Five observations from Edmonton vs Chicago Game 4
3 years ago
A 43-save effort from Corey Crawford, a late penalty and a certified upset. The Chicago Blackhawks, the 12th seed, have eliminated the Edmonton Oilers, the 5th seed, after a 3-2 Game 4 win.
This whole series, the Oilers showed flashes of being a contender, mostly thanks to the metahuman-esque play of Connor McDavid. Too often though, he was a one-man army, dragging the weight of his team behind him.
All series long, it looked like something was off with the Oilers. Chicago took their chances, didn’t beat themselves and are going to advance because of it.
Here’s what I noticed in this game, and throughout the series.
1. How Chicago burst the Oilers’ bubble
Chicago was not expected to win this series.
It wasn’t even supposed to be competitive, according to a lot of analysts.
I’ll even admit that I strongly believed that the Oilers would push aside the past-their-expiration-date Blackhawks.
2020 is a weird year, isn’t it.
So how did Chicago do it?
First of all, Jonathan Toews played out of his mind. The ‘Hawks captain collected six points in his four games against Edmonton, including a key assist on the Dominik Kubalik game-winning goal.
Not even the superhuman strength of McDavid could save his team. Number 97 did everything he could, and more, but the team around him simply could not help him out enough. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins excelled on the top line, scoring eight points in four games. McDavid also scored eight points, and Leon Drasaitl added another six.
Draisaitl’s six points would give the impression he had a solid series, but honestly, it just wasn’t enough. He struggled to drive offence consistently over the four games and wasn’t the impact player we saw from him in the regular season.
Many cogs failed to connect in the Oilers’ machinery throughout the series. Too many penalties, a lack of depth scoring, shoddy goaltending, etc. At the end of the day, the Blackhawks won this series because they didn’t beat themselves.
2. Ya blew it (the lead, among other things)
For the third time in this series, the Oilers scored on their first shot of the game. Josh Archibald did the honours in Game 4, capitalizing on a cross-ice seam pass from McDavid.
The Oilers didn’t even get nine minutes into the first period before they blew their lead to the Blackhawks. Brandon Saad tucked in a wraparound chance, quickly followed by a tip-in goal from Matthew Highmore. Both goals stemmed from the Oilers being unable to cover any red jerseys in their own end.
This was a theme throughout this whole series. The Oilers simply can’t hold on to leads. Their goals saved versus expectations in the first three games? -5.36 according to Charting Hockey. That’s not good.
That’s been partially due to sub-par goaltending, but mostly due to Edmonton looking frantic and disorganized on defence. On the Saad goal, Draisaitl got caught floating near the blueline. No one was within five feet of Highmore on his goal.
In a five-game series, those are the types of mistakes that cost you, and these were mistakes that the Oilers made again and again.
In the most Oilers move of possibly all time, Edmonton got hit with a Too Many Men call with two minutes left in the game. That killed whatever chance the team had to tie this game up and survive another day. A late call like that just killed whatever momentum the Oilers might’ve gathered at the end of the game.
The look of McDavid’s face here says it all.
3. Wasted opportunities
By “opportunities”, I mostly mean one, the 5-minute major from Alex Debrincat at the beginning of the second period.
After Debrincat slammed Ethan Bear into the boards from behind, the Oilers had a chance to put some goals on the board. The best powerplay in the league had just been given a golden egg.
Fast forward past an ineffective two minutes with the man advantage, and Darnell Nurse takes an interference penalty. It may have been a VERY soft call, but that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. The Oilers needed to take the lead at that point and didn’t.
Any retrospective look at this series will not be kind to the Oilers’ decision making. I’ve already talked about how the team made the same mistakes over and over again. Those penalties were a big part of the reason the Oilers weren’t able to beat Chicago.
Add the fact that the Oilers failed to convert on five powerplays in Game 4. This game — and the whole series actually — felt like the Oilers just wasted their chances.
4. No energy
Zack Kassian in 2017 was an unstoppable force. He was crushing defenders on the forecheck, causing mayhem in front of the net and played like the devil.
This series was a very different story.
Kassian is about as well-liked by Oilers fans as anyone, his lack of impact against Chicago was a surprising turn. Without that energy and excitement from the big man, the Oilers looked noticeably less intense.
It also just adds to the lack of depth help the Oilers struggled with throughout the series so far. Kassian played so well alongside McDavid during the regular season, but without the captain driving the offence, Kassian just couldn’t get any momentum going.
In theory, Dave Tippett adding a more reliable scorer in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to the McDavid line makes sense, but you have to wonder now if he tinkered a little too much. Kassian excelled with McDavid all year and gets switched off. The RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto line was dominant in the second half of the season, and the Nuge gets moved.
Tippett did re-add Kassian to the McDavid line in the third period, and he immediately looked more engaged. But alas, too little too late.
5. What’s next?
Aside from hoping that the Oilers win the draft lottery on Monday and get to add Alexis Lafreniere to their roster, this is a team that needs change.
Against Chicago, the Oilers’ lack of depth was exposed. The only three Oilers that I could confidently say had a good series are McDavid (obviously), Nugent-Hopkins and Ennis. As was the case in 2017, the team’s depth let them down.
Now Holland has to think about what changes he can actually make. The bottom-six doesn’t need a complete rehaul, but a well-timed couple of trades would do miles of good. Maybe even another high powered forward. Has anyone else heard of this former MVP winner in Arizona who might be available?
The McDavid era started five seasons ago. This was his second time in the postseason. He continues to carry the burden of this team’s success on his shoulders. There are changes that need to be made to this team. Otherwise, the next six years of his contract could disappear as quickly as the first five.
Notes from around the hubs
- Only 37 more years on that Sergei Bobrovsky contract Panthers fans!
- The Pittsburgh Penguins have been eliminated from the postseason, meaning those they’ve lost nine of their last 10 playoff games and haven’t moved past the Second Round since they won the Cup in 2017. Now get to work imagining the possible hellscape future of a Crosby-Malkin-Lafreniere powerplay.
- Don’t sweat too much Oilers fans, try to picture the warm pastures of the league’s top powerplay adding another potential generational superstar. Also if that happens, Tippett should definitely run a McDavid, Draisaitl, Lafreniere, RNH and Yamamoto unit.
- Both Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid aren’t going to be in the playoffs. Hockey is a cruel sport.
- After a sluggish start to their series, the Vancouver Canucks finally seem to have woken up a little bit. It was exciting to see the energy from Hughes, Pettersson and Boeser finally get results. Now they’ve finished off the Wild and are moving on to the playoffs because of it.
- I mean, do we still have to pretend that Nashville is anywhere close to an elite team anymore? More importantly, is this officially the end of the Taylor Hall first overall pick curse?
- Speaking of Hall, does a playoff run with Arizona impact his decision come to the off-season? Or is he out of dodge no matter what? Decisions, decisions….
- Also, there’s been talk of Peter Chiarelli potentially getting the Arizona GM job, which might mean he could trade Hall for a second time and probably actually get a better return than he did the first time.
Twitter: @Matthew_Coyte
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