It has been exciting so far. I stayed up past bed time to watch the Oilers go down. Iāve mentioned before that after watching them play in person, their defense absolutely sucks and that their goalie gets hung out to dry entirely too often. Seems the Ducks speed was put to good advantage there. About Hughes and Faber and what looks like a new trend in defensive scheming: Those 2 do create problems in the O-zone and they execute solo break outs too easily because of their outrageous skating and puck handling. Board battles and being strong on the puck with the bigger boys does pose a problem, and playoff hockey seems to favor toughness. Hopefully they avoid the heavy hits that are sure to come down the road.
Iām kind of happy the Oilers are out. They werenāt going all the way this year. So they can regroup, and our media can talk about something else for a few months.
The Oilers go home devastated. Again. I think their Cup window has closed, although they will still be respectable while McDavid and Draisaitl remain with the team. The immense promise of the McDavid cluster has been squandered by very poor management, and fans will be left wondering what if? for years.
That game was absolutely drunk. Two of the best defensive teams in the league, completely forgetting how to play defense. Think it will be much tighter the rest of the way.
Sidenote - I hate the playoff format that has the top 3 teams in the west all playing in the first 2 rounds.
@BLeP , looks like you were right about the Cats, close on McDavid, and wrong about the Sabres. No shame on that last one, I donāt think anyone was predicting Buffalo to morph into a juggernaut.
As for the Leafs, their new hires today in Chayka and Sundin are catastrophic.