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The NHL playoffs are always about teams measuring themselves against their opponents in the 200-by-85-foot arena but, clearly, the six inches between the ears counts just as much, especially as a winning dimension.
Just ask the Edmonton Oilers, who’ve gone through five rounds and 28 games the last two springs, with a third-straight first-round matchup with the Los Angeles Kings, with familiarity hopefully breeding contempt for Oilers Nation once again. Clearly, the Oilers window to win is ticking, it not furiously, then loudly.
Leon Draisaitl will have one year left on his contract after these playoffs before he’s a free agent and able to walk out the door. Connor McDavid will have two. They’ve been teammates since 2015 and over the last two playoffs, McDavid and Draisaitl have 53 and 50 points, but no trips to the finals, yet.
It was a kick in the gut with a steel-toed work boot to lose to Vegas in round 2 last May, leading in every game, but losing in six. They beat themselves on the ice and beat themselves up after it was over. Draisaitl, as good a playoff performer as you’ll find, was dismayed, and McDavid, equally downcast, said, “Sometimes you have to go through some of this to win. Let’s hope it’s the last time.”
McDavid was singing a refrain about thinking the game as smartly as playing it Saturday, after a spirited Oilers skate that brought 97 to a guffaw.
“I wish guys practised that hard all the time. I thought the guys were all dialed in.”
Mind on the task at hand.
“Sports in general is very mental,” said McDavid, certainly adhering to what’s learned in the head, as well as the legs and heart. “Hockey’s no different, playoffs are no different. You have to be focused, stick with it, and that is between the ears.”
Tampa had to go through it, blowing a first-round series after a 128-point regular season, to Columbus in 2019. Colorado, too. They lost in the second round three straight years before winning in 2022. Is it the Oilers turn to change the script?
What have they learned? Is there anything that makes them harder to beat, now? We’ll see.
“It’s understanding the playoff series, the games, the ebbs and flows, the shifts, understanding the big moments. I know that’s all cliché, but it is the way it is. We’ve learned a lot of lessons from our many failures and that’s what great teams and people do. They learn from their mistakes,” said McDavid.
“They learn from their failures and hopefully put it all together.”
With McDavid and Draisaitl as the lead dogs.
“We’re right in the window. We have to take advantage,” said Zach Hyman.
Same story from Mattias Ekholm, who got to the finals once with Nashville but had lots of heartache with the Predators. “What I’ve learned in a seven-game series, if you’re going all the way … not that I have, but I was close, is that you have to win games you don’t deserve,” said Ekholm, who has played 88 post-season games, starting in Nashville and now here.
“Sounds bad, sounds weird, but sometimes two teams are tired or lacking having their night, but you have to be the team not playing worse,” he said. “I think when we clinched to go the finals in 2017, we had 18 shots against Anaheim and scored six goals. That doesn’t happen every night but we got there. I mean, you can’t always outscore the opponent, it’s a tough task in the playoffs. No. 1 lesson for me: you have to live to fight another day, keep games close, up by one, down by one.”
The Oilers, during their 16-game winning streak in regular-season, did that.
“In January we played that game, a lot. We stayed patient and by the end of the night we would really like the result,” he said.
Have the Oilers learned how not to beat themselves in the playoffs?
“That’s half the battle,” said McDavid. “Ultimately you can rebound from them, but you don’t want to make those mistakes, giving up any freebies.”
The man with the harshest light on him in playoffs is always the goalie, and this will be Stuart Skinner’s second kick at the can after being a playoff newbie last spring. He was good but didn’t steal games. In the long run, a major test for him. There’s a lot more water under the playoff bridge for McDavid and Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, all playing their 50th playoff game with the L.A. opener, and Darnell Nurse, with his 48th upcoming, but at least Skinner’s been through 12 games.
“To catch up to them wouldn’t be possible unless I’d play with them obviously,” said Skinner, “but I’ve played them (the Kings) lots the last two years.”
But, certainly there is the playoff cauldron, past round one. Is he smarter today?
“I am in a lot of different ways, going through the season we had this year (with the team’s awful start). Gave me more experience to prepare myself for these moments,” said Skinner, who was 2-6 before Jay Woodcroft was fired and was 34-10-5 the rest of the way under Kris Knoblauch.
And All the Kings’ Men are once again the first leg on the Oilers playoff trip, with the injured Evander Kane, who hasn’t played or skated with a team in a week, iffy.
“Should be no surprises here. They know what we’re going to do and we know what they’re going to do. Comes down to who does it better,” said McDavid, dismissing a suggestion that maybe the Kings have secretly been planning a different defensive strategy than their 1-3-1, where they send one man in, three clog the neutral zone, with Drew Doughy back as the lone L.A. defenceman in his end.
So, if they unveil something else?
“I would be shocked,” said McDavid.
Same playbook from Knoblauch.
“It’s part of their identity. Yeah, I’d be shocked if anything changed, too.”
