After a sloppy, messy loss on Wednesday night, the Edmonton Oilers made their way down to Anaheim for their first of two games at the Honda Center. And with the Ducks feeling pretty good about the way things went for them two nights before, it was going to take a much better effort from the visiting side if they wanted to avoid going down 2-1 in a series they opened with a win. Instead, what we got was a complete mess of an effort by an Edmonton team that was outworked and outplayed and completely unable to maintain its game plan for more than a few minutes. Final score: 7-4 Ducks for the 2-1 series lead

There’s not much to say about last night’s game other than to say that the Oilers deserved to lose. You simply cannot show up for 15% of a playoff game and expect good things to happen, but that’s exactly what it seemed like our boys had planned. Outside of opening the scoring and the brief glimmer of hope when they came roaring back to take the lead, the rest of the game was dominated by Anaheim. They were more aggressive on the forecheck, won more puck battles, played with more urgency, and generally looked like they wanted to win way more than the Oilers did. In fact, it wasn’t really close. For a team with way more experience in these situations, the boys looked completely overwhelmed by the moment.

So where do we go from here? It’s not like the series is over at 2-1. This team was literally in this exact same situation last year against the Kings. We also know that when the Oilers actually decide to play their game, they can beat the Ducks. But it has to happen with structure. Edmonton tried to play pond hockey for whatever reason, which is precisely what their opponent wanted them to do. And for a team with plenty of playoff experience, it’s been stunning to watch them all the Ducks to dictate as much as they have. Again, this series isn’t dead by any means. Though, it won’t be long until the coffin is getting nailed shut if they can’t pull it together. Instead of Sunday being a chance to take a stranglehold on the series, the Oilers are now fighting for their lives in a series that they seem content to be pissing away.

One of the debates I saw a bunch of times on TV in the days between games was whether there was any chance that Kris Knoblauch would swap out Connor Ingram for Tristan Jarry for Game 3 after the former allowed eight goals in the first two games of the series. While most Oilers fans knew that wasn’t going to happen, the reality of numbers is that Friday’s game would be a massive test for Kingram. Not that all eight of those goals were his fault, but they certainly were his problem, and that made Friday’s start a big moment to show that he could outshine the guy at the other end. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen on Friday. And while I will start by saying that not all six of the goals were his fault by any stretch — the team in front of him was awful — I think even he’d say that he’d want to make at least another save or two.

That’s not to say that I’m hanging the loss on him at all because the team was horrible for about 50 of 60 minutes, but it’s also hard to ignore that his numbers are worse right now than the guy who got run out of town. I mean, the Calvin Pickard should start Game 4 jokes were all over Twitter, and I personally feel like we’ve re-entered some kind of hellish deja vu. What else can you say after giving up 16 goals in three games? But as I said, the team in front of him was as bad as it gets for most of the game, so it’s almost weird to be calling him out even though the numbers are dreadful. And I think what makes it even more annoying is that Ingram was actually fantastic in the first period, and likely the sole reason his team wasn’t down 4-1 or worse. Either way, it’s going to be interesting to see what Kris Knoblauch decides to do between the pipes on Sunday. Do you run it back?

One of the big advantages the Oilers had on paper before this series started was the power play. Edmonton had the best PP in the league again in 2025-26, and I think a lot of us reasonably figured it would be a big part of the team’s success in Round 1. Well, that was not the case through the first two games. Not even close. Not only did the Oilers go 0-6 with the man advantage in those games, but they also gave up one of the uglier shorties that I’ve ever seen in the third period of Game 2. Needless to say, the situation was getting grim, and we needed to see a turnaround on Friday night in Anaheim.

If we’re looking for a silver lining from this game, it has to be that the Oilers got a positive result on the power play. After getting skunked through in Games 1 and 2, the usually lethal Edmonton power play finally got on the board with the first goal of the playoffs from Connor McDavid. Even though it was a fleeting moment of happiness in what ended up a lost game, getting the power play going will be a huge factor in whether the Oilers can pull themselves back into this series. Having a successful moment on the man advantage, one of the few good things they did, can carry over into Sunday. In a game that was otherwise flushable from damned near Jump Street, I’m choosing to look at going 50% on the power play as a positive. If the boys are going to make this series a best-of-three, they’re going to need the power play to be a big part of it.

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