Why The Edmonton Oilers Are WAY BETTER Than You Think

Why The Edmonton Oilers Are WAY BETTER Than You Think

Expectations. They’re a funny thing. Let’s talk about a team that goes all the way to the Stanley Cup finals. They just barely lose in a game seven and the following year they’re favored to win the cup all the way until the playoffs start. That’s when all of the disbelieving starts to happen. Let’s go through some of the storylines that have been surrounding the Oilers to start the playoffs. This is the LA Kings year. Surely their team play and goending is more than enough to take down Edmonton. The Oilers own the Kings. That doesn’t count. Vegas is a whole other beast and will sweep them in the second round. Only to follow with the Edmonton Oilers run will end in the conference finals because they’re not as deep as Dallas or Winnipeg. This is just what most fans have been saying about this team since the playoffs started. And again, they were favored to win the cup this year, even though they reached the finals last year and then people changed their mind for some reason. And I hate to admit it, but I was actually one of those people who was disbelieving in the Edmonton Oilers. No more though, because it’s high time I start giving the Edmonton Oilers their flowers, especially considering how incredible they’ve been as of late, despite some of the adversities that they have faced. The Oilers are now 8-3 through this year’s playoff run. And despite missing their top defenseman in Matias Ekholm and arguably having one of the more controversial goalending rooms, they have tapped into their superstars potential and more importantly their depth has become one of the more consistent across every team in the playoffs. So today, let’s not only recap their playoff series so far, but also talk about why the Edmonton Oilers should be the favorite to win the Stanley Cup this year. For four consecutive years, the Edmonton Oilers and LA Kings would face off in round one of the playoffs. And for the fourth year in a row, Edmonton would take down their divisional opponent. Games 1 and two can be defined as Kings hockey at its finest. And the biggest reason why a lot of people were picking LA to win this series. The Kings scored 11 goals in their first two games, picking apart Stuart Skinner nearly every chance they got, leading to what would ultimately be a goalending change for the rest of the series by Edmonton. Oddly enough, despite having a 2- lead, I don’t feel like a lot of people were continuing their hype with the LA Kings. Sure, there were those who doubled down on the fact that the Kings were a great hockey team, but I feel like a lot more people had the confidence in Edmonton to come back in this series. And the biggest quote that every hockey fan knows and something that supported this argument was, “A series is not over until a home team loses in their own barn.” Swapping goalies to Calvin Pequard was arguably the best decision the Edmonton Oilers have made all year long. They really seemed to rally around their backup goalie’s efforts and that allowed them to get back in this series, scoring seven goals in game three to beat the Kings 74. Game four was much closer, but going into overtime for the first time in this series, this is where you can kind of tell the difference between these two teams. While the Kings do have stars, both new and old, they don’t have those backbreaking studs like Edmonton does. And Leon Dryetttle proved why they are the better team overall, scoring his first overtime gamewinner in the playoffs to seal the deal for the Oilers and tie up the series 2-2. The Oilers were back on the road, and this is a best of three series now. And this was arguably the most important game of the playoffs for the Oilers so far. The Kings had an astonishingly good home record this year. And all the Oilers really had to do to win this series was pick up one win on the road. And that’s exactly what happened. Peicard put up his best game of the series at the most important time, stopping 38 of 39 shots. And this is mainly where the depth concept came in for Edmonton. Now, a lot of people like to say that the Oilers are topheavy and rely too much on McDavid and dry settle to win games. And while there is some truth to this, there is also another side to the Oilers that people don’t talk about enough. Their depth, it’s been pretty incredible this year. But more importantly, it’s stepped up in this year’s playoffs. In this game particularly, Connor Brown, Darnell Nurse, Trent Frederick, and Zack Heyman were the ones to lead the Oilers to victory, proving the old saying that role players play better at home. In 2022, the Edmonton Oilers won in seven. In 2023, they won in six. Last year, they won in five, and this year, they won in six again, proving that they own the LA Kings and that a lot of people need to start giving them more credit for how they step up during every year’s playoffs. Round two had an eerily similar narrative for the Oilers as round one. Many, and I’m ashamed to say this, including myself, believe that the Oilers goending and depth would eventually start to become more problematic than it would be efficient. But boy were we all wrong. Through the first two games of the series on the road, mind you, Edmonton proved that they were a better team through the third period. That they were able to take all of Vegas’s punches and still come out swinging with their own shots. And I feel like that set the tone for not only this series, but for the rest of the playoffs, with Edmonton almost feeling like there were too many doubters against them that they had to go out and perform to such a high level to prove everyone wrong. And that’s exactly what they did for most of this series. Remember what I said, a series isn’t over until you win one on the road. And Edmonton took this to another level by winning their first two games on the road against Vegas. And now they’re heading to Alberta on a flight, thinking all we have to do is split these games at home and we basically have this series locked down. Now, this is where an interesting story line came in for Edmonton. Remember, we talked about Calvin Pequard stepping up and becoming a water bug for this lineup. a true influential piece in getting the Edmonton Oilers back in their first round series. Now, to this point, he’s 6-0 in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the starting goalie for the Edmonton Oilers, Stuart Skinner, is 0 and2. And now, Bquard is down with an injury, meaning that the Oilers have to go back to Skinner, a guy who was pretty shaky through every playoff start since last year, losing in the finals during game seven. Skinner had a decent comeback in game three, but this sloppy endofame goal that Riley Smith had scored where you can’t even find him in some of these angles really had Oilers fans frustrated with their starting goalie. But Stuart Skinner must have taken this criticism personally for the following games. I mean, we are talking about a guy who led his team to the finals last year. Surely he had a better performance than an 0 and3 record would suggest. Well, surely he did. He came out and put up two back-to-back shutout performances, one at home and one on the road. Not only securing his team a win, but gaining a confidence that’s going to be very, very important moving forward, especially when you consider the other teams that Edmonton is going to have to face in this long playoff run. But the most important thing out of all of this, they not only beat down the LA Kings, but they put on an even more impressive performance against the Vegas team that a lot of people were favoring in this series. The Oilers had proved the hockey world wrong yet again. A team that allegedly had no defense and apparently no depth or goalending had used their flaws to get by two of the top contenders out west. All without their best defenseman, Matias Ekholm. The notion that the Edmonton Oilers are not a complete team or that they can’t play defense, I feel at this point has been debunked. They’ve proven enough with their game to show us that they are one of the top contenders still. But believe it or not, reporters and media are still putting these questions out there to the team. And in this clip by Carter McDavid, you can see that the frustration has really boiled over at this point. The way that you guys defend and and feel more comfortable defending as a group. And how many times are we going to answer this question? Really, like honestly, it’s frustrating that you keep that we keep talking about this. We can defend. We can um we’ve showed that time and time again. We can play that way. We can score goals. We can whatever it takes. we can win games. Um, yeah, with that all being said, you can see Edmonton is clearly confident in their game, but the road ahead, it’s going to be difficult, especially with whoever’s coming out of that Winnipeg vers Dallas series, having a lot of momentum, beating some difficult opponents during the first round. The Jets match up quite nicely against the Oilers, having a gritty, physical team that can score a lot of goals, especially at home. Hella has been inconsistent, but when he’s on, he’s one of the best goalies in the world and can make this Jets team arguably the best in the playoffs. He’s coming off two back-to-back home shutouts. So, keep an eye on him and the Jets because they’ll be a dangerous third round opponent for the Oilers to face. But on the other hand, things don’t get easier if you match up with Dallas, who has the hottest scorer in the playoffs and one of the deepest teams we’ve seen in quite some time. They have the ability to roll out four lines. They just got their top defenseman back into their lineup and Jakeer has been an underrated top goalie in this year’s playoffs and still has a lot to prove with the upcoming Olympics and him wanting to be their starting goalie. I will say though, I’ve been burnt twice already, so I’m going to pick the Edmonton Oilers to win regardless of who they’re facing off against. When it comes to the Jets, I think they’ll be able to figure out Connor Halabuk. I’m still not sure if he’s going to be consistent enough. And I also believe with their history in Dallas that they can get it done against this team. Obviously, Dallas did add a top 10 player to their team. So, it will be difficult. But I’m just kind of at the point where I can’t count out the Oilers anymore. I feel like I’ve done it too many times and that in order for me to truly give them their flowers, I need to start siding with them in some of these series. The reason I’m doubling down on the Oilers to make the finals at this point is not because they’ve just burnt me in the past, but I believe they’re playing the most consistent hockey of every playoff team. Maybe outside of the Carolina Hurricanes, who also deserve their own flowers, but we’ll do that in a different video. For the Edmonton Oilers, they’re playing great with their 5v5 numbers this year and relying a lot less on their power play compared to last year’s postseason, which I think will be a huge contributor to their success this year. They’re also getting contributions from nearly all of their role players, which we talked about a lot in this video. Not solely relying on McDavid and Dry Settle is important, even though those two are still putting up great numbers. Their goalending, while shaky, finally seems to have leveled out at the best possible time. And while I have questions about their defensive consistency still, even though I do feel like it’s a little bit overblown with how people portray them, I just think that overall effort needs to be taken to another level if you want to beat a team like the Jets or the Stars. But I have to believe that they’re going to continue playing like this after taking down two very strong offensive opponents in the Kings and the Knights. The Oilers have the tools to win this year. They have the superstars. Their depth has finally stepped up. And now their goalending and defense aren’t the biggest topic of conversation for this team. They’ve actually been a plus when you look at the whole picture. The real question is, will this all continue? Will they manage to produce at this level against a conference finals opponent that will be more difficult than anyone they’ve faced so far? or will their hot streak fizzle out at the worst time? I believe the former is a more accurate representation of this team, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. At this point though, I’m all in on the Oilers, and I have them getting back to the Stanley Cup finals. But as always, I want to hear from you guys. How do you feel about the Edmonton Oilers this year? Are you confident that they’ll be able to get back to the Stanley Cup finals, or do you think that their hot streak is going to fizzle out against an opponent like Winnipeg or Dallas? Thank you guys as always for watching these videos. If you enjoyed this one, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. I also have some more content right here for you guys on the screen, so be sure to check those out after this one. I will see you guys in the next episode.

Today let’s delve into one of the hottest teams of the NHL Playoffs The Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers playoff run has had its good and bad moments. From injuries to goaltending changes all the way to comebacks and a next man up mentality. But regardless of what has happened during this run the Oilers have dominated two of their biggest division rivals and now move on to what will be their second straight Conference Finals. So today let’s breakdown the Edmonton Oilers playoff run and why they are way better than you think. Subscribe to Jimmy Hockey for more NHL News and Breakdowns.

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