Agreed, Connor. The regular season can be a little monotonous. Whether you hung around for all 82 Edmonton Oilers games during the regular season, picked and chose the games you watched, time to hop aboard. The playoffs have begun.

The last series to kick off will finally get going against the Anaheim Ducks tonight, as both teams have had three days between games to get themselves sorted out. Take the rest as you right now. The series will follow a pattern of a game every other night.

Both teams finished on high notes with wins in their last game, setting up this Pacific Division matchup. The Oilers with Stanley Cup aspirations, the Ducks the young upstarts.

Are you ready?

“The regular season has become a little bit monotonous for this group, and I think you see that through the day-to-day. But this is what we get excited for,” said McDavid on Sunday. “It feels like it’s anyone’s year. But with that being said, we have a big challenge in front of us. We have a really good, young, skilled, exciting Ducks team coming in that we got to play hard (against) we got to be ready for.”

What about you, Jacob Trouba?

“The first time you have the opportunity to play in the playoffs, you’re pretty excited, and you’re ready to go,” said Trouba, a veteran of 73 playoff games, about his young team. “Just let guys enjoy it and ride it out. It’s a fun experience, happy we get to do it this year.”

There’s a variety of wide-lens series preview content on Oilersnation, including my detailed paths to victory column. However, let’s touch on a few factors individually.

Experience: Overrated or understated?

This is the first Anaheim Ducks playoff appearance since 2017-18 and only one player from that series will play in this one. However, it’s for the Oilers in Adam Henrique.

Troy Terry is the longest-tenured Duck and played twice that season, but wouldn’t really start his NHL career until 2018-19. Collectively, this is a green group led offensively by four players 24 or younger.

Anaheim has showed flashes of strong and simple hockey, like in January, where they went on a 9-2 stretch despite missing Terry and Leo Carlsson.

As of late, though, they’ve stumbled out of the pond. With a five-point divisional lead on March 26, a game in-hand on the Oilers and Golden Knights, Anaheim went 2-6-2. Surrendering 41 goals in that stretch, the Ducks squandered an opportunity to begin the playoffs at home.

Could be the classic ebbs and flows of a young team playing free with little expectations, to then playing games in crunch time they’re supposed to win.

“A lot of us haven’t been to the playoffs,” said Terry recently. “We’re leaning on those guys and just trying to make sure we’re not letting some of these things that have hindered us this last week or so creep back into our game.”

Against the Oilers, they get to fill the underdog role, as the majority of pundits expect an Edmonton victory. But with that said, the Ducks won more games than the Oilers, and were just one point worse.

And does the lack of experience theory hold?

Well as a team its a first, but Anaheim will have three most playoff experienced players in this series in Alex Killorn, John Carlson, and Chris Kreider. All have more than Mattias Ekholm, the Oilers leader, and his 119 postseason appearances.

Ducks playoff experience:

Alex Killorn: 140
John Carlson: 137
Chris Kreider: 123
Mikael Granlund: 77 (Five games vs EDM)
Jacob Trouba: 73
Radko Gudas: 57
Frank Vatrano: 34
Ross Johnston: 5
Jansen Harkins: 4

However, the Oilers will have roughly double those marks, with 1045 playoff game appearances at their disposal in their lineup.

Q preaches ‘predictability’

Anaheim can also benefit from a head coach who won’t get overwhelmed in the moment. Three-time Stanley Cup champion Joel Quenneville has coached 225 playoff games, the second most all-time.

“We have (the) ability to score goals and make plays, and we don’t want to take that away from our team,” said Quenneville about how they’ll approach the series. “Just make that commitment of predictability in our own end and killing the rush game.”

Collective experience? Zero. Individual experience? Some grizzled vets.

In the most crucial position, each team comes in light in GPs, making it the experience wildcard.

Connor Ingram started three playoff games back in his Nashville Predators days in 2021-22, and lost all three games. He was peppered with shots, though, in that series against Colorado, finishing with a .913 save percentage.

“It’s been a while since I’ve played playoff hockey, so it’s good to be back. It’s good to be a part of it,” said Ingram on Sunday, who’ll get a taste of spring Rogers Place craziness.

Lukáš Dostál profiles as a guy who can steal a game, but the Ducks have been so porous defensively that his individual numbers are down this year. However, he finished seventh amongst goaltender wins with 30. This will be his first NHL playoff game, but he certainly got some high leverage experience in February, threatening to steal a game for Czechia against Canada in the Olympic quarterfinal.

“We all want to win,” said Dostál. “It doesn’t matter if you’re young or (a) veteran guy, we all want to win. There’s basically no time to waste, so we just believe we are all ready.”

‘Trending the right way’

Although you aren’t necessarily thrilled to hear your captain call the regular season monotonous, you can understand where McDavid was coming from. In a way, the Oilers can exhale and know now is the time where the games start really counting.

“You can tell the guys were itching for the playoffs to start,” said coach Kris Knoblauch on Sunday.

“And as much as these guys love playing the game and they’re competitive and they want to win every single night, it is. It is difficult to get up for, though. long stretches, especially when they’re looking at the playoffs and what they can do.”

What also might be getting monotonous for Knoblauch is getting asked about Leon Draisaitl’s status. But with the clips circulating from practice, I’d be surprised if he didn’t play at this point. Jason Dickinson also skated on a regular line at practice on Sunday.

Both need to be cleared by the medical staff before they can play. When Oilersnation knows, you’ll know.

If and when they do draw in, the Oilers will have centre depth of McDavid, Draisaitl, Dickinson, and Henrique/Samanski against Leo Carlsson, Mikael Granlund, Ryan Poehling, and Tim Washe. I like the matchups and options the Oilers will have.

Quietly, the Oilers were one of the league’s best faceoff teams, winning 52.6 per cent of their faceoffs, versus Anaheim’s 48 per cent. Controlling the play and forcing the Ducks to chase, however they are doing so, remains the Oilers best bet, and follows the success Edmonton has been building post-Draisaitl.

The season series

The Oilers won two of the three battles against the Ducks in the regular season, including the last one on March 28 by a 4-2 score.

January 26: Oilers win 7-4 at home
February 25: Oilers lose 6-5 on the road
March 28: Oilers win 4-2 at home

The trend? Goals, baby, goals.

Anaheim are the Cardiac Kids with 26 comeback wins this season, tied with Montreal for the most, and nine of those were multi-goal. Overall, the Ducks set an NHL record with 19 combined game-tying goals and game-winning goals in the final 5:00 minutes of regulation this season. They never say die.

That’s been seen against the Oilers. The Oilers have had three-goal, two-goal, and three-goal leads in each head-to-head. In all of them, the Ducks either got within one goal or won.

Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Zach Hyman, Matt Savoie all had five points vs Anaheim this season, but nobody had more in the head-to-head than Connor McDavid with seven. The Ducks had no one over five, but only had three skaters who played in multiple matchups go pointless.

Edmonton allowed three goals on the penalty kill in the first four attempts vs the Ducks, but killed seven of the last eight. The Oilers PK has improved with Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson’s additions, but still finished 20th in the regular season at 77.8 per cent. Anaheim will enter the playoffs with PP goals in four straight games, but a 23rd best man advantage.

Edmonton’s power play, as we know, hinges greatly on Draisaitl’s return. They got a free practice in their season finale against Vancouver and finished on a high note, scoring twice on three tries, with Zach Hyman back in the lineup too. Overall without Draisaitl, the Oilers went 8/37, with six of the goals in their last five games.

Notes:

Numerous times in the McDrai era have the Oilers tripped out of the starting blocks in playoff series. Since 2016-17, the Oilers are 5-12 in Game 1s. They went 2-2 in last year’s playoffs, beating Vegas and Florida, but losing to Los Angeles and Dallas. The Oilers have proven it’s not the be-all-end-all going 6-3 in series they’ve lost the opening game since 2022. Certainly, it’s not a statistic the team would look to continue defying.
Anaheim scored 265 goals this season, setting a new franchise record. Cutter Gauthier led the Ducks with 41 of those, being just one of 15 players in the league to score 40-plus in 2025-26. Despite missing almost two weeks, only Cole Caufield and Macklin Celebrini had more than Gauthier’s 16 tallies post-Olympic break.
Gauthier also led the group in goals in game-winning goals (7), power-play goals (11) and shots (285).
Beckett Sennecke finished tied for the rookie lead in goals with 23 and was second in points with 60 this season. He was one point shy of matching the Ducks single-season rookie record for points.
John Carlson has been averaging 1:19 of ice-time more with Anaheim than he did this season with Washington. The 36-year-old had a 60-point campaign, with 14 of those happening in his 16 games with his new team. He’s scored 21 goals and 78 points in the playoffs, most amongst Ducks.
Ducks fans are hoping that Ross Johnston can return to the lineup. The hulking 6’5″, 232lbs depth forward has been out since March 12 with a lower-body injury, missing 17 games.
Connor McDavid will enter this playoffs with 150 career playoff points, 32nd most all-time. Only Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have a higher points per game all-time. Leon Draisaitl is fifth in points per game, with 141 total points.
Evan Bouchard has the second highest points per game amongst defenceman all-time with 1.08. That trails only Bobby Orr and has a narrow lead over Cale Makar.
Matt Savoie’s hat-trick vs VAN launched him into a tie for 10th all-time in Oilers franchise history in rookie goals with 18. He’s set to make his playoff debut tonight.
Josh Samanski and Colton Dach could also play their first NHL playoff games.
Since Connor Murphy was acquired by the Oilers, he’s second in the NHL in blocked shots with 51. He’s relishing the opportunity playing with Darnell Nurse. This will be first non-COVID playoff games.
ANA record vs Pacific: 15-10-1.
ANA road record: 19-20-2.
EDM record vs Pacific: 16-7-3
EDM home record vs Pacific: 10-1-2
This is the third time these two will meet in the playoffs. The Oilers dispatched the Mighty Ducks in the Western Conference Final in 2005-06 in five games. The Ducks returned the favour in the Pacific Division Final in 2017, winning in seven games.

Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and co-host of PreGaming and Oilersnation After Dark. He’s also been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years of news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, Menzies collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4.

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