DALLAS — As it wound down in Dallas, inside a dressing where the celebration for this Conference Final win was less jubilant than what used to happen after a Round 1 or 2 win, there was only one word to describe how the Edmonton Oilers looked.
Ready.
Ready to return to the Stanley Cup. Ready to find a different ending than they found a year ago.
What makes them better?
“I think we’re better off for going through last year. It’s really driven us all year,” said Connor McDavid, who touched the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl just to change the luck, after a 6-3 dismantling of the Dallas Stars and a clean, five-game series win.
The Oilers won the final four games against Dallas after dropping Game 1. They won three times in Vegas while speedily disposing of the Golden Knights in five.
They hit the gas after a 0-2 start against Los Angeles in Round 1 and won four straight — the start of a 12-2 playoff run that speaks to the distance between this Oilers team and those out West who would try to supplant them.
And somehow, it all seemed rather routine. Almost ordinary, as the Oilers’ best game — rolled out night after night this spring — proved too much for whatever opponent was standing on the other blue line for the national anthems.
“I think this run has felt different than last year. It’s felt very normal,” McDavid said. “It hasn’t been as emotional. We haven’t had the highs and we haven’t had the lows … and that puts us in a good position.
“Those games can be emotionally draining. We’re not drained.”
There was a time around here that, whenever trouble of any kind arose or something needed to get done, the coach threw Nos. 97 and 29 over the boards with a few dudes, and everyone else sat on the bench watching the big boys ride to the rescue again.
Not anymore.
Today, on a steamy night in Dallas with a trip to the Final on the line, the lead was built on a three-goal surge by Corey Perry, Mattias Janmark, and — coming into the lineup after five weeks in the press box — Jeff Skinner.
Upon that kind of depth, championship teams are built. Here, thick layers of support players lie underneath two of the game’s most lethal stars — both dead in their prime, with an insatiable thirst to take a step this team wasn’t quite good enough to take a year ago.
If last season was Cup or bust, this is something even more seminal than that.
“It’s amazing,” said Leon Draisaitl. “We put in a lot of work over the year, and a lot of guys stepped up at different times. We just found our game, we found our pieces in the right spot. We’re starting to find our stride.”
Starting to find their stride. Yikes.
Whether it was a 0-2 deficit to L.A. in Round 1, a Stanley Cup-hardened Vegas team in Round 2, or a Stars club that vowed not to go out in Round 3 for the third straight year, Edmonton has had an answer for every question posed this spring.
“We’re mature. We’ve learned and we’re learning every game,” said the ageless wonder Perry, whose seven playoff goals leave him tied with Draisaitl for the most on Edmonton and puts him fourth — fourth! — in playoff goals across the NHL this spring.
“The way we’re playing, the calmness on the bench, guys making plays when things are going hairy on the ice…,” marvelled Perry. “This group, it’s been a want since the end of last year. There’s been a lot of thinking about what happened last year and self-reflecting. Here we are.”
Of course, a seminal win like Thursday’s is unlikely to pass without a play by McDavid that will linger in every hockey memory and highlight package for the next week or so.
He out-raced Roope Hintz to score on the breakaway, a game-winner for the ages.
“My hockey brain goes to, that’s probably one of the nicest goals I’ve seen him score,” said Draisaitl. “Just the whole situation: how it played out, who he had coming up behind him…. Of course, there’s only one player in the world that can do that in that moment.”
McDavid’s goal was a metaphor for the poor Stars’ luck in this series, as the Hockey Gods placed a rebound off a Mattias Ekholm shot block into McDavid’s orbit with open ice ahead of him.
“It was the story of the entire series, Connor’s goal,” said beleaguered Dallas head coach Pete DeBoer, whose team was much further away from defeating the Oilers this year than last. “We’re pushing to try and get back in the game, and the puck bounces into the neutral zone, he’s coming off the bench…
“He’s not missing that,” DeBoer knew. “It’s game over.”
Perhaps the best vantage point of what the Florida Panthers will face in this Oilers team comes from DeBoer, one of the NHL’s elite coaches, whose teams have taken their share of misery at the hands of McDavid and Co.
“I can tell you, that Edmonton team is better than the team we played last year,” he promised. “Deeper, defends harder, harder to play against. That’s a lot better team than the team we played last year in the Conference Final.
“There’s no doubt,” DeBoer added, “the two best teams are playing for the Cup.”
