Edmonton Oilers: What went wrong in the Stanley Cup playoffs?

The Edmonton Oilers have much to learn from their Stanley Cup playoffs exit

Any Edmonton Oilers fan no doubt knows by now that the team was upset by Chicago in the play-in series.  This is a huge disappointment as the Oilers were picked by many – myself included – to roll over Chicago and move on the 1st round of the playoffs.  Instead, we have to cross our fingers and hope for the best in the draft lottery now.

If it’s any consolation, the Oilers weren’t the only team upset in the play-in series.  Montreal upset Pittsburgh, who ran into a brick wall named Carey Price – and eerily enough, Pittsburgh contains 2 NHL superstars just like the Oilers but were unable to use that to their advantage.

Also, it wasn’t just me that picked the Oilers to roll over the Hawks.  Steve Dangle of Sportsnet also picked the Oilers to win in the series “in 3-4 games.”

Why is that?  I watched as much of the series as I could, I was unable to watch all of it but was able to watch most of it.  Let me go through what I think was the problem and you can decide amongst yourselves if you agree or not.

6.  Unable to match Chicago’s intensity

It never really occurred to me while I was watching the series, but in retrospect, Chicago used their experience and underdog status by the talking/writing heads to their advantage.  Even just using the naked eye test, everywhere you looked Chicago was more intensely chasing scoring chances, defending against the Oilers, hitting more, blocking shots more, you name it.

About the only thing I could see that the Oilers kept up with the Hawks on is getting points on the PP – and even then that was only in certain games and not so much others.

I – along with a host of others, it seems – underestimated the effect of Chicago’s experience winning 3 cups between 2010-2015.  I assumed their window to win was starting to shut, but it appears that’s not the case just yet.

What surprised me most about the Hawks was how much of a beast Jonathan Toews was in the series.  He had a huge down year in the regular season and really brought it in the playoffs for the Hawks, leading them in scoring with 7 points in the 4 games.  Olli Maatta was huge, too.  I knew the guy was a decent puck mover, but I wasn’t expecting 4 points in 4 games – all from a 3rd pairing guy.

We’ve seen the Oilers play like this in the regular season, but they certainly didn’t dial it up in the playoffs.  Hopefully, this is a lesson learned this year, and the team can win their next series next year – and make no mistake the window to win has just opened so the Oilers will be back in the playoffs next year.  Unlikely this is a one and done deal like in 2017.  This team is too good to NOT be considered a playoff contender now.  Now they know how they have to play, let’s hope they take this lesson to heart for next season.

Team defence, in particular, absolutely MUST be better next year.

5.  Disappearing PK

The PP in the series more or less matched what they did in the regular season – 29.4% vs. 29.5% – but the PK was WAY off. The PK, in the regular season #2 in the league at 84.4%, dropped to #15 in the playoffs at 77.8% – and it wasn’t like the Hawks PP was all that lethal – it was still top 10 in the playoffs but finished #10 at 22.2% – a full 6 spots below the Oilers and 7.2% worse.

How could a PK that was one of the best in the league in the regular season struggle so badly in the playoffs?  If you can answer that question you’ve probably got a coaching background and I would love to hear your theories. One thing’s for sure – what we do know is the PK needed to step up their game and instead they dropped the ball.

4.  The goaltending wasn’t good enough

Now, before I go and point the finger too hard at the goaltenders, there are 2 things to keep in mind here:

A.  Team defence always plays a factor in goaltending.  The worse the team plays in front of the goaltender the more and better quality scoring chances will be in front of him, and naturally, the more goals will be let in.  So, goaltending stats have to be taken with a grain of salt.

B.  If you go strictly by the numbers none of the goaltenders were particularly good in the series.  Smith was absolutely brutal in game 1, and it’s no wonder he rode the pine for the rest of the series, finishing the playoffs with an 11.11 GAA and .783 sv%.  Those, FYI, are the worst playoff stats of Smith’s career across the board.  Koskinen, on the other hand, was better, but not great.  He finished with a 3.16 GAA and an .889 sv%.  That last number is not even NHL average, so that’s no good.

But Crawford didn’t exactly steal the series for Chicago, either.  He finished with a 3.75 GAA and an .891 sv%. The difference is neither of the Oilers goaltenders could shut the door when it counted and steal enough saves for the Oilers.  Koskinen did it here and there in a game but not consistently enough.

Crawford, on the other hand, was able to shut the door on an onslaught of Connor Mcdavid, Leon Draisaitl, and the Nuge when it counted, especially during game 4 after Chicago scored the go-ahead goal.  That was the difference in goal.

Want another example of this?  I didn’t watch the Habs-Pens series but from what I’m hearing Carey Price won it for the Habs.  The goaltender made the difference in that series.  The Oilers goatenders were not able to make the difference in this series.

Imagine if one of Smith or Koskinen had played lights out in games 1, 3, or 4.  We’d be talking about a tied series.  Instead now all we have to look forward to is the draft lottery, and seeing if we can win, draft Alexis Lafreniere, and make the NHL’s collective heads explode with yet another #1 pick.

This is evident throughout NHL history, too.  Remember Grant Fuhr?  He was legendary for shutting the door when the Oilers needed him to in the 80s and was a big part of the dynasty years.  Patrick Roy was a big part of the cups for both Montreal and Colorado.  Goaltending can win games in the playoffs when the rest of the team doesn’t have it, and the Oilers didn’t have that this time around.

One good thing that should result from this:  the end of the Mike Smith experiment.  We obviously didn’t learn our lesson from the terrible contract we gave Khabibulin.  At least we’re not stuck with Smith for 3 more seasons….

3.  Players who disappeared instead of stepped up

A lot of players were to blame for the series loss.  As you would expect, it wasn’t the big 3.  McDavid, Dr. Drai, and Nuge all delivered offensively for us.  James Neal had a good series too, finishing with 3 points in 4 games.  Before his injury, Tyler Ennis had 2 points in 3 games – bet covered.

The biggest disappointment to me was Zack Kassian.  The guy led the Oilers in scoring in the 1st round of the 2017 playoffs and he was nowhere to be found in this series.  He literally contributed NOTHING on offence, which is a disappointment because we know he can be better.  No wonder he was playing on the 4th line in the last game.  Yup, he was that bad.

What really confused me about Kassian, though, is even if he doesn’t score, he can still contribute with physical play by hitting and fighting.  And yet, how many hits did Kassian have in this series?  3.  Yes, 3. That’s brutal and ties him with such physical heavyweights as Tyler Ennis and Gaetan Haas.  For the record, he was #6 on the Oilers in hits in 2017.  This year he was 14th.  What gives?

He’s better than this.  Josh Archibald took his spot in the lineup next to Mcdavid and performed much better, with 17 hits and a key goal in game 4. Kassian is starting a new contract with a raise next year.  He needs to be just as good in the playoffs as he is in the regular season, because I would wager if he disappoints in next season’s playoffs then Holland will ship him out on the next trade he can drum up. I was impressed with Andreas Athanasiou‘s effort but not his finish.  He finished with literally nothing.

Our 2 most lethal puck movers, Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom turned in whopping no goals and 4 points combined.  How could a 3rd pairing d-man in Olli Maatta and old balls Duncan Keith equal that production by themselves?  Ethan Bear and Kailer Yamamoto produced no offence at all, which is unusual for them considering the regular seasons they had, but those 2 I’m willing to give a little more latitude to as this was their first trip to the playoffs after their rookie seasons.

Those 2 need to elevate their games next year so teams can’t just key in on the big 3 and stifle our offence.  Our 3rd pairing d-men produced a whopping 1 assist between all 3 combined in the series.  Yes, they’re not primarily counted on for offence but for depth scoring to disappear that badly is not good.

All told, Chicago had 13 players who produced at least a point in the series, while the Oilers had only 10 players.  10 of Chicago’s 13 produced at least 2 points.  The Oilers only had 8 players with at least 2 points in the series.  Simply put, Chicago’s depth scoring came through for them.  Ours did not.