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Anaheim Ducks center Tim Washe, left, puts a hit on Edmonton Oilers defenseman Ty Emberson during the second period of Game 6 in the first round of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif.<\/p>\n
Mark J. Terrill\/AP<\/p>\n
Anaheim Ducks left wing Jeffrey Viel, second from right, celebrates his goal with teammates as Edmonton Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram, left, stands in goal during the third period of Game 3 in the first round of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series Friday, April 24, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif.<\/p>\n
Mark J. Terrill\/AP<\/p>\n
Anaheim Ducks’ John Carlson (74) hits Edmonton Oilers’ Jack Roslovic (28) during the second period of an NHL hockey playoff game in Edmonton, Alberta, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (Codie McLachlan\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n
CODIE MCLACHLAN\/AP<\/p>\n
Edmonton Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram deflects a shot during the third period of Game 3 in the first round of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series against the Anaheim Ducks, Friday, April 24, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif.<\/p>\n
Mark J. Terrill\/AP<\/p>\n
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) \u2014 The Edmonton Oilers, exiting the playoffs early this season after two marathon runs to the Stanley Cup Final, were a dented and depleted team.<\/p>\n
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The 5-2 loss to Anahiem in Thursday\u2019s Game 6 ended Edmonton\u2019s season in the first round. The Oilers were outclassed and outworked by a Ducks team that won its first playoff series since 2017 with a roster that included a dozen players under the age of 25 and 14 who were making their NHL playoff debuts.<\/p>\n
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The Oilers lost to Florida in each of the last two Cup finals in series that lasted seven and six games, respectively. Some Oilers hinted at the beginning of this year\u2019s playoffs that the regular season felt like a chore at times, and that they were relieved to start the postseason again with a shot at finishing the job and hoisting the Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been searching for consistency all year and we didn\u2019t find it here in the playoffs,\u201d said captain Connor McDavid, who signed a short-term contract extension before the season. \u201cIt\u2019s tough. We were an average team all year. An average team with high expectations, you\u2019re going to be disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n McDavid\u2019s ankle, Leon Draisaitl\u2019s knee, Jason Dickinson\u2019s lower-body injury and penalty-kill specialist Adam Henrique\u2019s undisclosed series-ending injury in Game 1 weakened Edmonton up the middle. Draisaitl missed the last 14 games of the regular season.<\/p>\n McDavid and Draisaitl spent the last two games of the series as linemates instead of centring separate lines. They battled, but weren\u2019t able to will their team into a higher gear.<\/p>\n \u201cToo hurt too soon,\u201d McDavid told The Canadian Press. \u201cThe first round is always tough. It\u2019s always chaotic. It\u2019s tough to play through things so early on, as many guys did in here. Credit to our staff for making guys available and making sure they were as comfortable as possible. That being said, it\u2019s not an excuse either. We expected to have a longer run than we did.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Draisaitl had three goals and seven assists in six games. McDavid, who was held off the scoresheet with the first two games of the series, finished with a goal and five assists.<\/p>\n Defense was Edmonton\u2019s downfall, allowing 26 goals in six games. The penalty kill gave up eight goals on Anaheim\u2019s 15 chances. Edmonton\u2019s power play started 0-for-6 in the first two games before finishing 4-for-14.<\/p>\n \u201cWe struggled on the PK all year too. We\u2019ve been searching for consistency there,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cThe power-play could have been better to start the series.\u201d<\/p>\n Edmonton\u2019s offense compensated for a bottom-tier ranking in the NHL in goals-against in the regular season. A leaky defense was magnified in the playoffs. Edmonton scored the first goal in the first five games, yet won just two of them.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cPretty much the story for most of the year. We just didn\u2019t defend well enough,\u201d coach Kris Knoblauch said. \u201cYou usually win or lose on your defensive play. It wasn\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Down 3-1 after the first period in Game 6, the Oilers had time but the Ducks turned a neutral-zone turnover by Evan Bouchard into an odd-man rush and a 4-1 lead before the end of the second period.<\/p>\n \u201cAs much as it hurts, I think they\u2019re just a better team,\u201d Draisaitl said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Did the wear and tear of two long seasons factor into Edmonton\u2019s earliest playoff exit in five years? Players weren’t interested in discussing it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not an excuse,\u201d said forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anaheim Ducks center Tim Washe, left, puts a hit on Edmonton Oilers defenseman Ty Emberson during the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1586,2210,233,5292,155,1739,425,5,4446,2854,370,4,63482,3494,3492,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-564719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim-ducks","8":"tag-adam-henrique","9":"tag-anaheim","10":"tag-anaheim-ducks","11":"tag-anaheimducks","12":"tag-connor-mcdavid","13":"tag-ducks","14":"tag-evan-bouchard","15":"tag-hockey","16":"tag-jason-dickinson","17":"tag-kris-knoblauch","18":"tag-leon-draisaitl","19":"tag-nhl","20":"tag-nhl-playoffs-edmonton","21":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","22":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","23":"tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116502930056459729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564719","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=564719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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