Fast Ducks meet seasoned Oilers in playoff opener - BERITAJA

EDMONTON – When the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks unfastened their first-round NHL playoff bid Monday, it will beryllium a complete reversal from 2017, the past clip the teams met successful the playoffs.

Back then, the Ducks utilized their seasoned lineup to subdue the young, mostly inexperienced Oilers 4-3 successful a second-round series. Now the roles are flipped pinch a veteran, playoff-hardened Edmonton squad facing a young, run-and-gun Ducks squad.

The Ducks’ apical 4 scorers — forwards Cutter Gauthier, Leo Carlsson and Beckett Sennecke, and defenceman Jackson LaCombe — mean 21 years old.

“They person a batch of young talent complete location that has led the measurement done the regular season, truthful it will beryllium a attraction of ours to beryllium difficult connected them, not springiness them thing easy,” Oilers guardant Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said of the young Ducks.

“We cognize successful wide they want to play a accelerated game, play connected the tally and connected the go,” he said aft Friday’s practice, which saw backup goaltender Cal Picard return. “That’s not really we want to play. We want to play tight defensively and make things really difficult for them and hold for our chances.”

The Oilers vanished 2nd successful the Pacific Division, 2 points backmost of Vegas, aft a 6-2-2 tally to adjacent the regular season. The Ducks were 3rd but went 2-6-2 complete their last 10 games.

The Oilers, Stanley Cup finalists the past 2 years, caput into the bid emotion assured aft having recovered their protect crippled successful the past fewer weeks of the regular season.

“The push we had the past period aliases so, we’ve played a batch better,” seasoned defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “We had immoderate large guys spell down, and guys travel successful and capable those spots. The guys successful present consciousness arsenic bully arsenic they person each year, going into the playoffs, which perfectly could thief our group.”

What could besides thief the Oilers would beryllium the return of guardant Leon Draisaitl. He’s been retired since March 15, but for the past respective days has been skating pinch the squad and spending upwards of 90 minutes connected the ice.

“He looks bully connected the ice,” caput coach Kris Knoblauch said of Draisaitl. “He’s pushing himself successful the gym and connected the ice.”

Still, Knoblauch was not prepared to perpetrate to whether the large German guardant would beryllium fresh for Monday night’s bid opener. Whenever he does return, it will springiness the Oilers 2 high-powered violative lines and 2 coagulated protect units that person besides been contributing to scoring recently.

Their much-improved protect play successful the last weeks of the play has the Oilers assured they’ll find ways to grip the spirited Ducks.

“They’ve sewage immoderate really high-end accomplishment up front,” Ekholm said of the Ducks. “On the backmost end, they’ve sewage awesome goaltending; they’ll beryllium a reliable force for sure. But we’re starting astatine home, and hopefully we could return advantage of that. It’s going to beryllium difficult each the measurement through.”

Expectations are precocious successful Edmonton, pinch players assured they could compete pinch anybody. But arsenic Knoblauch cautioned, a batch has to spell correct — coagulated goaltending, bully health, continued protect play — and moreover then, winning often comes down to the correct bounces.

“We person a batch of belief successful here,” skipper Connor McDavid, the NHL scoring leader for a sixth time, said. “It takes accomplishment to triumph successful the playoffs, and we consciousness beautiful bully about having that skill, having been location and won a batch of playoff games.”

TALE OF THE TAPE:

Regular-season series: 2-1 Edmonton

Goals for per game: Edmonton, 3.44 (6th); Anaheim, 3.23 (13th)

Top scorer: Edmonton, Connor McDavid, 138; Anaheim, Cutter Gauthier, 69

Starting goaltenders: Edmonton, Connor Ingram, 16-10-3, 2.60 GAA, .899 prevention percentage; Anaheim, Lukas Dostal, 30-20-4, 3.10, .888.

Power play: Edmonton, 30.6 (1st); Anaheim, 18.6(23rd)

Penalty kill: Edmonton, 77.8 (20th); Anaheim 76.4 (27th)

The large stat: McDavid and Draisaitl scored a mixed 29 power-play goals; Cutter Gauthier and Chris Kreider totalled 19 for the Ducks.

This study by BERITAJA was first published April 18, 2026.