Oilers face familiar playoff deficit against youthful Ducks

ANAHEIM — The fast, young Anaheim Ducks are giving the playoff-tested Oilers fits.

Anaheim leads the NHL playoffs with an average of 5.33 goals per game, and the “track meet” hockey they play is making Edmonton look like Donovan Bailey in the 2028 Olympic Final.

Out East, the Canadiens are giving the veteran Lightning all they can handle, leading a series that has seen every game go to OT. In Philly, Pittsburgh’s aging stars are being pushed aside by the Flyers’ rebuild, while the young speed in Utah — a team playing only its second playoff round in 13 springs — might already be too much for the old dogs in Vegas to handle.

Getting the picture?

The rebuilds aren’t exactly waiting their turn in the NHL, respectfully pausing for the incumbents to step aside.

We’ll focus on the Oilers: A, because we’re in Anaheim; and B, because of all those series, the two-time Cup finalists were not seen as a team that was vulnerable to upset.

But Anaheim, we would venture, is the poster child for what a rebuild can is supposed to be. They’re big, fast and skilled, with a franchise goalie in Lukas Dostal, a future No. 1 defenceman in Jackson Lacombe, a No. 1 centre in Leo Carlsson, and excellent support players in Cutter Gauthier, Beckett Sennecke and about six other guys who any GM in the NHL would snap up in a hurry.

And Edmonton? Their competitive arc will end one day, sure.

But now? Against a Ducks team stocked with playoff newbies?

“They have a lot of speed, a lot of skill. They're a good team over there,” conceded Darnell Nurse, who has been in some tight spots over the years with this Oilers team.

They’re down 2-1 to the Ducks and things look bleak heading into Sunday’s Game 4. How’s the mood inside the Oilers’ dressing room?

“Our group is just calm all the time and ready for each moment,” Nurse said. “Yeah, we've faced adversity and been able to overcome it. We've also been in good spots and found ways to play good hockey too. So for us, it's a big game, an important game for us tomorrow, and we’ve got to be ready to answer.”

The Oilers have contested 10 playoff series over the past three springs. They’re trailed in seven of them, and of those, they’ve won four.

They’ve been down 2-1 and won more than once. They’ve been down 3-2 twice and won. They’ve been down 3-0 and forced a Game 7.

So, Edmonton comes by the confidence that it can win a Game 4 and re-jig the balance of this series honestly. They’ve earned that confidence, we’d say.

But in order to do that they’d have to rediscover a proper, responsible playoff-style defensive game, replacing the loose, giveaway-prone game that has allowed Anaheim to average five-plus goals per game thus far.

And here is the Oilers’ dirty little secret: They’ve been searching for that game all season long, and never quite got their hands around it.

They Oilers have found a proper game for spurts, but there is a reason it has just two winning streaks of three games or more all season long: Because the Oilers haven’t been abler to sustain a winning style of hockey, all season long.

Why has that been so elusive, we asked head coach Kris Knoblauch?

“You know, I've got a lot of thoughts on that,” he began, pensively. “I don't know. I think just having the… Yeah… No.

“I don't think I have an answer for you.”

Translation: Knoblauch has a few ideas as to why the Oilers have been absolutely inconsistent all season long. But this isn’t the time to share them.

Let the record show, however, that Nurse does not agree with our observation that Edmonton has been chasing a winning game since October.

“No, I think we've hung on to it for significant part of the end of the year,” countered Nurse. “Yeah, it hasn't been perfect. There's no perfect season. But we've been better defensively over the last third of the season. It was pretty consistent.”

Vasily Podkolzin put it all together, as only a player speaking in his second language could:  “Obviously it wasn’t an ideal season,” Podkolzin said. “Now, it's good time to fix everything. Clean our minds and play our best hockey.”

So let’s be clear: We’ll credit the Oilers with having the experience to know what has to happen here.

As a team that has allowed five-plus goals per game, they know what has to happen. As individuals — Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard are both a team worst minus-6 — Edmonton doesn’t need a chalk talk to know how their game has to be altered.

But, they’ve known that this is the kind of hockey that is required for the Oilers to have success since October, and they’ve basically put together about one consistent month in a seven-month season thus far.

Now the pesky Ducks arrive, a whole different form of fowl when it comes to challenging an aging Oilers roster.

Edmonton knows what to do. If they don’t start doing it in Game 4, like so many older teams across the NHL being challenged by young rebuilds, then we’ll assume the obvious.

That they can’t anymore.