ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 The Edmonton Oilers put on a power-play horror show in Game 2 on Wednesday night, and their first-round playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks is tied 1-1-because of it. We\u2019re not here to argue otherwise.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t that Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and co. failed to score in 7 minutes, 50 seconds with the man advantage (though they did); it\u2019s that McDavid nearly went out of his way to create a third-period short-handed goal by Ryan Poehling, one that put the Ducks up 4-2 on their way to a a 6-4 victory. There\u2019s garden-variety discombobulation, and then there\u2019s whatever led to McDavid throwing a blind backhand pass to nobody, deep in his own zone.<\/p>\n
Anaheim, before that sequence and before McDavid briefly left Game 2 with what appeared to be an ankle issue, had done as good a job denying McDavid on his patented cruises through the neutral zone. It\u2019s fair to wonder whether Ducks assistant coach Jay Woodcroft had something to do with that. Woodcroft, of course, was Edmonton\u2019s head coach for two seasons and part of a third.<\/p>\n
In any case, it was problematic stuff from a unit that has steam-powered the Oilers\u2019 larger success over the last several seasons. Once again, Edmonton\u2019s power play led the league in expected and actual scoring in the regular season. In two games against the Ducks, they\u2019re 0-for-6 in 11:50 of ice time with the man advantage, and McDavid\u2019s miscue might\u2019ve decided Game 2.<\/p>\n
Has it been ugly? Sure. Still \u2014 and we\u2019ll say this gently \u2014 two games of subpar performance does not an existential threat make.<\/p>\n
Some more on that, plus a few other observations heading into Game 3 on Friday night at Honda Center:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Oilers, for all their issues entering the zone on the power play, are generating expected goals (11.93) at a nearly identical per-60 rate as they did in the regular season. Shot volume is the issue; they\u2019ve taken nearly seven fewer per 60 against the Ducks (62-55) and attempted about 21 fewer (112-91). That\u2019s not good, but they\u2019ve still managed to mix in some quality looks with all that ineptitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you just need the first one to drop,\u201d Zach Hyman said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had looks, we\u2019ve had chances, but we can be sharper and much cleaner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 After Game 2, McDavid and Hyman both blamed at least of their issues on rust, and there\u2019s probably some truth to all that. Hyman missed five of Edmonton\u2019s last six regular-season games, and Draisaitl returned to the playoffs after about a month on the shelf.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople forget Leon\u2019s just back,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cAs good as the power play is, it\u2019s still a work in progress. We haven\u2019t ran our normal routes and had our normal routes for some time. It\u2019s not just a light switch, so we\u2019re working at it obviously and we\u2019ll be a part of this series. We will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a reasonable assertion. McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins have played fewer than 10 minutes together across games 1 and 2.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Apart from the short-handed goal, the Oilers gave a similar performance early in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings last spring. In games 1 and 2, the power play came up empty in 9:03 as the Kings took a 2-0 series lead. In Game 3, Edmonton scored two power-play goals in 13 seconds, won 7-4 and finished off Los Angeles in six games. Things can change quickly, especially when players such as McDavid and Draisaitl are involved, and the Ducks know it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we get too confident with that,\u201d Ducks forward Alex Killorn said. \u201cI think we realize who we\u2019re playing against. We\u2019re happy with the way things are going, but we understand how much potential and how much star power they have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 If you\u2019re an Oilers fan searching for a reason to worry, the penalty kill is a wiser bet. Adam Henrique didn\u2019t make the trip to Anaheim, Knoblauch said on Thursday, because of the lower-body injury he sustained in Game 1. The Oilers\u2019 short-handed goal differential in his minutes is significantly better than that of any of their other top penalty-killers, and he\u2019s Knoblauch\u2019s go-to guy on short-handed faceoffs.<\/p>\n
Jason Dickinson would seem an option to replace Henrique, though he\u2019s dealing with an injury of his own that caused him to miss Game 2. Rookie Josh Samanski, who spent the regular season earning Knoblauch\u2019s trust on the bottom six, was the PK center on Wednesday, clearly to mixed results.<\/p>\n
\u201cMissing Henrique is a big hole for us,\u201d Knoblauch said. \u201cHe just stabilizes everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clearing the net front was a problem for Edmonton\u2019s penalty-killers in Game 2. In the first period, with Evan Bouchard distracted by what appeared to be a missed high-stick call in the corner, Beckett Sennecke slipped behind Mattias Ekholm and stood untouched in Connor Ingram\u2019s eyeline, setting up a goal by Cutter Gauthier. On Anaheim\u2019s second power-play goal, it was Gauthier setting the screen and Jake Walman failing to budge him.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just that the Ducks are scoring. They\u2019re generating more shots (89 per 60) than any other team in the playoffs, and they\u2019re second in attempts (142 per 60) and third in expected goals (12.1 per 60).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Draisaitl played some bully ball on Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe in Game 1, muscling past him to the inside (with Leo Carlsson) and shielding the puck as he looped behind Anaheim\u2019s net to set up Vasily Podkolzin\u2019s game-winning goal. No shame in that \u2014 it\u2019s Drasaitl. Stuff happens. LaCombe bounced back in Game 2, setting up three goals and generally looking like an menace in all three zones. Earlier in his career, LaCombe was an under-the-radar, nerd-approved stats darling. These days, though, his game seems to be popping on a different level \u2014 one Edmonton needs to be aware of at all times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 The Edmonton Oilers put on a power-play horror show in Game 2 on Wednesday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2070],"class_list":{"0":"post-283750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-edmonton-oilers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283750","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=283750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}