Edmonton Oilers smashing through yet another post-season wall in Stars goalie Jake Oettinger
The reason the L.A. Kings were going to get past the Edmonton Oilers in the first round this year was Darcy Kuemper.
Remember?
The Vezina Trophy finalist finished the regular season with a 2.02 goals against average and a .922 save percentage on a Kings team that gave up two or fewer goals in 14 of its last 19 games.
The Kings were all set to shut down Edmonton's offence.
What happened? The Kings are done and Kuemper sits dead last among all playoff goaltenders with a 3.74 goals against average. The Oilers lit him up for five goals three times and four goals once in dispatching Los Angeles in six games.
Vegas goalie Adin Hill? After closing out the Minnesota Wild with .906, .909 and .935 save percentages in the last three games of that series, he was going to be a problem in the second round.
What happened? The Oilers reduced his numbers to .857, .865 and .850 in the first three games, then Stuart Skinner posted shutouts in the last two, as Edmonton made very short work of the first place team in the Pacific Division.
Which brings us to Jake Oettinger. He was sensational against the Winnipeg Jets, allowing just 12 goals in that six-game series and posting save percentages of .935, .923, .969, .912, .957.
What's happening against Edmonton? It's been 12 goals against in three games and save percentages of .889, .880 and .750.
Once again, the Oilers have been able to make one of the top goaltenders in the league look pretty ordinary.
This doesn't mean Oettinger is down for the count, there is lots of series left, but he and the Stars need to find a way to slow down Edmonton's offence, or this is going to be another short one for the Oilers.
'We wouldn't be sitting here in the Conference Finals without Jake Oettinger and how he's played,' said Stars coach Pete DeBoer, defending the backbone of his team.
'(Game 3's 6-1 defeat) was one of those games where they were opportunistic, and once they got the lead, we're pushing to get back in it, and there's Grade As the other way.
'One thing I know about Jake Oettinger is he's one of the best response goalies in the league.'
Goals are supposed to be harder to come by in the post-season, but that hasn't been the case for Edmonton. They have a significantly higher goals per game average in the playoffs (3.93) than they had in the regular season (3.16).
And it's not just the Big Two who are feasting. Consider the SportsNet stat that showed Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl combining to score 47.7 per cent of Edmonton's playoff goals two years ago, then 20.9 per cent last year and just 18.3 per cent this year. That speaks to the evolution of the hockey team.
It's been tough to slow down Edmonton's offence because the goals are coming from everywhere. Eighteen players have scored a goal in the playoffs, and seven players already have five or more.
'Guys are bearing down and understanding how hard it is to score and how hard it is to get chances, so when you do get those chances there's maybe a little bit of desperation,' said Oilers winger Evander Kane, adding nobody generates anything in the playoffs unless they're willing to get dirty.
'You have to go hard to the net. The closer you are to the goal the better the opportunity for the goals to go in.'
Edmonton is piling up the offensive numbers, for the most part, without the benefit of their power play, which is two-for-22 on the road and five-for-25 over the last 10 games (in which the Oilers are 8-2).
Edmonton's 39 even-strength goals in 14 playoff games are second only to the Florida Panthers' 44 and miles ahead of third-place Toronto with 27 and fourth-place Dallas with 23.
A team that used to be Two Guys and Power Play is an entirely different threat.
'There are fewer and fewer power plays, so if you want to get deep in the playoffs and eventually in a Stanley Cup, you have to have your five-on-five game at the forefront, and that's something we learned from last year,' said Kane. 'We're having some success, and that's something that has to continue if we want to advance.'
At the other end of the spectrum, the top Golden Knights players didn't turn a wheel offensively against Edmonton, and now Mikko Rantanen has just two assists in two games.
Frustrating the other team's best players and lighting up its goalie isn't an easy formula, but it's guaranteed effective. And the first part often leads to the second.
'Since I've started coaching, my emphasis has been a good defence is a good offence,' said Kris Knoblauch. 'The more time you can spend in the offensive zone, the more time the puck is on your stick, is really important.
'With this team, we have a lot of good offensive players, and they like to have the puck. That's part of the reason why we're a good defensive team.'
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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