Western Conference Final Preview
After beating the Canucks in a hair on fire game 7, the Oilers will now do battle with the Dallas Stars.
After a grueling series against the pesky Canucks, the Edmonton Oilers have advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the second time in three seasons. They take on the Dallas Stars who have home ice advantage, among many other advantages according to hockey zeitgeist.
Post after post from vitriolic hockey fans and/or people with disdain for the Edmonton Oilers are regarding this as a David versus Goliath matchup in which the former has no chance of winning.
This last post on X is the one I want to linger on for the bulk of this analysis.
It seems as though most of the punditry online and on cable tv are echoing the same sentiments about the Oilers depth. There is obvious validity to the claim that the Stars have good depth, but this notion that it is “so much better” is what I view as a lazy take or shall we say, passenger.
Much has been made this season about how the Stars had eight players who scored twenty or more goals.
This is an excellent list, populated by excellent players particularly Wyatt Johnston and Jamie Benn who play together on a line with Logan Stankoven. The trio have been electric since Stankoven joined them on February 24th for a contest against the Carolina Hurricanes. In that his first game he hopped over the boards 21 times for 15:20 of TOI, had 3 shots on goal and finished the day +1. The combo have not looked back since. The rookie Stankoven finished with 14 points in 24 games, Benn had another impressive season that has parlayed into a strong playoff performance to date, and Wyatt Johnston is on pace for a Conn Smythe trophy. He currently has 7 goals and 4 assists in 13 games played.
The NHL playoffs are different though and this is a ‘what have you done for me lately’ kind of game. Upon further review, you find some flaws in the thinking that this team is so much deeper without even looking that hard.
First of all, Joe Pavelski who was the heartbeat of this team in last years run has a meager 1 goal, 3 assists and is -1. He’s currently 99th among playoff performers in scoring. Brett Kulak has the same boxcars save for the +3, and Mattias Ekholm has 2 more goals than him.
Matt Duchene currently sits 64th in scoring among playoff skaters with 2 goals and 4 assists, Logan Stankoven with the same stats as the aforementioned Ekholm. Of the top 40 in scoring in the playoffs, two players dawn Stars uniforms and five wear the oil drop.
None of this is to say that the Oilers are the deeper team, they aren’t, we all know what they’re up against in this Stars team. They have three solid lines that have produced offence and chances all season long albeit sparingly as of late (when offence is harder to come by). But this prognostication that the Stars are “so much better” is just factually inaccurate. My sense is that many are valuing these rosters through the lens of name recognition rather than actual production. The Oilers have 7 players these playoffs with 3 goals or more, the same amount as Dallas. The Oilers also have 9 players with 2 goals or more, same as Dallas.
The above image is each teams top nine goal scorers, illuminated in the far right column (tables provided as always from hockey-reference.com). Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Evander Kane have double the amount of goals that Matt Duchene and Roope Hintz have, whose status is up in the air, and the same amount as Cody Ceci. To plant a flag on Dallas’ scoring depth being a clear advantage is again just flat out incorrect. To be very clear I am not proposing to you that Ceci is as good as those two forwards. What I am proposing to you however is to ask the question, what is actual scoring depth?
Part of the equation is also that many, myself included, both underestimated how good the Canucks are and are even in hindsight not giving them the credit they deserve for how good they defended. The Canucks deployed Soucy and Myers along with the Miller line in such a fashion that stymied the McDavid unit. They used their range, legs and mental discipline to rarely abort their positions and always maintain their nose over the puck. The Dallas Stars don’t have a centremen with the two way acumen of J.T Miller, they have many good ones, but none like him. Furthermore, If Knoblauch finds a way to get McDavid away from the ever effective Tanev* & Lindell pairing, and out against the likes of less effective defenders such as Ryan Suter, Alex Petrovic, and Nils Lundkvist, Petr Deboer is going to have a major problem on his hands.
*Chris Tanev has been the most effective pure defender in the NHL playoffs, more on this later*
The Oilers are also due to get Adam Henrique back from injury according to Tony Brar, OilersTV insiderer who posted on X today that coach Kris Knoblauch said he expects him early in the series, “game 3 or earlier”. He only has 1 marker, but he adds some offensive prowess and incredible two way play.
The other major factor that has not been mentioned amongst the fervor is just how much more pace Edmonton plays with in comparison to Dallas who lack team speed. NHL Edge Tracker has three Oilers (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Mcleod) in the top 10 for 20+mph bursts and the lone Star is Roope Hintz. Jason Robertson who is a great player make no mistake, has looked to be in the bottom tier amongst NHLers in terms of footspeed all playoff long as does Pavelski. Both lose foot races for pucks constantly and rely on their puck handling to win their shifts.
Edge(s)
We’re going to start with a glaring weakness for Edmonton.
It’s no secret that Stuart Skinner is no Jake Oettinger, that lazy take is one I will abide simply because it’s obviously true. After being pulled in game three against Vancouver, Knoblauch said in his post game press conference “we need more saves”. Doesn’t get any more clear cut than that.
The frustration with Skinner is that he seemingly lets the pucks in that are routine stops for other netminders, those your team is expecting you to have in order to keep them in the game.
On the other end of the sheet is Jake Oettinger who has really only had one poor outing in this entire playoff season, game one against LVK in round one. In 13 starts the man has a .918 sv% and an outstanding 2.09 GAA, the latter being second only to Juuse Saros (2.02) among eligible starters in the playoffs.
EDGE: Clearly Dallas, we don’t need to spend time on this one.
The blueline’s for these clubs are complicated. Ekholm and Bouchard have been the best outscoring pair in the NHL from the beginning of the regular season until now. Brett Kulak has upped his game once again this playoffs as he tends to do come spring, and Vinny Desharnais has taken a massive leap forward in his development and is now relied upon in crucial moments such as the top penalty kill and defending a one goal lead on empty net drives from opponents. While on paper the Stars top three of Miro Heiskenen, Tomas Harley and Chris Tanev pop off the page in such a way that will have you thinking the edge is clearly in their favor, the actual story is more complicated particularly when you dig into the numbers of Lindell, Lundkvist, Suter, and Petrovic. Jani Hakanpää remains out due to a lower body injury suffered back in March and has no timetable to return. If he can draw back into this Stars lineup that would immediately change the complexion of the series as he’s a very capable shut down defender.
Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse over the course of two seasons have often stuck out like sore thumbs. Their re-occurring bad habits oft get them into trouble and those who watch them infrequently will find themselves turning on an Oilers game only to see one of the two, but always together on the ice, peeling a puck out of their own net. In these playoffs, Nurse carries a -10 rating while averaging 19:29 minutes a game. Cody Ceci is -6 with 19:37 ATOI. Not good.
After their divorce post game five though, they both improved their boxcars. Especially in Game 7 against Vancouver to close out the series. Nurse was exceptional on the penalty kill and Ceci opened the scoring with a bullet from the point. The pairings at the Oilers on ice session yesterday remained unchanged with Ceci skating with Kulak, and Nurse with Desharnais.
On the other bench, the Stars have some eye sores of their own. Ryan Suter has some decent stats (+4) despite appearing incredibly slow and frequently mismanaging the puck. Lundkvist was recently removed from the lineup due to not having the trust of Deboer in favor of Alex Petrovic who played 16:25 minutes of ice time and broke even but also looks immobile and struggles to make quick decisions.
The Stars do however have top tier talent in the three aforementioned stalwarts one of which (Heiskenen) leads their team in points with 11.
Who defends better is up for debate according to the analytics community, but the raw outscoring data as it pertains to Chris Tanev is so beyond impressive it’s hard to wrap your head around. In round one against Vegas, he played 46:34 against Jack Eichel and in those minutes Dallas outscored them 3-0. In the following round Tanev played 69:01 against Nathan MacKinnon and in those minutes the Stars won 3-1. And an even more impressive layer added to this context, is that in those minutes he had 66 d-zone starts on his shift as opposed to 20 o-zone starts. Mind blowing stuff from the inarguable top trade deadline acquisition.
EDGE: Dallas, but not by much.
The offence of both teams is formidable and for different reasons. We already went through the stats, so let’s assess each style.
Neither team is particularly physical. I was surprised to see that the edge in average hits per game actually favors Edmonton. Both teams are determined on the forecheck and like to do their work off the cycle, and both teams average a high volume of shots (EDM 29.9 per game DAL 28.9 per game).
The major difference is that Edmonton is much faster, but Dallas manages the puck lot better. While you’ll often see Edmonton creating a high danger chance with speed, they will frequently force a passing lane that isn’t there and turn the puck over and this is likely to lead to some issues for them. Dallas doesn’t force errors at the same rate, but on the other hand they also don’t create as many high danger opportunities which will be the most fun balancing act to follow over the course of this series.
The Oilers right now have an offence that is breaking records. Evan Bouchard is the first defender to ever have 20 points after only two rounds in NHL playoff history. Not Orr, Not Coffey, Not Lidstrom. Bouchard. McDavid is “quiet” while second amongst skaters in points, and Leon Draisaitl leads the pack with 24 points and looks like the Conn Smythe odds on favorite despite not being it. The points leader list looks like this.
You couple this with the fact that Zach Hyman leads the playoffs in goals (11) and even strength goals (7), and you would have to squint very hard to see a way of giving the advantage in this category to Dallas.
EDGE: Edmonton
Bottom Line
The other advantage that Edmonton has in this series is special teams, by a substantial margin. They’re the best penalty killing unit hands down which doesn’t get spoken of enough, and the top powerplay unit. The problem for them is that historically, there are far fewer penalties called in the Conference Finals and this advantage may not help them. And when they do find themselves on the powerplay they need to make good on it far more than Dallas does on their man advantage opportunities as they don’t have the 5on5 scoring rate of their counterparts in green.
Another hurdle Edmonton has to clear is themselves. As I said back in October when I predicted these two would meet in this series, the Oilers have a tendency to make life harder on themselves than it is has to be and that phenomena was on display in the third period of Game 7 against Vancouver.
Ryan McLeod started the soft parade with a bad giveaway on a clearing attempt that should’ve been a simple out that gifted Garland a goal to pull within two. And then a few moments later, Bouchard unnecessarily iced the puck, giving the Canucks an offensive zone draw against tired Oilers, McDavid was unable to win the draw (an area of his game that needs improving) and Ekholm screened Skinner on a Hronek blast that allowed them to pull within one. On a night where they played a near perfect game, they made two crucial errors late that ended up in the back of their net and it almost cost them.
They will absolutely have to learn from those and not repeat them if they want to win this series. I’m choosing to believe that they can.
I do think that Dallas is the better team in this series but the margin is thin. What you’ve likely been seeing in the media social or otherwise is a barrage of unthoughtful analysis from people pulling up each teams line combos and seeing names like Duchene and Seguin further down the depth chart. The reality is the top two lines for Edmonton are better and do have the ability to win their shifts each time they’re on the ice against Dallas’ top competition.
Finally, I don’t think McDavid has come this far just to layover and die. I am predicting he has a far more productive series than his last. Time for him to shine.
Oilers in 7.