Oilers Key Player Grades: Bouchard, Kane, Pickard
Evan Bouchard (Perry Nelson-Imagn Images)
EDMONTON – That's more like it.
So many people counted them out and those people were proven wrong on Friday night.
The Edmonton Oilers took the Los Angeles Kings to the cleaners in a 7-4 victory on home ice for Game 3. That win makes it a 2-1 series.
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The Oilers had standout performances from many players, but these three stood out the most, for one reason or another.
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Edmonton Oilers Key Player Grades
Calvin Pickard: -C
It wasn't always pretty, but he got it done. Calvin Pickard earned the Oilers their first win of the 2025 playoffs. Of the four goals, he'd like (at least) the Trevor Moore one-hander back. Aside from that, it's tough to fault him on Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala picking off the same corner on the same play.
Evan Bouchard: A
Evan Bouchard became the first Oilers defender to score two powerplay goals in a playoff game. He was all over the ice in all of the best ways on Friday night.
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In 20:44 of ice time he had two goals, four shots, one block, one hit, and one defensive zone giveaway. He played with intensity, as did the rest of the Oilers team.
Evander Kane: A
After Friday night's game, Evander Kane probably feels like John Wick when he said, 'yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.' He was all over the ice with five hits, four shots, one goal, and probably the nicest-looking assist I've ever seen him dish out.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
'I've fallen in love': Ultimate Leafs homer praises Oilers d-man Bouchard
This in from the Toronto Sports Network, high praise for Edmonton Oilers d-man Evan Bouchard from a most astonishing source, the ultimate Leafs homer of the broadcast world, former Leafs player Jeff O'Neill. Said O'Neill on a TSN segment with host Chris Haytes and former NHL goalie Jamie McLennan on their OverDrive show: I got a bit of a crazy statement after watching last night and watching throughout the playoffs. And before the playoffs, you would have punched me as you could. I think the pecking order on D in the National Hockey League is one, Cale Makar and two Bouchard. Maybe it's recency bias, because all those other guys aren't playing, but I think he's that good man. I think he is unbelievable.' Hayes objected, saying Bouchard has been phenomenal but he'd take Quinn Hughes of Vancouver over Bouchard. Said O'Neill: 'If there was a little hut, an elite defenseman hut, and Quinn Hughes was in it, and Cale Makar and they opened up the door and said, 'Evan, come on in,' they would open the door and say, 'You're a member. Now, come and have a coffee.'' McLennan brought up a rancid turnover that Bouchard had made in a November game against Toronto. 'Bouchard comes around the net and rips it off McDavid ass. And I think after that, Toronto caught up, and Marner wanted an overtime. I think playoff Bouchard, that's different. What we're seeing is a guy who can play in all scenarios and doesn't get overwhelmed.' Said O'Neill: 'I've fallen in love with the guy, man.' My take 1. What's next Cathal Kelly proclaiming how much he loves the Oilers? Nick Kypreos and Bruce Arthur saying Connor McDavid should always be an Oiler? 2. I've been in that camp of Edmonton Oilers fans who has consistently and enthusiastically, year in, year out, good times and bad, admired what Evan Bouchard brings to the game. Before his breakout 82 point season in 2023-24, I predicted on Oilers Now he'd get 90 points. Long before others, I said he was the Oil's No. 1 d-man. In the playoffs last year, I recognized early on he'd taken his game to an entirely new level of excellence. As he struggled this year with an outbreak of rancid turnovers, I continued to argue he was a big game player and should be on Team Canada at the Four Nations Cup. 3. I'm here to tell you right now that O'Neill is right, that Bouchard has yet again taken his game to a new level, that he's improved on his 2024 playoff performance and is playing at his highest level of even strength efficiency ever, all the while running Edmonton's brilliant power play while coming on in the Los Angeles series to settle down their penalty kill, someone no one predicted or expected, save for maybe Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey, who bet on Bouchard on the PK. 4. Why have I been so bullish on Bouchard all these years, and able to call out his play for what it's been: good-to-outstanding. It's all in the numbers, specifically the Grade A shots data we've compiled at the Cult of Hockey for 15 years. We've done video review of every Grade A shot for and against the Oilers in that time to see which players are responsible for Grade A shots for and which players make mistakes on Grade A shots against. What became clear early on was that Bouchard more than any other Oil d-man we'd ever seen was able to create Grade A shots. His defence was average at best in his early years, but he was Grade A shot-producing monster. 5. What's changed since then is that Bouchard in the playoffs has take his defensive game top a new level of success, while amping up his passing game even more. He's not quite at the defensive level of excellence we saw from Kris Russell and Adam Larsson in their Oilers primes, but he's become a good-to-great positional defensive d-man, not any kind of Big Bobby Clobber cycle-buster, but a d-man who almost always makes the right reads, keeps his body between his check and the Oilers net, responsibly guards his spot in the Oilers zone defence, and gets the puck out of trouble fast when he wins it back. 6. Does Bouchard still make some bad passes? For sure. That's going to happen when you've so often got the puck on your stick. Does he make some bad reads? Yes, but not any more than other d-man and what's become a strong Oilers defensive corp. 7. O'Neill is right. Bouchard is now the second or third best d-man in the NHL after Makar and maybe Hughes. And the next person to say Bouchard shouldn't be on Team Canada in the coming Olympic games should never speak in public about hockey again.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Pete DeBoer earned his firing, but the Stars' problems run deeper
It was the rashness of the decision, yanking goaltender Jake Oettinger after just two shots, neither of which was all that stoppable. It was the humiliating manner in which he made the decision, emphatically and animatedly calling Oettinger back to the bench for a globally televised walk of shame after a timeout. And it was the callousness with which he threw Oettinger under the bus in his very first response following the game, all but saying Oettinger was incapable of beating the Edmonton Oilers, and that there was 'a pretty big sample size' worth of proof. Advertisement Yes, Pete DeBoer got himself fired as Dallas Stars head coach with the way he treated Oettinger in their last game of the season, a 6-3 loss to Edmonton in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. Oh, sure, everyone said the right things two days later on locker clean-out day, but you have to think the exit interviews that day were a tad more blunt and a lot more truthful. In a battle between a famously peripatetic coach and a 26-year-old franchise goaltender, the goaltender wins every time. Oettinger is very well-liked and deeply respected by his teammates, and it's hard to imagine a coach winning back a locker room after such a public meltdown. Maybe if DeBoer didn't panic and instead let Oettinger work through it in Game 5, maybe if the communication had been stronger between the two, maybe if DeBoer fell on his own sword after the game instead of driving it through the back of Oettinger, he'd still be Dallas' coach. But he didn't. So he isn't. That's the business. DeBoer knows it all too well. Over the past 10 seasons, he's posted a sparkling record of 445-247-75, good enough for a .629 points percentage. For comparison's sake, Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper, the gold standard of head coaches for the past decade, is at .643. DeBoer is that good. He's reached the Western Conference final an astounding six times in the last eight seasons with three different teams. He's been to the Stanley Cup Final twice. Yet this is the fifth time he's been fired. He lasted just three lousy seasons with the Florida Panthers in the late 2000s. He took the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup Final in his first season but was fired three years later. He took the San Jose Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final in his first season there, too, but was fired four years later. He took the Vegas Golden Knights to two straight conference finals and was fired the following year. And he took the Stars to the conference final in all three of his seasons, only to be fired yet again. The timing is cruel because there are no other job openings left in the NHL. But you can be sure DeBoer will get another job, and soon. Despite being fired so often, he's had a head-coaching job every year since the 2008-09 season. At just 56 years old, he'll get another. And then another after he wears out his welcome and gets fired from that one. Advertisement 'He'll be all right,' said Panthers coach and close friend Paul Maurice, who knows a thing or two about bouncing around the league. 'He's a good coach. I think you get elite teams, you've got to push them real hard to get to where they get to, and then at some point, you get a summer off. Pick your spot. He's going to be OK.' So, yes, DeBoer will be fine. But will the Stars? Because while DeBoer certainly earned his dismissal with the way things ended, he's hardly the reason Dallas fell a round short of the Stanley Cup Final yet again. Was it DeBoer's fault that Mikko Rantanen had no goals in the Western Conference final after all but singlehandedly beating the Colorado Avalanche in the first round? Was it DeBoer's fault that Wyatt Johnston was somehow a minus-16 through three rounds? Or that Matt Duchene was snakebitten throughout the playoffs, scoring just once in 18 games after a 30-goal season? Or that captain Jamie Benn disappeared for most of the postseason? What about Tyler Seguin? Or Mason Marchment? Or Evgenii Dadonov? Were their failures all DeBoer's fault, too? How about last spring, when Roope Hintz had fewer goals than Esa Lindell? And Hintz and Duchene and Thomas Harley and Joe Pavelski and Dadonov combined for zero goals against the Oilers? Was that all DeBoer's fault? Or Oettinger's, for that matter? The Stars are perennial Cup favorites because of their remarkable depth, with Duchene often saying they have 'three first lines.' But in these playoffs, Rantanen had to carry them early, and when he cooled off, nobody stepped up to shoulder the burden. Of course, DeBoer could have better tweaked the lines or switched up the matchups or benched a skater to try to spark things. But ultimately, hockey games are won or lost by players, not by coaches. And the players have failed in the conference final. For three straight years. Advertisement It's not for a lack of trying. General manager Jim Nill has built a powerhouse, and he's added to it at every trade deadline. Two years ago, he went out and got Max Domi and Dadonov for grit and goals. Last year, he added Chris Tanev, everyone's idea of a playoff defenseman. This year, he acquired Mikael Granlund, Cody Ceci and Rantanen, the latter of whom is one of the best players — and playoff performers — of his or any other generation. Still, it wasn't enough. 'You get things in place, but things always happen,' Nill told me early in the conference final, when I said he and his team were 'sitting pretty' for the present and the future. 'We've still got some work to do.' Yeah, things happened. Wholesale changes aren't coming. The Stars will continue to be trendy picks to win the Stanley Cup for years to come, and they'll do so with largely the same core they have now. Rantanen is signed for eight more years, as is Oettinger. Hintz is signed for six more years, Johnston and Lindell for five, Miro Heiskanen for four. Nill was adamant that Benn and Duchene, both unrestricted free agents, would be back next season, but you have to wonder if the way things ended will prompt Nill to shake things up — if just for the sake of shaking things up. Which brings us back to the coach. Who takes over now? The timing of the firing leaves Dallas with few big-name options, as the annual game of coaching musical chairs has left the Stars without a seat. Does Nill look within and promote Texas Stars coach Neil Graham, who has worked with Oettinger, Harley and Jason Robertson in the AHL? Does he try to pluck an assistant from another team's staff, perhaps even Oilers power-play mastermind and former Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan? Or does he target another rising AHL coach, such as former Stars assistant Todd Nelson? Do Peter Laviolette or John Tortorella, as abrasive and nomadic as DeBoer, hold any appeal? And most importantly, will any of them fare any better than DeBoer, one of the most successful coaches of the modern era? Or is this simply a conference-final level team, a group that performs better on paper than it does in the biggest moments? Advertisement This is now the big question facing Nill, bigger than Benn or Duchene: Who are these Dallas Stars, and what is their ceiling? 'We've been knocking on the door for a while, and you only get so many opportunities,' Nill told me. 'I've been talking to a few of the young guys here, who came in the last three or four years, and they think this is ordinary stuff, winning like this three years in a row. I tell them not to take this for granted. This is not easy. We've got an opportunity, so let's take advantage of it.' Dallas didn't. Again. Which leads to this kind of existential crisis, this kind of drastic decision. The Stars are a very, very good team. DeBoer is a very, very good coach. Together, they had very, very good results. But Dallas is looking for great. And so DeBoer is looking for work. We'll just have to wait and see who's looking for longer.
NBC Sports
3 hours ago
- NBC Sports
Panthers look to even the Stanley Cup Final against the Oilers in Game 2
EDMONTON, Alberta — Trailing the Stanley Cup Final after losing the opener in overtime, the defending champion Florida Panthers look to even things up in Game 2 at the Edmonton Oilers. Winning on the road has not been a problem for them so far, going 8-3 away from home, the third loss coming on Leon Draisaitl's power-play goal following a puck-over-the-glass penalty on Tomas Nosek. The task of going into a packed, loud arena is just another challenge the Panthers are embracing. 'It's that 'us against the world' mindset, but you really feel it especially being down in a series,' winger Matthew Tkachuk said. 'Us against the 20-plus guys you're playing against, the 20,000 that are in the rink, the 20,000 that are outside the rink. It's just us against everybody. That's what makes playing on the road so fun and rewarding when you can get a win.' If they do, it will wrestle home-ice advantage away from the Oilers with play shifting to Sunrise for Games 3 and 4. One of the toughest parts of being on the road is trying to defend Draisaitl and Connor McDavid when they're on the ice together. Coach Kris Knoblauch did that some late in Game 1, and it's difficult for Paul Maurice to counter without the last line change to control matchups. 'When they play together, they're obviously very creative players and they'll make everyone around them better,' Florida defenseman Seth Jones said. 'They like to look for each other, especially when they play together, little give-and-goes, things like that, and then they're dangerous off the rush, too. Whether they're playing together or apart, it's a five-man unit defending.' The Oilers remain without Zach Hyman, out for the remainder of the playoffs after his right wrist got dislocated on a hit during the last round. The Panthers could be close to full strength if A.J. Greer can return, and Maurice said fourth-liner Jonah Gadjovich is good to go after missing part of Game 1.
