{"id":231411,"date":"2026-03-22T16:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T16:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231411\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T16:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T16:42:29","slug":"oilers-mcdavid-calls-pacific-division-race-a-pillow-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231411\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers\u2019 McDavid calls Pacific Division race \u2018a pillow fight\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">You know it\u2019s bad when one of the best players in the world is calling out an entire division.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">On Saturday night, <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/oilersnation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a> captain Connor McDavid was asked about his thoughts on the team not losing ground in the race for first place in the Pacific Division, despite the team losing to the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/tampa-bay-lightning\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a>, 5-2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">\u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to play in this division,\u201d McDavid told the media after the defeat. \u201cA lot of teams are fortunate to play in this division. It\u2019s a bit of a pillow fight right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__YlarM\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a bit of a pillow fight right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Connor McDavid shares his honest thoughts on the Pacific Division race<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Over the past couple of days, many around the game have realized not only that the\u00a0<a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/teams\/nhl-standings\/2025\/wildcard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pacific is\u00a0<\/a><a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/teams\/nhl-standings\/2025\/wildcard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the worst division in the NHL<\/a>, but just how bad it is. Currently, the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/anaheim-ducks\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> lead the division with just 80 points, with the Oilers sitting three points back in second. Not only is that the fewest points among any first-place team in the NHL, but the number of organizations ahead of the Ducks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Anaheim is ranked 14th in the league, 20 points back of the Central Division-leading <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/colorado-avalanche\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado Avalanche<\/a>, who are busy duking it out with the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/dallas-stars\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Stars<\/a> for the best record in the league. Also, there are a whopping 10 teams from the Eastern Conference ahead of the entire Pacific, including the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/ottawa-senators\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ottawa Senators<\/a> and <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/new-york-islanders\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Islanders<\/a>, both of which sit outside the Wild Card picture in the East.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">One could also poke fun at the Western Conference as a whole. Some believe that Eastern teams will need around 95 points to simply qualify for the playoffs, while the last Wild Card team in the West might finish with fewer than 90.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">As it pertains to the Oilers, McDavid understands that his team needs to stay focused on the task at hand, especially <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/nhl-weekly-schedule\/2026-03-23\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">with several important games<\/a> on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">\u201cThankful not to have lost any ground, McDavid said. \u201cWe got to find a way to win some games here on the road. \u2026 We got to make some ground, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Edmonton hits the road next week, taking on the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/utah-mammoth\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Utah Mammoth<\/a> and <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/vegas-golden-knights\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>, before returning home next Saturday to host the Ducks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You know it\u2019s bad when one of the best players in the world is calling out an entire&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-231411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}