The Edmonton Oilers pushed the Dallas Stars to the brink of elimination on Tuesday with a 4-1 win in Sport 4 of their Western Convention Closing collection. That offers them Oilers a commanding 3-1 collection lead and has them only one win away from a return journey to the Stanley Cup Closing for the second 12 months in a row.
Listed below are some key takeaways from the Oilers’ win on Tuesday night time.
You may’t take penalties towards the Oilers
The Stars discovered this out the arduous manner on Tuesday. They gave the Oilers three energy performs and allowed Edmonton to attain on two of them. These two targets — from Corey Perry and Leon Draisaitl — had been the entire offense the Oilers would want.
With Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins operating their energy play, that unit is constantly probably the greatest and most harmful within the NHL. It is changing on greater than 25% of their probabilities within the playoffs.
The Oilers might need their flaws, however their energy play is a constant game-changer. They confirmed that once more on Tuesday.
Stars don’t have anything happening offensively
After including Mikko Rantanen on the commerce deadline, the Stars’ ahead group seemed to be one of many deepest within the NHL — and thru the primary two rounds, they performed prefer it.
However that offense has fully dried up on this collection, particularly over the previous three video games the place the Stars have scored a grand whole of solely two targets.
That’s not going to be ok to beat any workforce, not to mention one which has McDavid and Draisaitl on it.
It is an ideal storm of the Oilers enjoying nice defensive hockey, goalie Stuart Skinner enjoying the collection of his life and the Stars forwards unable to create any area for themselves within the offensive zone.
We’re so near Stanley Cup Closing rematch
If the Oilers and Florida Panthers can every get yet another win of their respective collection, they’ll meet for the second 12 months in a row within the Stanley Cup Closing.
It might be the primary Stanley Cup Closing rematch for the reason that Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Crimson Wings met in back-to-back years in 2008 and 2009.
