EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers beat their 2017 selves Monday night, a look in the rearview mirror at an Anaheim Ducks team that presents very much the way these Oilers once did.
“Yeah, for sure,” smiled Leon Draisaitl, who had four assists in a 7-4 Oilers win. “A lot of lot of fresh legs, a lot of enthusiasm. Lots of skill. A team that has a bright future for sure.”
Edmonton had missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive springs when they broke out in 2017, beating San Jose in Round 1 to advance to a second-round series against the veteran Ducks.
Anaheim has missed the playoffs for seven straight years. At the 53-game mark they’ve only a four-point bulge on San Jose and Los Angeles, and a long stretch of meaningful games await, something the folks in Anaheim haven’t experienced in most of a decade.
“It gets harder from here on out,” warned Draisaitl. “And then you get into the playoffs and it gets really hard, right? That’s where you measure yourself.
“No disrespect (to Anaheim) — it’s good getting off to a good start and being in a playoff spot right now. But it’s only going to get harder. We’ll see if they’re able to, I guess, handle that pressure. But they’ve got a bright future ahead for sure.”
Remember when Todd McLellan’s Oilers finally busted into the playoffs in 2017, beat San Jose in Round 1, and then ran right into Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and the veteran Ducks?
Remember how Edmonton had Anaheim on the ropes in that second-round series? How the Ducks hung in there, somehow winning Game 5 at home, a game that the Oilers had led with three minutes to play, then gutted out a 2-1 win in Game 7?
That Oilers team that just didn’t have the gamesmanship or attention to detail that Anaheim had forged over a decade as a Western power.
Well, isn’t the skate on the other foot now?
“I think they can run and gun,” said Mattias Ekholm, who had a rare hat trick on Monday (more on that later). “But I think when they dial in their defensive game, I think that they’ll be… They’re already a good hockey team, but they’ll be a great hockey team.”
You wouldn’t think the distance between good and great would be such a journey. But ask around this Oilers room — it was one thing making the playoffs, and quite another thriving in them.
Edmonton missed the playoffs altogether in 2018 and 2019, before beginning a run that sees them as the two-time defending Western Conference champs.
On Monday, Anaheim rolled into Edmonton on a seven-game win streak, just a point behind the Oilers in the Pacific Division standings. They were without three key players in Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish and Troy Terry, and still poured 40 shots at Edmonton goalie Tristan Jarry, owning the third period before the Oilers popped two empty netters nail down the win.
Big blue-liner Jackson LaCombe, as physical as he is skilled, is a franchise defenceman if ever we’ve seen one. Beckett Sennecke has immense skill up front, leading a quick group of forwards who move a puck like it’s on a string.
Vets like Mikael Granlund (who also had a hat trick), Radko Gudas, Jacob Trouba and Alex Killorn have a ton of leading to do here, but with followers like Carlson, McTavish and Cutter Gauthier it’s only a matter of time that the Pacific torch gets passed from the Edmontons and Vegas’ to Anaheim, and perhaps San Jose as well.
“Yeah, for sure we have a fast team and we know that,” said LaCombe. “I think we just had moments (tonight) where we were a little loose and we kind of let them play to their strengths and that’s not what we want to do. We just have to be better in the second period.”
Like those old Oilers teams, when the bleeding started the Ducks couldn’t find a tourniquet. Four goals in 3:49 by Oilers defencemen in the second period was an NHL record, as was the fact that Ekholm’s hat trick followed up a hatty from Evan Bouchard the last time out.
Those crafty old Oilers, they’ve learned how to win a 2-1 game in April and May. But you want to play 10-goal hockey in January, they’re all over that as well. They beat Washington 6-5 the last time out, two straight wins with a grand total of 22 goals scored.
“You’ve got to win in different ways every night, and sometimes it’s two games in a row of … finding a way to score more than the other team,” Draisaitl said. “That’s just the way this league works at times. (But it’s) certainly not the standard or the mindset that we want to have each and every night.”
