{"id":564493,"date":"2026-05-01T21:18:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/564493\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T21:18:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:18:48","slug":"leon-draisaitl-reflects-on-oilers-early-playoff-exit-and-teams-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/564493\/","title":{"rendered":"Leon Draisaitl Reflects on Oilers’ Early Playoff Exit and Team’s Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> entered the 2026 NHL<\/a> season tied for the best preseason odds<\/a> to win the Stanley Cup in June, but their run ended earlier than expected.<\/p>\n

The Oilers could do nothing to stop the up-and-coming Anaheim Ducks in their first-round matchup, falling 4-2 in the series and crashing out of the postseason before reaching the second round for the first time since 2021.<\/p>\n

Edmonton wrapped up the series with a final 5-2 loss in Game 6 after winning the opener, but they lost three straight games after that and never recovered.<\/p>\n

After the early elimination, Leon Draisaitl pointed<\/a> to the physical toll on the roster as a defining factor for the loss, with the German center falling just short of using injuries as an excuse for it.<\/p>\n

\"Edmonton<\/p>\n

Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl (29) looks on at the Lenovo Center.James Guillory-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard,\u201d Draisaitl said. \u201cOur centers 1, 2, 3 are playing through stuff. But at the end of the day, you have to find ways to win games in any way. You have to grind one out, you have to defend one out. Injuries, they (stink), and it hit us at a bad time, certainly. But at the end of the day, they were the better team. I\u2019ll leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Draisaitl was blunt in acknowledging that the Oilers were unable to match the Ducks’ play and find the level required to advance deeper into the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, we never really found what you need to find at this time of year especially to go all the way. In my opinion, just not good enough,\u201d Draisaitl said.<\/p>\n

Edmonton averaged 1.83 goals per game in the series after finishing the regular season with the seventh-best GPG average. Draisaitl made clear that despite the injuries, the expectation remained to execute in playoff conditions, and that didn’t happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as much as it hurts, I think they were just the better team,\u201d Draisaitl said.<\/p>\n

The Oilers will enter the offseason with a projected $16.5 million in cap space<\/a> and 15 players of their current 23-man squad under contract.<\/p>\n

Related: Connor McDavid Doesn’t Hold Back After Oilers’ Playoff Exit<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Bruins Share Unfortunate Viktor Arvidsson Update Before Game 6<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on May 1, 2026, where it first appeared in the NHL<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Oilers entered the 2026 NHL season tied for the best preseason odds to win the Stanley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[233,198,146,5300,5,370,4,24,4991],"class_list":["post-564493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton-oilers","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmontonoilers","tag-hockey","tag-leon-draisaitl","tag-nhl","tag-oilers","tag-the-oilers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116501412406716783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564493","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=564493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}