EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers are crushing the Dallas Stars at five-on-five in this series, beating them 3-0 in a low-event game in Game 2 and then smoking the Stars 6-1 in a run ‘n’ gun, high-event Game 3.
The Oilers’ goaltending is better, their big boys are more productive and they’re out-hitting the Stars. Meanwhile, Dallas has the better special teams and it hasn’t mattered a lick — they’re down 2-1 in the series.
The bottom line?
If there is some way that the Stars are going to end their run of Western Conference Final silver medals, they’d better invent it soon. Because right now, Edmonton looks like a team that can beat them no matter which the way the game gets played.
“You have to. You have to win games different ways,” said Connor McDavid, who rolled into the NHL’s playoff scoring lead (22 points) Sunday with a two-goal afternoon in a rare Edmonton matinee.
“You have to have dominant nights. You have to have nights where maybe your goalie is better than theirs. You have to have nights where your special teams gets it done,” he listed. “Five-on-five has been really good, it’s been our strength all playoffs long, which is maybe new for this group.
“We’ve relied on power play for a long time and for whatever reason it hasn’t been clicking. You have to find ways to win different games different ways and we did again tonight.”
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Edmonton has outscored Dallas 9-3 at five-on-five in this series, and 5-1 at evens in Game 3. And if you don’t think it’s a concern, just ask Stars coach Pete DeBoer about it — and see if he doesn’t jam that question right back down your throat.
“You guys keep talking about the five-on-five numbers,” DeBoer said, when asked about it in his pre-game availability. “We were minus-5 against Colorado five-on-five without (Miro) Heiskanen, without (Jason) Robertson. In the Winnipeg series we were minus-1 or -2 against the best defensive team in the league.
“The story here is how a team has gutted through two rounds without two of their best players. Who cares about the stats? Who cares about the five-on-five?
“You guys and the analytics, and the five-on-five stuff. Take a look at the path we’ve been on and what we’ve dealt with. That’s probably why the analytics and trending the other way now. We’re starting to get some guys healthy.”
Actually, he’s right. The fancy stats looked great in Game 3 for Dallas — and that might just be the Stars’ biggest issue.
Dallas outshot the Oilers 36-24, had the lion’s share of the expected goals (4.22 to 3.09), and had way more O-zone time (26:19 to 20:18) than Edmonton. But still, the Stars came out on the wrong end of a lopsided 6-1 score.
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“They brought a ton of speed, got a lot of O-zone time and got some good chances,” said Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner, who was simply heroic on Sunday. “They were definitely the better team in the second period and we knew that going into the third, so we just had to re-set and battle it out.”
In short, when Dallas made their push, the Oilers survived it. When Edmonton pushed back, Dallas didn’t just bend.
They broke.
And while the high-end Stars are heading back to the drawing board to figure out how they’ve scored just once in the last 120 minutes of this series, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (three assists), Zach Hyman (2-1-3), Evan Bouchard (1-1-2), Evander Kane (two assists) and McDavid all ventilated Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger Sunday, the Team USA goaltender who has once again been the second best ‘tendy on the ice in this Dallas-Edmonton playoff matchup.
“I think we’re all just kind of doing our thing and trying to chip in wherever we can,” said the humble Nugent-Hopkins, who has at least two points in each game of this series. “Our line got a couple tonight. It is nice to see it go in and to capitalize when we get our chances.”
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Zach Hyman added 10 hits on a plus-5 night. If he does any more around here he’ll be serving home-made blintzes at the media meal.
Here’s a former 54-goal scorer who leads the league in hits by a country mile this spring with 109, a full 31 hits ahead of second-place Sam Bennett.
“It’s impressive to watch, amazing to watch — and I get a front row seat to it every night,” said his centreman, McDavid. “He’s a wrecking ball out there. Everybody is buying in, though, and doing things that maybe aren’t the most comfortable or the things they’re not the most used to doing. He’s leading the way.”
Simply put, in a high-event game with a ton of great scoring chances either way, Skinner kept the Stars at bay — while Oettinger gave up six.
You can blame the Stars goalie, credit the Oilers shooters, criticize the Dallas scorers, or canonize Stu Skinner. Whichever path you choose, this series is beginning to look a lot like last year’s Conference Final.
A year ago, the Oilers beat Dallas in six games on the back of superior netminding, better production from the top guys, and better special teams.
This spring the Oilers are only capitalizing on two of those advantages, and still they’ve outscored the Stars 9-1 in the past two games.
If the Stars can win Game 4, they might find their way back into this thing.
If they can’t, it’ll be lights out for DeBoer’s boys, regardless of what the analytics nerds say.
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