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<\/p>\nANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 Connor McDavid, after his shortest, most soft-spoken postgame interview of the Stanley Cup playoffs thus far, headed out from the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 dressing room to the hallway of Honda Center and climbed on an exercise bike Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Whatever is wrong with McDavid\u2019s ankle, an injury he sustained in Game 2, before his Oilers dug themselves a 3-1 hole in this first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks, it hasn\u2019t forced him to the bench. It hasn\u2019t put him in a brace. It hasn\u2019t stopped him from getting in some postgame cardio, as was seen after Sunday\u2019s 4-3 overtime loss.<\/p>\n
It has, with increasing clarity, left him often wincing on the Oilers\u2019 bench, less capable of hitting his all-world fifth gear, struggling with his lateral movement and generally moving through the series as a diminished version of himself. He\u2019s healthy enough to play, and on Sunday, for a second straight game, he was healthy enough to produce a pair of points. The Oilers, as a collective, were effective enough to come within a few millimeters of an opportunity to tie the series 2-2 before heading back to Rogers Place for Game 5 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t close the deal, though, and they find themselves here \u2014 one loss from following two consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final with a first-round elimination, searching for new buttons to push and circling back to ones that, in the last few days, have gotten jammed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really about Connor McDavid,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cThis is about two teams that are trying to figure each other out. And obviously, they\u2019re playing well, and we\u2019ve got another level as a group. But I still thought there were some good signs (on Sunday).\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ducks, indeed, have been a revelation, and plenty has gone wrong for Edmonton outside of McDavid\u2019s lower body. But with every bit of respect due to Edmonton\u2019s captain, quite a bit of this is indeed about him. Asked about the state of his health on Sunday, he responded by saying the Oilers \u201cfeel we\u2019re all doing the best we can out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not great. He\u2019s not himself, and neither seems to be teammate Leon Draisaitl, who, in a remarkable bit of timing, returned for Game 1 after missing a month with a knee injury. Those two bits of inconvenient reality, perhaps more than any others the Oilers face, are what take their comeback attempt from an uphill climb to a mountain summit. Superstars, as Edmonton knows better than anyone, are often cheat codes. Struggling penalty kill? Punch it in. Inconsistent goaltending? Punch it in. Brutal team defense? Punch it in.<\/p>\n
Edmonton has dealt with all three against the younger, faster, healthier Ducks, and there\u2019s not much of a reason to believe any of it will change over the next few days. Maybe Anaheim, one of the league\u2019s streakiest teams in the regular season, will hit the downslope a bit early. The Ducks lost 13 of 15 earlier in the winter, then soon after won 20 of 27, and then closed the regular season by dropping eight of 10. Wild things \u2014 such as a puck sliding the minimal amount of distance over the goal line necessary to count as a goal \u2014 happen every day.<\/p>\n
The issue for the Oilers, though, is that three games\u2019 worth of breaks will have to go their way over the next five days. So goes life with zero margin for error.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that Edmonton is unfamiliar with the concept. In 2024, they came back from 2-1 deficits against both the Los Angeles Kings and Dallas Stars. In 2025, the Kings had them down 2-0.<\/p>\n
Things don\u2019t quite feel the same, though. Crucial mistakes and an ineffective penalty kill are one of the through lines, as coach Kris Knoblauch said on Monday. In consecutive games, Edmonton has gone to the box with a two-goal lead, allowed a power-play goal and then lost. In the series, they\u2019ve allowed six short-handed goals overall.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n In three games for Connor Ingram and one for Tristan Jarry, above, the Oilers\u2019 goaltenders have oscillated between vaguely competent and actively bad. (Corinne Votaw \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t been able to get the last save or another clear or a blocked shot or a loose puck or something like that,\u201d Knoblauch said. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate. Credit to Anaheim (for) playing a good game, but we\u2019ve got to find ways to be just a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team defense has been an issue, too. There, the Oilers seemed to bottom out in Game 3, allowing regular odd-man rushes, consistently making poor decisions at the net front and playing poorly enough to make one 7-4 loss feel like it should\u2019ve counted for two. In three games for Connor Ingram and one for Tristan Jarry, the goaltenders have oscillated between vaguely competent and actively bad.<\/p>\n
Those aren\u2019t new problems. In a different year, at a different level of effectiveness, Edmonton\u2019s pair of Hart Trophy winners would wallpaper over the nail holes. This April? Not quite.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that McDavid or Draisaitl are playing poorly. The former bounced back with a break-even five-on-five game on Sunday after Edmonton was out-attempted 33-17 with him on the ice and held an expected goal share of just 43 percent. The latter has centered Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kaspanen on what has been Edmonton\u2019s most effective line by a mile or two. McDavid was close enough to full strength to streak through the zone for a third-period tie-breaker attempt that was knocked off course by the toe of Ducks goalie Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l\u2019s. Drasaitl is still hitting teammates in stride with backhand lasers on the regular. Whatever percentage each is operating at \u2014 65, 85, 90 \u2014 is higher than most players\u2019 top end. The Oilers need more, though, and time is running short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 Connor McDavid, after his shortest, most soft-spoken postgame interview of the Stanley Cup playoffs thus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2070],"class_list":["post-289723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-edmonton-oilers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289723","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=289723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}