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

2.  Lack of production from the back end

I’ve already listed the culprits, but let’s look at the pairings as a whole.  Chicago’s D produced 3-10-13 from the blueline.  The Oilers produced 0-5-5.  Ouch.  Not good enough.  This is a big reason why Chicago beat us – you need offensive production coming from the back end to win in the playoffs.  Give Chicago credit, they got it, we didn’t.  If I’m Ken Holland I’m not panicking now but I’m wondering if a shakeup may be in order a couple of seasons from now, if not now.  It’ll also make it easier to let guys on expiring contracts like Matt Benning walk because his stock went down in these playoffs.

Live Feed

Puck Prose

1.  Injuries

Now, this is much more beyond our control, but it still played a part.  Of course, as Dave Tippett is quick to point out, this is not an excuse, but it definitely played a factor.

The key injury was minute muncher Adam Larsson in game 2.  Most teams would hurt if one of their top pairing guys went down, so the Oilers are no exception.

Then when the other regular top 4 righty  – Ethan Bear – went down temporarily in game 4, that was also an added loss.  At least we got him back, but even 7 minutes without your top 2 righty D is a huge loss.

Tyler Ennis was playing pretty well before he got injured too, so that was frustrating to see. So 2 regular D and 1 top 6 forward.  Yeah, that’ll take some of the wind out of your sails.

Unfortunately, their replacements didn’t really step up either, so that’s also frustrating.  That’s the other key part of this equation, and when it doesn’t happen that will contribute to the series being lost.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, either.  If Dwayne Roloson hadn’t have been injured for game 7 in 2006, would the Oilers have won the cup instead of Carolina?  Personally, I’d like to think so.

So there ya have it.  Comment away.