{"id":283013,"date":"2026-04-24T01:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/283013\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:34:09","slug":"young-ducks-matching-up-well-with-oilers-as-series-moves-to-anaheim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/283013\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Ducks matching up well with Oilers as series moves to Anaheim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young Ducks<\/a> matching up well with Oilers as series moves to Anaheim<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> and superstar captain Connor McDavid are looking for a rebound as their Western Conference first-round playoff series shifts to Anaheim for Game 3 against the Ducks on Friday.<\/p>\n

Not only did the Ducks even the best-of-seven series at one win apiece with Wednesday’s 6-4 victory, but they held McDavid — the regular-season scoring champ for the sixth time — off the sheet for a second consecutive outing.<\/p>\n

McDavid, who has racked up 150 points in 98 career Stanley Cup playoff games, is not the type to admit whether his personal struggles are an issue, but it is a concern for the Oilers.<\/p>\n

“He’s putting a lot of pressure on himself,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “He wants the team to do well. He’s a leader and usually when we have success, he’s a big part of that. … I’m certain that he’s going to find his game.”<\/p>\n

McDavid also left the game briefly after tangling feet with teammate Mattias Ekholm, but returned. He said it was “fine.”<\/p>\n

The Oilers were the favorites going into the series against the up-and-coming Ducks, but have found themselves in a dogfight. Edmonton opened the scoring in both outings, but Anaheim led each of them going into the third period. It took a third-period comeback for the Oilers to claim the opener 4-3.<\/p>\n

So far, the Ducks have cashed in thanks to the special-teams battle. While Edmonton has become known for its lethal power play, the Oilers have not scored with six man-advantages, while the Ducks have tallied three times on the power play, and also boast a short-handed tally.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for the Oilers, they have plenty of playoff experience to lean upon.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been in this situation a lot, 1-1 going on the road,” McDavid said. “We’re comfortable on the road, we like playing on the road. Obviously, we’d like a better outcome (Wednesday), but we’re comfortable going on the road.”<\/p>\n

Anaheim returns full of confidence and not just because it claimed the franchise’s first playoff victory since facing the Nashville Predators in the 2017 Western Conference finals.<\/p>\n

The Ducks, who snapped a seven-year playoff drought by reaching the second season, have shown they can go head-to-head against the two-time Western Conference playoff champs.<\/p>\n

Plus, they showed their mettle by regrouping after seeing a 4-2 lead turn into a tie game past the midway point of the third period. The situation was eerily close to what transpired in the series opener, but this time Anaheim recovered.<\/p>\n

“We have the confidence,” said Cutter Gauthier, whose second goal of the game broke the 4-4 tie with less than five minutes remaining in regulation. “All season long … we’ve been in some high-pressure moments. We knew they were going to come back with a great push and obviously scoring that goal and tying things up with eight minutes to go. Nothing was said on the bench… and I’m happy with how we reacted.”<\/p>\n

That response has the Ducks looking forward to returning to Southern California with home-ice advantage, more experience and more belief in themselves.<\/p>\n

“Game 1 we kind of sat back a little bit,” said forward Alex Killorn, who scored once in a three-point outing. “No one was sitting back (Wednesday), I think that’s why we ended up getting that goal with Cutter. We’re going to learn as we go on here and continue to get better.”<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young Ducks matching up well with Oilers as series moves to Anaheim The Edmonton Oilers and superstar captain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,2070,404],"class_list":{"0":"post-283013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-edmonton-oilers","13":"tag-nhl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283013","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=283013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}