the same guy so far this spring.<\/p>\n
There aren\u2019t many gamers like this guy, who’s absolutely elite in both skill and will. He\u2019s winning 56 per cent of his face-offs while leading the Oilers with nine points, coming off a knee injury that cost him the final month of the regular season.<\/p>\n
Total respect for a player who\u2019s proven it over and over, and is doing it again this spring: The bigger the moment, the better Draisaitl plays. He\u2019s never missed a playoff game, playing all 101 post-season contests the Oilers have taken part in during his career, and he gives you 23 hard minutes, night in night out \u2014 with a huge dose of offensive production.<\/p>\n
Kapanen\u2019s former teams \u2014 the Leafs, Penguins and Blues \u2014 must be wondering why they didn\u2019t get the same Kapanen that the Oilers have these days, a big-game producer who skates, hits and scores at his highest rate in the post-season. He\u2019s tied for third in the NHL with four goals (all at even strength), he\u2019s plus-7, and he\u2019s fourth on the Oilers in hits. Tidy work for a guy who plays 17-and-a-half minutes per night.<\/p>\n
Ingram has had two outstanding games and two average ones, not good enough come playoff time to be considered a genuine No. 1.<\/p>\n
Playing behind Edmonton\u2019s structure \u2014 or lack thereof, at times \u2014 \u00a0and against an explosive Anaheim team, you\u2019re going to see your share of grade-A’s. Ingram handled the load exceptionally well in Game 5, but he\u2019ll need two more of those if Edmonton is going to see Round 2 again this season.<\/p>\n
His first three games were sleepy, but then you see how he stirs the Oilers\u2019 drink when his game is as focused as it was Tuesday night. He leads the Oilers with six assists (seven points), but they\u2019ll need the \u201cgood Bouchard\u201d from here on in.<\/p>\n
Bouchard is too good a defenceman to bring his B-game to the rink in April and May. The Oilers hope they\u2019ve seen the last of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 We\u2019ve reached the point in this series when we\u2019re spending more time spent in the air…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-637245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637245","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=637245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}