Edmonton Oilers Collapse Late, Dallas Stars power play thrives | Why the Hurricanes are in trouble

Edmonton Oilers Collapse Late, Dallas Stars power play thrives | Why the Hurricanes are in trouble

Sometimes in life you’re the nail. Sometimes in life you’re the hammer. At the end of the game last night, the Oilers had been both and unfortunately they finished the game as the nail. And then in the Eastern Conference, are the Hurricanes going to make this a series? Or is Florida marching its way to a third straight Stanley Cup final appearance on today’s jam-packed Thursday edition of Locked on NHL? [Music] You’re Locked on NHL, your daily podcast on the National Hockey League, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello everyone and welcome to this Thursday edition of Locked on NHL. I am Nick Saris, the host of Locked On Oilers. That is my good friend Hunter Hoodies, one of the co-hosts of Locked On Penguins. And we want to thank everyone that is making Locked on NHL their first listen of the day. Locked on NHL is a part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel where right now new FanDuel customers have $250 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. So on today’s show, Hunter and I are going to walk through the two conference finals. We’re going to start with the Oilers and Stars who had a very exciting game one last night. We’ll pivot in segment two to talking about the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers. And then in the final segment, we’re going to open it up and have a bit more of a general philosophical conversation about the playoffs at large. So to start things out, Hunter, we said going into that series that the Stars have been a bit more on their heels in these playoffs. They’ve been playing a little bit more of a pressure absorbing counterattack style of hockey and they’ve largely gotten by by maximizing their fleeting and few opportunities. And if you go back and you go and look at the goals Dallas creates, they’re special teams and they’re off the rush. Those minimal opportunities. And I I was arguing with someone in the YouTube comments under the yesterday, I should say, today’s edition of Lockdown Oilers who said, “What do you mean the Oilers controlled the game? I mean at five on five, which is 75% of the game, the Oilers outshot them. They out chance them. They out expected goals them. And they out high danger chance them. All of that at five on five would constitute game control and being in firm control. And for 44 minutes, the Oilers were in firm control. It was three to one entering the third period. And slowly but surely, the dumb penalties accumulate. Dallas scores three straight power play goals. And that’s the game. It It doesn’t take a whole lot to swing things 100%. I mean, they were the better team by far for the first two periods. The Stars really couldn’t generate much at five on five. And Nick, you look at some of the underlinings for this game. The Oilers ended the game with 27 swing chances for 17 against at five on five. They even had the high danger edge at the end of the game, 9 to8 at five on five, about 60% of the expected goals. So again, at five on five, they played fairly well, but once the PK really started going downhill, and when I mean downhill, I mean they’re giving up free zone entries like Halloween candy, giving up way too many high danger chances, the game was over right then. You know, Mauy Granland, one heck of a snipe in the third period. I mean, that’s just an insane shot. You have Matt Duchain doing his thing as well. The Oilers PK lost them that game. Like, yeah, the Stars did a great job defending the lead after they got it thanks to their power play. And by the way, Nick, their power play has been redot all playoffs long, but this has been one of the best power plays in the playoffs since they started last month. And for the Oilers, they started the playoffs really bad on the kill. The first period, I actually felt like they were doing a decent job on the kills, kind of stacking the blue line, not allowing any free zone entries, getting easy clears, but after that, it went right back to the PK that we saw for the first couple of rounds where they were giving up the free zone entries, giving up way too many highquality chances, and there’s only so much Steuart Skinner can do in that situation. The Oilers PK has to be so much better if they want to win this series because at five on five, I thought Conor McDavid was tremendous. I thought Leon Dryidle was great and I even tweeted it felt like they were putting the team on their backs once again. They were that good. Evan Buchard had another really good game for the Oilers, but when push came to shove, the Stars power play was the big difference. Their big dog stepped up on the power play even though Mo Ranson was a little bit quiet. I don’t think that’s going to be the case all series considering how good he has been. I thought the Oilers did a fairly good job on him last night, but that’s probably going to change here at some point. But, you know, Robertson stepped up. Gremlin was good. Hasten was really good. Harley was awesome. And, you know, Aer made the big saves that he needed to also down the stretch in the third period. The thing that was interesting about this game is how dramatically different the Oilers played down the stretch in that third period. And it was largely because of the game state, because the game was changing on them underfoot. Cuz the first two periods of this game, Connor was McDavid was doing a great job of attacking off of the rush. That second line with Dry Cidle, Pod Kohl’s, and and Kain was getting the puck in deep. They were forchecking. They were cycling. McDavid and Dry Cidle create that goal on the power play off of the cycle. And by and large, you had two lines creating off of the rush. You had two lines creating off of cycle and forchecking. And you were in control of the game. You didn’t make Steuart Skinner do a whole lot. He didn’t have to play a whole lot in that first period, the first two periods, I should say. The Oilers were doing a great job. You and I were texting during the game that they were doing a great job of forcing Gallas to make a decision. As soon as they entered the offensive zone, you know, a lot of a lot of the play was to the outside. You even mentioned it too, a lot of oneands for the Stars. They couldn’t really generate any offense. They couldn’t get their forche going. They couldn’t cycle low to high. It was there was not much there until the third period. Yeah. And that’s because the game the game was moving underfoot under for Edmonton. And the ironic part is down the stretch as Edmonton needed, you know, some sustained zone time to bring the temperature of the game down to slow it down. They couldn’t get zone entries. Dallas started doing a better job of attacking those entries and McDavid on more than one occasion did all the work of building up that head of steam to to create a zone entry. And as soon as he gained the zone, he would have to slam on the brakes and pivot and try and create space for himself. And he lost the puck on more than one occasion doing that. Leon did the same thing because at that point, Dallas starts to smell blood. And Dallas is really strong off of the counter. And that’s one of the luxuries you have as a Stars team that has so much skill and so much talent is you don’t need a lot of opportunities. You get a handful of good looks. Someone like Tyler Sean, who would probably be the fourth or fifth player, fourth or fifth most commonly used player on the Oilers, is like the seventh or eighth most commonly used guy on the Stars. You think about the talent disparity the further down the lineup. And that’s not to say the Oilers aren’t a talented team. They have one of the better forward groups in these playoffs. It’s just the Dallas guys are really highends. When you have a Johnston and Jason Robertson playing third, second line minutes, that that’s a real luxury. And those are players of the caliber that don’t need a lot to go their way to create opportunities. You know, you you have to and it’s not even really a decision. It just kind of happens within the flow of the game. But at a certain point, you got to prioritize are we how we want to create our offense and what we’re going to do to make it replicable to continue to do it. And to Edmonton’s credit, for 40 minutes, they did a nice job of a little bit of both. But as the game got a little dire, they started really focusing on trying to get those rush chances and they got two good looks out of it in the last 10 minutes of the game. They had the Trent Frederick look where he just missed the puck entirely. He was maybe 8, nine feet away from the net front. The puck skipped under his stick. That’s a player you don’t really want in that shot having that look in all honesty. Probably like the eighth or ninth guy if you could pick any Oilers forward to have that shot. And then Conor Brown drove the net on the one look where he had it on his backhand. And it’s Conor Brown. I I I don’t expect him to score that goal. That’s not McDavid. That’s not dryidle. So going forward, and the last point I want to make before we take our first break, the Oilers showed you more than enough to believe they’ll be okay. But in this stage of the postseason, it’s almost as important to avoid making mistakes as it is to actively play good hockey. And the Oilers learned a valuable lesson to last night. The littlest of mistakes will kill you. the Tyler Sean breakaway that happens because of a miscommunication at the blue line because you’re overlapping and you’re trying to create a drop pass when in reality if you just take the simple play, you keep that sequence alive. You don’t get burned off the rush. The Oilers have shown you enough to feel okay, but man, that would have been a nice one to pull out. Going on the road, you win game one. It really changes the tenor of a series. Well, now you got to steal home ice. I mean, I I I get it, Nick. You were the Oilers were down 2 against LA. they come back to win four straight. I don’t know if that’s going to happen against the Stars team with how deep they are, how great they’ve been all season. I I I just it would be an even harder hill to come back from. So, my biggest thing for the Oilers right now, yes, they are great at five on five, but the special teams have got to be a lot better, especially in the penalty kill. The Stars, man, they have elite special teams on both sides. Nick, they are one of three teams that can run a quote unquote power kill. What what I mean by that is the way that the Stars pressure the puck carriers when they come into the zone and even once the puck carriers have control and they’re kind of zipping it around, the way the Stars are able to pressure those players once they have that control, too. It’s second to none. It makes for a lot of easy clears. It reminds me a lot of what the Hurricanes do on their penalty kill. It they’re one of that’s the second team that can run a power kill. The Devils are the third one. So the Stars, they have that advantage and of course their power play. So the Oilers, they got to find a way to break through with some of the special teams. Like again, I’m they were really good at five on five. I still think the Stars are going to up it a notch at five on five throughout the series, but if the Oilers aren’t going to get the competent special teams play that this could be over potentially before seven games. Again, I don’t want to, you know, make any rash statements or anything like that, but they have to be a lot better with their special teams in this one. Oh, unequivocally. I mean, their penalty kill is under 67% right now. That’s just not going to cut it this time of year, and they need to be better. That that is an area where they have room for improvement where I know the Oilers power play is usually really deadly, but you’re going up against a true power kill here that lives for these types of moments and killing off a power play that is as good as Edmonton. So that’s where the Oilers also need to make a difference here. Their first power play, the one they scored on the dry cidital goal, that was the best the power plays looked since the King series. I mean, they only had one power play goal in the Vegas series. So that’s definitely an area to keep an eye on. We are going to take our first break of today’s edition of Locked on the NHL. And when we come back, Hunter and I are going to explain why even though Carolina plays a very similar style to Florida, they’re probably not going to make this happen for them. Coming up next. The NBA and NHL playoffs are in full swing and every night delivers epic moments. Buzzer beaters, overtime game-winning goals, and there’s never been a better time to get in on the action. FanDuel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and puck drop and well after the game starts. With player props, performance trends, and same game parlays, fans have more way than ever to play and win big. Tonight in the NHL, we have the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes. If you think the Canes are going to bounce back, maybe you want to ride with Sebastian Aaho points, points or goals. Maybe you think the Panthers pull this out again. You want to ride with something fun like Esto Lucin shots on goal or Brad Marshian shots on goal. There are so many possibilities. And if you’re new to FanDuel, there’s never been a better time to sign up because right now, if you head to FanDuel.com, place your first $5 bet, and it wins, you’ll get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Thank you to everyone who is hanging out with Hunter and I on this Thursday edition of Locked On NHL. And I was talking with someone yesterday during the Stars game, during one of the intermissions about Carolina, Florida. And the person said to me, Florida’s the wall, excuse me, Carolina’s the Walmart version of Florida. They play the hyperaggressive forche. They really, really pressure you. They use their foot speed, but Florida’s just got better players. That that’s the that’s the difference here. If you were to try and do what Carolina’s doing, and like Carolina got to their game, they had a ton of scoring chances like they always do. They had the puck a ton. Florida just got better players. It’s that simple. That’s been the case in a lot of these series where Carolina doesn’t have the high-end talent advantage, Nick. Like, yeah, they can cycle you to death. They can wear you down, and they definitely do wear teams down as each series goes on. Like, you saw it against New Jersey this year, Nick, for example. We saw it against Washington. Washington couldn’t generate anything at five on five throughout that entire series. The Capitals literally had no offense after being the top finishing team in the league this season. Credit to Carolina for that. But once they play a team where that team’s big dogs are better than the Hurricanes, they struggle. And you look at the underlings for this game. Yeah, the Carolina Cory’s route in full effect. They had just about 60% of the shot attempts at five on five. They had 60% of the scoring chances. 66% of the high danger chances. But difference was Carolina’s big dogs were able to finish their chances. Carolina Yeah, sorry. Florida’s big dogs were able to finish their chances. Carolina’s was not. I almost messed that up for for some reason, but Florida also got the depth scoring in this series. Carolina needs to be better in that regard. So, that’s the thing with Florida, man. They also have such an aggressive forch check that can really wear you down as a series goes on and it felt like the Hurricanes really weren’t ready for it in game one. That’s what I was watching at least. And then when you have Sergey Babski playing like this, Nick, good luck because he struggled a little bit to start that series against the Maple Leafs. But since then, it’s been smooth sailing looking like the Babroski we saw last year and the year before. And they are right now it’s only one game people. Anything can happen but right now this team looks like they are well on their way to potentially going back to their third straight leg final. Game one was why I was concerned about the Hurricanes going into this series. Don’t get me wrong guys, they are a very good team. You don’t get to the Eastern Conference final as often as they have without being a really good team in this league. But we’ve seen it time and time again when they lose a series. It’s because the other team’s high-end talent beats their high-end talent. And as I just said, Nick, Florida’s high-end players, they finished their chances. Carolina’s did not. There was your difference. And I I wanted to bring this up because I this was something else that came up in the conversation I was having yesterday. It was it was largely about how the Rangers missed a golden opportunity to get back to the Eastern Conference final because the the Metro was so bad. But the person said to me, “I know the stats and what they say, but like are we really eating the Freddy Anderson cheese?” Like, we know what Freddy Anderson is in the playoffs. We have seen him continuously struggle in these high leverage situations. Whether it’s against the Rangers, whether it’s against Tampa Bay, it’s against Florida, it’s against the Bruins. Freddy Anderson is a really solid regular season goalie. He puts He makes the saves he’s supposed to. He is above average. You line him up across from a Babski, a Shisturkin, a Vaselki, an Olarker Swayman. I mean, it’s not a knock to say you’re not the best. You know, he’s above average. It’s the same thing with the Canes at large. No one’s saying the Canes are a bad team. Florida’s just better. And that’s the reality here. There there’s no there’s no shame in not being better than your opponent. You need things to go right if you’re trying to pull off an upset, which this would be if Carolina were to find a way to do this. And to make that happen, you need to find ways to close the gap to keep the game close. And having game control is one way to do that. But if you’re going to pull this off, you’re going to need a special performance from more than one guy in this lineup. Whether that’s Jarvis, whether that’s Fetchnikov, Aaho, whomstever you want to pick, someone on this Carolina team is going to have to do something they’ve probably never done before in their life if they want to pull this series off. That could be Freddy Anderson. Maybe Freddy Anderson can go nuclear and go for a 925, 930 save. He was great in the first two rounds, man. He was great against the Devils. He was really good against the Capitals. Again, the struggle comes when he faces a team that has legit finishers in the Florida Panthers. And that’s the thing here. Someone on Carolina, some of their high-end talent is going to have to really go after Sasha Barov in this series. And when I mean that, I mean go out there and win those battles against Barkov. Barov is one of the 10 best players in the league. He’s by far the best defensive center in the league in my opinion. And someone is going to have to go out there with, you know, whether it’s AOTnikov, Stan Kovven, Jarvis, and out hustle him to some of these pucks, out hustle him to some of these battles. and we didn’t see that in game one, but it needs to change for the rest of the series if Carolina wants to win this series. You know what you’re going to get from Slavven. He is one of the 10 best defenseman in the league. Everyone knows that, especially after seeing what he did in the four nations, seeing what he has done in the playoffs so far. He is tremendous. You know what you’re going to get from him. But Carolina, they got to find the quality a bit more in this series. They were able to get it against Washington, Nick. That’s huge. But when you play a team that is so stingy also like the Florida Panthers, a team that never really gets rattled like the Panthers, you you got to get finisher chances when you get them. And Panthers right now, they continue to hum. I know it’s only one game, but I would also be a little bit surprised if the Panthers did not win the series. I took them in six games. I will stick by that. And for those that did not know, I took the Oilers in seven before the series against the Stars. So, I’m going for the rematch. We’ll see if we get it. The last thought, and I do think it’s interesting that both series, at least the first game, mirrored this, that you don’t necessarily need game control. And that’s one of the topics we’re going to talk about in the final segment, the more open-ended philosophical idea. But I do think it’s really interesting that both Dallas and Florida little bit less possession but were able to capitalize and generate chances or at least their better players were able to maximize the fewer chances they did have and ultimately swing the game. Whether that’s on special teams or whether that’s in five-on-ive situations. Hunter and I are going to take one more quick break and when we come back we’re going to open up the conversation a little bit more and try and discern what really matters this time of year. coming up next. Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Thursday edition of Locked on NHL as we are a few hours away from game number two of the Eastern Conference final between the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes. Tomorrow we’ll have the Oilers Stars game two. And this time of year is where we generally start to draw conclusions about where the league is and where it’s going. That once you get to the final four, that’s usually a high enough threshold to make some conclusions. And we’ve long known that you need to have a couple of these really high-end elite players. You you would say the stars probably have three in Rantin, Heiskin, and Harley. I think if you wanted to add someone like a Robertson or a hint or a Johnston maybe, but I don’t think they’re in that same classification as the first three, we know the Oilers, McDavid, Bousard, Dry Cidle, Florida, Kachchuck, Barov, and then if you want to do Forsling, if you want to do Reinhardt, I’m fine with either of those guys. Bob is an honorable mention based on the pedigree even though his regular season wasn’t outstanding. And in Carolina, it’s really just Jarvis for me. As Slavven maybe, but as a defense first defenseman, his ability to change the game state is a little bit lesser than that of say a Bousard, a Harley, a Heiskin. And Forsling’s just a little bit better offensively. That’s why I for Carolina. Yeah, AO is probably their best. I think Jarvis is a bit more dynamic, like explosive, able to make plays outside of structure, that type of thing. But AO is a reasonable shout as far as being one of those guys. And that’s kind of the entry point. That’s the threshold to be in this conversation. You need to have at least two or three of those guys if you want to get to this point. It’s very uncommon for a team to get this far to not have at least a few high-end superstar caliber players. It’s kind of I’m going to make a parallel to the NFL, Nick, like you want to win a Super Bowl, you got to have the franchise dude at quarterback most of the time, I would say. probably about well 90 to 95%. But I agree. I said this on locked on Penguins on Wednesday. I’ll say it again here. For me, it doesn’t matter how you get the high-end talent. It just matters that you get them. Like you you need the big dogs if you want to win a Stanley Cup in this league. Also, for me, you got to be able to run four lines. You look at these four teams that are left, Nick. Florida. Oh, yeah. They can 100% run four lines. They can get the depth scoring. The Stars, they’ve been getting the depth scoring all playoffs. Even the Hurricanes, yeah, they traded Ranson, but they got someone like Stan Kovven back who was also really good. You look at their lineup, they can run four lines. And then the Oilers, you know, they they’ve been also able to run four lines all playoff long, too. I mean, Cory Perry has been really good. Evander Kane has been really good since coming back. Even Trent Frederick is making some contributions. Matias Yanmark hasn’t been bad. Connor Brown, etc. So, all four of these teams can run four lines. That’s still one of the biggest things for me when it comes to success with the playoffs. If two of your lions aren’t doing anything and you’re just relying on your top two lines to score, more times than not, you’re going to lose. Like, I mean, trust me people, I saw the Penguins try to do that during the prime of Sydney Crosby and of Genny Malin and Chris Latang for multiple years before Jim Rutherford came in and built a team that had four scoring lines in 16 and 17. It was not a coincidence that they won the cup in those two years. They got the contributions from the big guns and their depth also stepped up when needed. Before that, when you look at 2010 to 2015, Penguins literally tried to run two lines. And then the bottom six, a bunch of defensive defensive players who really couldn’t score when Crosby and Malin were on the ice. So, that’s still one of my biggest keys to playoff success today. And again, you got to have the special teams, too. You’re seeing it right now with Dallas. If Edmonton’s PK can be a bit better, there you go. Carolina’s penalty kill was one of the best, if not the best in the league. Florida, their their kill is also good. and their power play has been very good during the playoffs, too. So, those are just some of the keys for me. And then you you you need the timely saves. Like I again, I know it sounds so cliche to say all this stuff, Nick, but you need the timely saves from your goalie. You know, some of it is just things breaking right for you. You know, your goal your goal your goalie is not actively thinking, “Oh, I need to make a save here.” That’s not how it works. You know, some of this is just situational environmental. It happens and you get lucky that your goalie was in the right spot because there was a layer of four bodies in front of him and he didn’t see the puck until it was on him already. So, some of this is, you know, active, proactive, we’re making this happen. And some of it is just as simple as our goalie’s got good positioning. He stays square to the shooters and the puck hits him a lot because he’s got good positioning, right? No, 100%. I mean, you saw that with Aer throughout the playoffs here. Sure, like he’s been a little bit lucky at times with a couple saves, but for the most part, he’s been dynamite and he’s making a really strong case right now for why he should be the team USA starter going into the Olympics next year. But Bravki, he’s been ridiculous so far. Even the Oilers with their makeshift tandem of Cal Pickard and Stuart Skinner, even they’ve gotten timely saves from both those guys. Heck, we saw Stuart Skinner have back-to-back shutouts against the Vegas Golden Knights. Didn’t think we’d be seeing that after how poor he looked against the Kings in the first round. And then as I said, Freddy Anderson, I mean, going into into this series against the Panthers, he had been one of, if not the best goalender in the playoffs so far, at least by a state percentage. Like, he had been really good in the first two rounds. Obviously, you know, that first game against the Panthers was a bit leaky. We’ll have to see if that continues, but he was still bailing the Hurricanes out, especially when they had some rough starts against the Capitals in that second round. He was there to make a lot of those big timely saves. So you you still very much need that for playoff success. Again, I know a lot of this is cliche, but it’s been around for a while and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. It’s a copycat league and I think you’re going to keep seeing a lot of this, especially, you know, teams that are fast and skilled. They run four lines. Like, sure, some of these teams have ratty players. They’re physical. They can lay the big, they can lay the boom and all that, but at the end of the day, these four teams that are left, they’re four of the fastest teams in the league. And this is still very much a speed and skill league. and you’re going to keep seeing that for a very long time. So, two points off of that. Number one, I call hockey a weak link sport. Meaning, if you have the worst player out there, it’s a lot more noticeable than in a strong link sport like basketball where if you have the best player on the floor, it’s a lot easier for them to take control of the game than it is in hockey. Like, don’t get me wrong, McDavid very clearly can do it, but it’s not to the same degree that a ball dominant player in basketball can control the game. And when you have guys who maybe aren’t as good or outright weak links, it puts yourself your team in a disadvantageous position. And then the other point off of that, I think more than ever, having multiple ways to create offense has arguably never been more important. That you need to be able to both create off of the rush for your high-end skill guys. Your first, generally speaking, your top six is going to be creating off the rush. And then your bottom six, that’s where you want your game control. You want your bottom six getting the puck in deep, working the cycle, playing high to low. Because if your bottom six, even if they’re not contributing offense, but they’re keeping the the flow of the game slow, they’re controlling the puck, you’re not on defense, that’s creating more favorable situations for your big boys. And then the other part of that, and you had said this before about special teams, special teams obviously by definition are the most direct area for your special, your elite players to influence control the game. We know that statistically a power play, you’re about 20% more likely to score than you are at five on five. So you get your best players out there in that five on four situation and you take advantage of it consistently like Dallas has who has relatively mediocre five on five numbers. You offset that. You create enough of a gap between your special teams and your five on five. You’re okay. And there’s tradeoff there. You know, you can be a certain threshold of mediocre or okay at five on five if your special teams are that dominant. And you know, Dallas has the luxury of having two number one defenseman where one can run the first power play, one can run the second power play. And they have enough forwards where they can run Granland and Duchain and Ranton in on one. And then on the other one, you can do Sean, you can do Ben, you can do Robertson, you have Hints. They have so many guys they can rotate through where you effectively have two number one power play units out there. And against a team with a weak penalty kill like Edmonton, which partly the goalending has just not been good enough. And then they they’re not doing themselves favors. The weak plays at the line and not committing enough. And when you have that opportunity to ice that puck, send it all the way down. You got to do it. You got to get it out. You can’t be making the hope play. The hope play kills you. And what do they say about hope hunter? It’s the most dangerous thing. the hope play of trying to offset that pressure to just buy yourself an extra 10, 15 seconds, that’ll kill you. You keep doing that over and over again against good teams, eventually it kills you. I mean, we saw that in the first round when the Kings had a chance to go up 3-1. Biffield, if he just makes the simple play there, Nick chips it off the boards, off the glass, sends it out. Kings probably win that game four, they’re up three to one. Who knows if they win that series, but you try to be a little too cute. you try to make, you know, with that hope and stuff and he got burned and then the series fully turned right after that goal, especially with the way the Oilers dominated and they again went on to win four straight after the Kings won the first two. But sometimes simple is just the best. And to your point about the Stars again, that goes with the line of them being so deep, especially at Ford. You know, now that Hin’s back, they’re going back to 126. He’s back going 20 25 minutes a night. you know, they they basically have two number one power players. You can say the same thing for the Panthers as well. They can throw out some of their big dogs on the first one. They can throw out some of the others on the second one. You have Jones quarterbacking one, Eblad quarterbacking the other. You can put Kachchuck with Barkov on one. Maybe if you want, you know, with Reinhardt on there, you can put Bennett Verhy on the other. Like that’s what happens when you have some of the deepest forwards, one of the deepest forward groups, excuse me, in the league. You know, you can say the same for Carolina. Even I know they Edmonton likes to load up their top power play, but even their second power play is still, you know, not bad. I I think it’s totally fine, but again, it goes in line with you got to be deep this time of year. Yep. It it it’s probably it’s really one of the areas where it’s not so much that it’s a separator, it’s that you need it to hold water. You need it to, you know, hold serve to keep the game close because hockey is a weakling sport. You can’t have a nothing burger bottom six because that’s, you know, half the game you’re playing out there with less than sub less than quality players. But that will do it for today’s edition of Locked on NHL. Thank you to everyone that made Locked on NHL their first listen of the day. Please, if you could be so kind, subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast over on YouTube as well. If you’re over on YouTube, let us know in the comments what you’re thinking through the first games of this series. Who you like tonight in Carolina, Florida? Hunter and I will talk to you guys next Thursday. Until then, everyone, enjoy the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Edmonton Oilers controlled Game 1 until they didn’t. On today’s Locked On NHL, Nick Zararis and Hunter Hodies break down how the Dallas Stars flipped the script, why the Carolina Hurricanes simply don’t have the firepower to hang with the Florida Panthers, and what we’ve learned from the final four teams left in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

0:00 Intro: Oilers vs Stars Game 1 recap

5:58 Stars’ power play dominance and Oilers’ PK struggles

11:06 Carolina vs Florida: Similar styles, different results

15:40 Freddie Andersen’s playoff performance under scrutiny

21:17 Key factors for playoff success: Elite talent and depth

26:10 The importance of multiple offensive strategies

30:41 Outro: Depth and special teams in the playoffs

Edmonton Oilers Collapse Late, Dallas Stars power play thrives | Why the Hurricanes are in trouble
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