Edmonton seeks return to championship round in rematch after winning in 6 last season
© Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images
The conference final of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features four teams in two best-of-7 series, which start Tuesday. Today, NHL.com previews the Western Conference Final between the Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers.
Stars: 50-26-6, 106 points
Oilers: 48-29-5, 101 points
Season series: DAL: 2-1-0; EDM: 1-2-0
Game 1: Wednesday at Dallas (8 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC)
The Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers will play against each other in the Western Conference Final for the second season in a row.
Edmonton advanced in six games last season before falling to the Florida Panthers in seven games in the Stanley Cup Final.
This is the Stars third straight visit to the Western Conference Final, losing in six games to the Oilers last season and six games to the Vegas Golden Knights the previous season.
Edmonton has been to three of the past four Western Conference Finals.
“Well, you’ve got two hungry teams that have been really close and haven’t gotten there yet,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “It’s going to be a battle of wills here. They’re a little more rested than us. I heard we’re not starting until Wednesday, which helps us get a little refreshed here. Should be a great series.”
The Oilers, who are the No. 3 seed from the Pacific Division, advanced by defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 1-0 in overtime in Game 5 of the second round at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday.
“As good as Dallas is, we’re a really good team too,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “We’ve beaten two good teams in L.A. and Vegas. Our 5-on-5 game has been really good. Our special teams will need to get going, it starts with the power play. The power play has to find a way to be a factor in the series and we will.”
The Stars, the No. 2 seed in the Central Division, also advanced in overtime, beating the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 in Game 6 on Saturday.
The Oilers went 1-2-0 against the Stars during the regular season.
Forward Zach Hyman led the way against Dallas with four points (three goals, one assist). McDavid (one goal, two assists) and defenseman Evan Bouchard (three assists) each had three points. Stuart Skinner was 1-2-0 with a 3.99 GAA and .841 save percentage as the starter in each of the three games.
Forwards Jason Robertson (four goals, two assists) and Roope Hintz (one goal, five assists) led the Stars against the Oilers with six points each, including a hat trick by Robertson in a 4-3 win in Edmonton on March 26. Jake Oettinger was 2-1-0 with a 3.04 GAA and .912 save percentage.
“Obviously they’re a really deep team,” McDavid said. “It’s the conference final, so everybody is going to be a good team. They have scoring all over. I think they have eight 20-goal scorers or something like that. They’re incredibly deep, have good D, great goalie. They have a really good team, it’ll be a good test.”
McDavid leads the Oilers in the playoffs with 17 points (three goals, 14 assists) and Leon Draisaitl has 16 points (five goals, 11 assists). Bouchard has 12 points (four goals, eight assists).
“Every year’s different,” DeBoer said. “They’re a different team this year. You know, I think a lot like [the] Colorado [Avalanche], they’re a better team this year. They’re a deeper team this year than they were last year. You see they’re getting scoring from a lot of places other than McDavid and Draisaitl, and they still have that element, obviously, every night. So I think it’s a lot like the Colorado series, where we can look back at last year, but I think this is a different, better version that we’re playing. And I believe we’re a better version of ourselves from last year, too. It’s going to be a great test.”
DAL@WPG, Gm1: Rantanen completes a hat trick in the 2nd
Mikko Rantanen leads the Stars in the playoffs — and the entire NHL — with 19 points (nine goals, 10 assists). Thomas Harley has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) and Hintz (five goals, five assists) has 10 points.
“I think we’ve learned a lot the last two years,” Oettinger said. “That’s all we wanted after we lost last year is this opportunity. The fact that we get to play Edmonton again makes it even better. … It’s up to us as a group to take that next step and I think we should feel great about what we’ve done with the adversity we’ve faced. I think our best hockey is yet to come.”
Edmonton and Dallas have played seven times in the playoffs, with the Stars winning five of them. The teams met in the postseason six times in a seven-year span from 1997-2003. The Oilers also faced the Minnesota North Stars twice in the playoffs prior to their relocation to Dallas for the 1993-94 season, each winning once.
Stars: Miro Heiskanen is the definition of an X-factor here. The defenseman missed the final 32 regular-season games and the first 10 postseason games after injuring his knee in a collision with Mark Stone of the Golden Knights on Jan. 28. He returned for Game 4 of the second round and there were all sorts of questions about what he would be able to contribute. Those questions are fewer and farther between at this point. Heiskanen played 23:40 in Game 6, almost nine minutes more than the 14:52 he played in his debut five days earlier. By the end of the three games, Heiskanen was confidently jumping into plays and keying the transition game for the Stars. In doing so, he gave the team a new look that makes it that much harder to defend. He finished the series with two assists and seeing top-line minutes with Harley.
Oilers: This is the type of series in which Corey Perry thrives: physical, north-south, no-quarter-given, no-quarter-asked hockey. The Stars know this as well as anyone. They traded for him during the 2019-20 season to make them a better playoff team and he did. Dallas made it to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He is in his second season of trying to help the Oilers get over the hump. This postseason, he is tied with Draisaitl for the team lead in goals (five). He digs out pucks along the walls and then he goes to the net, where he will make life miserable for Oettinger.
Stars: Oettinger is 8-5 with a 2.47 GAA and .919 save percentage. He has been a workhorse for these Stars, starting each of the 13 games. He was pulled late in the second period of Game 4 against Colorado in the first round after allowing three goals on 34 shots, but he had won each of the two previous games in overtime. He has yet to lose two games in a row in these playoffs and is 5-0 with a .929 save percentage (131 saves on 141 shots) in games following losses. In the Western Conference Final last season, Oettinger stopped 145 of 161 shots (.900 save percentage in the series, but struggled in the final three games, all losses.
Oilers: Edmonton used both goalies in the first two rounds. Skinner, the No. 1 goalie, started the first two games against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round but was ineffective, allowing 11 goals on 58 shots (.810 save percentage). Pickard won each of the next six games but was injured in the Game 2 victory against the Golden Knights. Skinner reentered the fray and went 2-1 with a 1.28 GAA, .944 save percentage and two straight shutouts to close out the series after a shaky 4-3 loss in Game 3. He has not allowed a goal in 127:15. Pickard could return during this series, coach Kris Knoblauch said.
EDM@VGK, Gm 5: Skinner seals the series for Oilers in shutout victory over the Golden Knights
Stars: Harley (23 years, 271 days) became the third-youngest defenseman in NHL history to score a series-clinching goal in overtime, following Babe Pratt (21 years, 77 days) and Bobby Orr (22 years, 51 days). It was also the third-fastest, series-clinching overtime goal by a defenseman in NHL history (1:33), behind Chris Tanev, who scored 11 seconds into Game 4 of the 2020 Stanley Cup Qualifiers, and Orr, who scored 40 seconds into Game 4 overtime to win the Stanley Cup for the Bruins in 1970.
Oilers: McDavid has 17 career points (six goals, 11 assists) in the conference final, which ranks seventh in Oilers history behind Wayne Gretzky (55), Mark Messier (55), Glenn Anderson (48), Jari Kurri (46), Paul Coffey (27) and Craig Simpson (18). His six goals are tied with Hyman and Dave Hunter for sixth in franchise history. Kurri (28), Messier (23), Anderson (21), Gretzky (14) and Craig Simpson (11) have more.
“I think we’ve learned a lot the last two years. That’s all we wanted after we lost last year is this opportunity. The fact that we get to play Edmonton again makes it even better. I think we’ve all learned a lot. The young guys, like [Thomas Harley], Wyatt [Johnston], [Jason Robertson], myself, the guys that hadn’t had any experience, we have all the experience in the world now. It’s up to us as a group to take that next step and I think we should feel great about what we’ve done with the adversity we’ve faced. I think our best hockey is yet to come.” — Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger
“It was definitely a strong-fought battle by both teams. I think the way that they play is pretty similar. Obviously, they’re a little bit of a different team with different players, but they’re good at all ends of the ice, they know how to win games, they’ve been in the third round for how many years now, so they’re a team that’s hungry and it’s going to be a hard fight.” — Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner
Stars: Depth scoring must continue. The Stars have gotten goals from 12 different players in their first 13 games of the postseason. They’ll need more of that against the Oilers, who shut down the top scorers for the Vegas Golden Knights in the last round. Pavel Dorofeyev, Tomas Hertl, Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev and Brett Howden were the top five goal-scorers for the Golden Knights during the regular season. They combined for zero goals in the second-round series and Vegas did not score a goal in either of the final two games, including Game 5, which went into overtime.
Oilers: They get their power play firing. After being on fire in the first round, the Oilers power-play units lost the plot against the Golden Knights, going 1-for-11 (9.1 percent) in the second round. Somehow, they survived and advanced. McDavid doesn’t have a power-play goal after 11 games, and they have yet to score a power-play goal in six road games this postseason. It’s unlikely they will win another round like that, especially considering Dallas was at 31.3 percent on the power play against the Jets in the second round and scored the series-winning goal with the man-advantage.
Dallas Stars projected lineup
Mikael Granlund — Roope Hintz — Mikko Rantanen
Jamie Benn — Matt Duchene — Tyler Seguin
Mason Marchment — Wyatt Johnston — Jason Robertson
Sam Steel — Evgenii Dadonov
Thomas Harley — Miro Heiskanen
Esa Lindell — Cody Ceci
Lian Bichsel — Alexander Petrovic
Ilya Lyubushkin
Jake Oettinger
Casey DeSmith
Scratched: Mavrik Bourque, Colin Blackwell, Mathew Dumba, Brendan Smith
Injured: Nils Lundkvist (shoulder)
Oilers projected lineup
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — Connor McDavid — Zach Hyman
Vasily Podkolzin — Leon Draisaitl — Kasperi Kapanen
Evander Kane — Adam Henrique — Connor Brown
Trent Frederic — Mattias Janmark — Corey Perry
Brett Kulak — Evan Bouchard
Darnell Nurse — Troy Stecher
Jake Walman – John Klingberg
Stuart Skinner
Olivier Rodrigue
Scratched: Viktor Arvidsson, Joshua Brown, Cam Dineen, Ty Emberson, Max Jones, Derek Ryan, Jeff Skinner
Injured: Mattias Ekholm (undisclosed), Calvin Pickard (lower body)
