It may have started off a little bit rough, but the Edmonton Oilers were able to defeat the Los Angeles Kings in six games. Now that they have moved on from the first round, they now will be facing the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round. For the Oilers this will be a tougher challenge for sure as the Golden Knights were the better team in the regular season, but as we know when it comes to the Playoffs, the regular season means nothing.
In this article I am going to be breaking down the offense between these two teams. At first glance you might think that it would be a landslide win for the Edmonton Oilers because they have Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid but taking a quick look down the Golden Knights lineup there are some strong players. So, let's take a deep look into the forwards for both of these teams.
Knights Player | Oilers Player | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Jack Eichel | 94 | Connor McDavid | 106 |
Mark Stone | 67 | Leon Draisaitl | 100 |
Tomas Hertl | 61 | Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 67 |
Pavel Dorofeyev | 52 | Zach Hyman | 44 |
Ivan Barbashev | 51 | Corey Perry | 30 |
Brett Howden | 40 | Connor Brown | 30 |
Reilly Smith | 40 | Jeff Skinner | 29 |
Just looking at the above table you can see that the Edmonton Oilers clearly have the high level skill battle won in this one. The place where the Oilers start to lose the in offense is to the depth forward scoring of the Vegas Golden Knights. Make note, that in this table I did not include any defenseman if I did Evan Bouchard, Jake Walman, Mattias Ekholm and Darnell Nurse for the Oilers and for the Golden Knights Shea Theodore would be on that list.
For this series I think that even though the Golden Knights have had better depth scoring number I think the Oilers overall have better offense. The amount of offence that McDavid and Draisaitl bring is enought to honestly beat any team in the NHL. The one team that could come close is maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs with Marner and Matthews but let's be real they won't make it to play the Oilers in the post season.
For the depth of the Oilers, it has actually scored more this post season in compared to the regular season. Both Mattias Janmark and Connor Brown have elevated their game just like they did last season. If they depth is able to keep the Golden Knights depth players in check and maybe pot a couple of goals themselves then I think the Oilers will win this series. We won't have to worry about the Oilers big guns playing good cause they have proven in the past they can.