{"id":503675,"date":"2026-03-14T22:11:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T22:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/503675\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T22:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T22:11:25","slug":"tychkowski-oilers-a-mystery-target-on-mcdavid-should-leafs-waste-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/503675\/","title":{"rendered":"TYCHKOWSKI: Oilers a mystery; target on McDavid; should Leafs waste one?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The time for making grand pronouncements about the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> is over.<\/p>\n

Playoff team? Non-playoff team? Contender? Pretender?<\/p>\n

Playing possum? Nothing left after two unsuccessful Cup runs?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t bother trying to put this team in a box or trying to predict where this season is going to go.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a waste of time.<\/p>\n

They might flick the switch and start playing the kind of hockey that took them four rounds deep the last two years, or they might not.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve made it clear, through 67 games of woeful inconsistency that has them clinging to a playoff spot in the weakest division in hockey (and 19th in the overall standings), that even they don\u2019t know what happens next.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you get the scrappy, responsible team we saw against Vegas and Colorado, and sometimes you get the pushovers we saw in Dallas.<\/p>\n

And sometimes, like in the 3-2 overtime loss in St. Louis, you get both on the same night.<\/p>\n

No rhyme. No reason. That\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n

Miss the playoffs? Maybe. Wild-card team that bows out against Colorado in the first round? Maybe. Walk through the Pacific Division to a third-straight Western Conference final? Maybe.<\/p>\n

This team is bipolar from top to bottom. There are five weeks left in the season and they are still a mystery. The only thing we know for absolute certain is that it\u2019s going to be a wild ride.<\/p>\n

A TARGET ON HIS BACK?<\/p>\n

If you are Connor McDavid<\/a>, you have to be feeling a little nervous after the NHL\u2019s laughably named Department of Player Safety gave Anaheim\u2019s Radko Gudas a wrist slap for blowing out Auston Matthews\u2019 knee.<\/p>\n

A dirty hit from a dirty player with a long history of suspensions (six times, totalling 26 games) that knocks one of the league\u2019s superstars out for the season and the former Anaheim Duck gives the current Anaheim Duck five games?<\/p>\n

Curious George Parros actually believes this makes the NHL safer? That\u2019s no deterrent at all. In fact, it almost sends the message that it\u2019s a worthwhile investment if it means eliminating a top player from a series, or in advance of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

This is a troubling statement from the NHL: It\u2019s not quite open season on the skilled guys, but the penalty for hunting them is still pretty slack, so take your shot.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re McDavid and the Oilers, this might be a troubling development.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Radko Gudas #7 of the Anaheim Ducks is congratulated at the bench after scoring a goal during the first period of a game against the Montr\u00e9al Canadiens at Honda Center on March 06, 2026 in Anaheim, California.<\/p>\n

GOALIES UNDER SIEGE<\/p>\n

If Connor Ingram plays that last game against Dallas, do the Oilers win?<\/p>\n

No, they don\u2019t. Maybe they only lose 5-2 instead of 7-2, but they got what they deserved on that night. And when it doesn\u2019t matter which goalie played, you would have lost anyway, the problem runs much deeper than goaltending.<\/p>\n

Tristan Jarry needs to get better, but it\u2019s hard for a goalie to shake out of a slump when the team in front of him refuses to buckle down and help. And Ingram, with a save percentage below .900 in nine of his last 11 appearances, is not going to be a saviour.<\/p>\n

As long as these goalies remain under siege, the floodgates will remain open.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 67 games into the season we\u2019re still seeing the same high-risk passes, the same ill-fated gambles at the offensive blue line and the same steadfast refusal to play it safe and dump it in when there\u2019s nothing there that we saw in October.<\/p>\n

Yes, we get it, there are some elite, creative players out there who deserve a lot of leash, but winning playoff hockey is straight lines, going hard to the net and shooting every time you get the chance.<\/p>\n

Mid March is when this stuff should be automatic for a team that knows what it takes.<\/p>\n

LEAFS NEED TO FIGHT BACK<\/p>\n

So, what are the Maple Leafs going to do about it?<\/p>\n

They play Anaheim again in a couple of weeks and it will be a fascinating study on how much heart they really have. If somebody gets into a wrestling match with Gudas and that\u2019s it, \u2018call it even\u2019 then we\u2019ll have our answer.<\/p>\n

The Leafs need to waste one. They\u2019re not going to the playoffs, they don\u2019t need to worry about penalties or suspensions. They they need to come out of Anaheim with their pound of flesh, taken from the Ducks\u2019 best players. Turn the evening into a gong show. Embarrass the league. Send Gudas and the Ducks the message that Parros wouldn\u2019t \u2014 what you did is not acceptable.<\/p>\n

Or they can curl up and let it be known that it\u2019s OK to take out their captain.<\/p>\n

BAD SEED<\/p>\n

The second-overall Dallas Stars playing the fourth-overall Minnesota Wild in the first round, and the winner of that playing the first-place team overall in the second round, is another example of how out of touch the NHL is with its fans.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the other side of the draw, the hope is that the elite Central Division teams beat each other up so badly in the preliminary rounds that a 19th-place team can sneak into the Cup final?<\/p>\n

How dense do you have to be to think that format is good for the league?<\/p>\n

Of course, if we\u2019re talking about the only fair way of doing this, one versus eight, then the seventh-place Oilers get Dallas in the first round, or miss the playoffs altogether, so maybe we should hold off on the indignation till next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The time for making grand pronouncements about the Edmonton Oilers is over. Playoff team? Non-playoff team? Contender? Pretender?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5125],"tags":[2210,532,144,2663,155,196,147,50192,1543,198,146,5300,30846,5,1123,20,38,4,24,28506,9464,59274,15,534,6769,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-503675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-auston-matthews","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-connor-ingram","12":"tag-connor-mcdavid","13":"tag-dallas","14":"tag-dallas-stars","15":"tag-david-zalubowski","16":"tag-devon-toews","17":"tag-edmonton","18":"tag-edmonton-oilers","19":"tag-edmontonoilers","20":"tag-george-parros","21":"tag-hockey","22":"tag-mackenzie-blackwood","23":"tag-maple-leafs","24":"tag-minnesota-wild","25":"tag-nhl","26":"tag-oilers","27":"tag-playoff-team","28":"tag-radko-gudas","29":"tag-responsible-team","30":"tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins","31":"tag-st-louis","32":"tag-tristan-jarry","33":"tag-vegas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116229825902759951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}