For the second straight game the Edmonton Oilers are at risk of ending their season against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night. They will be playing on the road in Anaheim,
Need to Know
- Round 1, Game 6
- Puck Drop: 8pm Mountain time (7pm Pacific)
- Location: Honda Centre, Anaheim, CA
- Series score: Anaheim leads 3-2
- Where to watch: Sportsnet (Canada) and TNT/truTV (USA). Streaming options include Sportsnet+, DIRECTV, and Max
Who to watch
The Edmonton Oilers are icing a relatively healthy roster, with both Connor McDavid and Jason Dickinson likely to be IN as of the morning skate. Of the two, Dickinson is less of a sure thing. Leon Draisaitl's strong play will continue to be a factor, and Anaheim Ducks coach Joel Quenneville is surely working on how to limit the Oilers' second best player.
Draisaitl, McDavid, and Kasperi Kapanen are likely to make up the Oilers' first line, and quite honestly, game-planning for the Dynamic Duo and the Oilers' hottest depth player likely means limiting them to a goal or two at 5-on-5. If the Ducks find themselves in penalty trouble as well, the series is headed back to Edmonton.
Duck Hunting
The Oilers need to continue their trend of scoring first. Anaheim has been a horrible first period team all season, and when the Oilers have been able to mount and keep leads, the results have been wins. Protecting those leads has been the biggest area of weakness in the Oilers' game, but the third period of Game 5 showed that they're more than capable of doing so.
Anaheim's powerplay has been a dangerous weapon, and in what has become something of a heated series, cooler heads need to prevail. Penalties on the far end of the ice simply cannot happen, because every game has been a dogfight, and while the Oilers remain elite with the man advantage, they've underwhelmed in 4-on-5 situations.
Ducks captain Radko Gudas remains day-to-day, and isn't expected to play in Game 6. That absence exposes the Ducks' relatively thin depth on the blueline, and Anaheim's netminders, Lukas Dostal and Ville Husso, haven't been able to keep the score low, even in their three wins. A well-executed game plan should show that a gap still exists between the experienced Oilers and the relatively young, though talented, Ducks.
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