There is an understandable tendency to make Oilers losses about the Oilers rather than about the team that beat them. After being eliminated by the Anaheim Ducks 5-2 in Game 6 on Thursday, Connor McDavid put a damper on the rhetorical appeal of that angle by summing up Edmonton's season so succinctly and so accurately that there's not really much to be said beyond it: "When you're an average team with high expectations," McDavid said, "you're going to be disappointed."
Opponents matter. After four straight first rounds of drawing and beating the Kings, who could euphemistically be described as a team that focuses at both ends on "goal prevention," this time Edmonton got the Ducks. Anaheim is young, fast, and high-scoring, and the old, banged-up, and defensively suspect Oilers simply could not hang. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins directed the praise where it belongs: "That's a real hockey team over there."
It's a shame they hired Joel Quenneville, because the Ducks are otherwise a pretty easy team to root for. They are unpolished and chaotic; they seem to treat their defensemen like forwards who just play back a little; I'm not sure they're aware it's legal to employ a goaltender with a save percentage that starts with "9."
2023 No. 2 pick Leo Carlsson is blossoming into a real 1C, and young blueliner Jackson LaCombe had a starmaking turn with nine points in the six games of this series. Winger Beckett Sennecke, with 60 points in his rookie year, would be a Calder favorite if Matthew Schaefer hadn't been born. Cutter Gauthier, who forced his way out of Philadelphia, put up the first of what I imagine will be several 40-goal seasons. And it's nice to see 28-year-old Troy Terry, the longest-tenured Duck, rewarded for years of carrying some terrible squads' scoring loads.
Terry, who has sported the "undersized" label his whole career, represents the skating-first stereotype of these Ducks: He didn't record his first hit of the season until April. It's not a particularly accurate stereotype anymore. "There’s been a lot of talk about their speed and skill, but there’s a lot of size," Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. The Ducks committed to the muscled-up lifestyle when they named Radko Gudas their captain two offseasons ago, and then traded for hitmeister Jacob Trouba and big-bodied forward Chris Kreider. Alongside Mason McTavish, Kreider has given the Ducks depth scoring that can bang with the best of 'em. Midseason acquisition Jeffrey Viel will get down in the muck on either end of the ice.
In the close quarters of the postseason, teams make their own puck luck, and it helps to be big and fast. They push extra hard on a breakout, hoping to catch a defense in transition, or they put bodies on net and hope for some optimistic bounces. There are fewer pretty goals in the playoffs (though of course every goal is beautiful in its own right). Anaheim broke the Oilers' back in the first period on Thursday night, and they did it via their physical advantages.
Ryan Poehling muscled his way into the slot and got credit for a Carlsson slapper that pinballed its way through. A fierce backcheck turned into an odd-man rush the Oilers couldn't chase down. A Gauthier shot on a power play hit an Edmonton stick and knuckled up and over Connor Ingram. If it looks like luck, luck's often paid for in the same coin that earns shooters time and space.
These Ducks look unbeatable when they're flying. It's probably not the sort of hockey that's sustainable against a tighter opponent—they scored 22 goals in their four wins—but next up they have either Vegas or Utah, both defensively challenged themselves. It could be fireworks, especially if Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal (or occasionally Ville Husso) continues to struggle. Dostal's their Achilles' heel right now, making them feel a little like—well, like the Oilers of the last few years. But no one ever said those Oilers weren't fun to watch.
But that's getting ahead of things. This is Anaheim's first playoff series win since 2017, the year before Terry made his NHL debut. "It was our first taste of it and we knew that this series was there for us if played the right way," Terry said. This is basically uncharted territory for most of the roster: 13 Ducks are making their postseason debut. There's some veteran presence in the dressing room—Alex Killorn and Mikael Granlund, particularly, have been through the playoff wringer—but sometimes, knowing how to deal with pressure is less effective than simply not realizing you're supposed to feel pressure in the first place. The Ducks will go as far as their younger players can take them, and those guys are pretty fast.
