The Edmonton Oilers backed themselves into a tight corner with their Game 5 loss to the Florida Panthers Saturday evening. They are now faced with the daunting prospect of going into Florida having to win in order to keep their season alive.
Florida has looked like the team everyone has come to know and hate: a playoff juggernaut, deep, skilled, and hard-working. Unfortunately Edmonton did not look like themselves in Game 5 and they paid for it.
Here is what Edmonton needs to change in order to keep their hopes alive.
Oilers need defensive dominance
This was by far the biggest weakness that the Panthers exploited in Games 3 and 5. In a game like hockey, one simple defensive mistake is enough to decide a game completely, and the Oilers made a lot more than just one. In Game 5, both Brad Marchand’s goals were just bad defence, he beat them fair and square and that’s not good when we’re talking about a 37-year-old who’s not allowed to ride Space Mountain.
The second goal was due to a a giveaway that directly led to the rush which Sam Bennett scored on.
When Sam Reinhart received the pass before his goal he was at the top of the circles, four Oilers were at or below the goal line watching Sasha Barkov pass the puck and there is no one within 15 feet of Reinhart. Connor McDavid, Corey Perry, and Mattias Ekholm all got lost on that play.
It’s honestly rare in the game of hockey that a goal is so clearly caused by a single, or small set of mistakes; it’s usually a long sequence of small misplays or just an undefendable play by a guy like McDavid. If the Oilers have any hope of winning whatsoever they need to eliminate those blatant mistakes outright. The Panthers are too good to not capitalize on those mistakes.
Depth scoring needs to increase
While McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have shown more than a few times that they can put the team on their spacious backs and steal a game, the difference in these playoffs has been the depth scoring. Last year, McDavid, Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard scored 44.7% of the Oilers total points, this year that has dropped to 39.5%. This change has never been more apparent than in the Oilers Game 4 win wherein Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse, Vasily Podkolzin, Jake Walman, and Draisaitl all pitched in on the scoresheet. That game was the archetype the Oilers needs to follow.
This is especially important because, even though Draisaitl has four goals in this series so far, McDavid has been held to only one. Not that he’s hurtin’ for points all that badly, he still has seven points in the last five games, but he only has the one goal. McDavid will always be an offensive threat, and that is a huge advantage for the Oilers, but if he isn’t putting the puck past Bobrovsky then the rest of the Oilers will have to step up.
Steady goaltending is a must
A lot of people would say that this is by far the most central factor in an Oilers Game 6 win, but I honestly don’t believe that’s true. I am a huge believer that the way a team plays in front of their goalie has a bigger effect on a goalies stats than the goalie’s performance itself.
Now obviously a goalie can steal a game and the Oilers will undoubtedly need their netminder (it’s looking like that will be Stuart Skinner) to bail them out, but you just can’t expect to hang a goalie out to dry time and time again and expect to win games.
Yet the Oilers will need goaltending they can rely on. In more than a few situations, the art of being a good defender is forcing the opponents offence to be truly spectacular, force them to take low percentage shots and make exceptional passes. Skinner has shown that he is a more than capable goalie who can be relied on to make the saves he should, and often some saves you can’t expect him to, and that is the Skinner the Oilers need tonight.
