The Hockey PDOcast - How the Oilers beat the Stars in 5 games in the West Final

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by David Castillo to go through everything they saw in Game 5 of the West Final, and how the Oilers were able to beat the Stars for a second straight year. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, David Castillo. David, what's going on, man? Listen, I'm doing well. Nobody has thrown me under a bus. And so what more could I ask for? Yeah, no tire marks on you yet. We got 50 minutes here to see what we can do with that. what are we going to talk about today? The Oilers closed out the stars in Game 5 on Thursday evening. They won the final four games of the West Final to stamp their return ticket to the Stanley Cup final and meet the Florida Panthers again.

I'm going to save the looking ahead and doing the Stanley Cup final preview for the next show to come because I'm having our pal Jack Han on. I'm going to break everything down there. Instead, today you and I are going to sort through what we saw in Game 5 for that West Final, kind of how the Oilers won the series, where it went wrong for the stars, all of our takeaways from the series that only lasted five games, yet I feel like so much was jammed into it, especially compared to the East Final, that it's going to be a fun show here today. Let's start off with this.

It was certainly a complete and utter meltdown by the stars, I thought, on home ice. Given the circumstances in the first eight minutes of the game, you expect a team down 3-1 at home that had shown signs of life in games, three and certainly at the start of game four to build on that, kind of throw everything with the kitchen sink at the Oilers and see what comes of it. And instead, it resulted in this truly bizarre sequence in the first seven or eight minutes that culminated in Pete DeBer pulling.

Jake Onger, we're going to break all of that down. I want to go beat by beat here with you today. But what are your thoughts kind of coming out of those first seven, eight minutes, where it went wrong for the stars, kind of how it all unfolded and who's ultimately to blame? I mean, is this macro level? or a micro level. You can do both. I guess, you know, I want to start with, I think the first thing is first.

Like you kind of saw something similar with game seven between Florida and Toronto in that Edmonton took advantage of a bad line change. And that's kind of, that was really the second goal. But, but, you know, kind of Edmonton did the same thing to Dallas. I mean, there are so many like specifics because I think each of the goals, there's a lot to pack within each of them. And I think they're largely symbolic of the series at large. But the thing that I always go back to and the thing, I guess if I'm kind of stepping back and kind of thinking about like, well, why Dallas, you know, this wasn't game seven.

This was game five. Why Dallas was just simply the, you know, lesser team. And yes, I'm going to use an MMA analogy, but it's going to be the only one for the show, I promise. Delo Brelfrey has a great line in his book about kind of the notion of style and how style is a great multiplier. Florida is the most obvious example, even if it's a little overstated. You know, by that, they run a great forecheck. The nastiness is just extracurricular stuff. And Edmonton's rush, Carolina's structure. Dallas is really the anomaly, I think, among the true contenders. And yes, they generated a lot of on the rush. And like any good team, they can forecheck well. But it's not a multiplier for Dallas like it is for other teams. And it's reflected in their possession

numbers. Like the only line that was a plus and expected goal share was the Dushain line. And even then, they were just barely above average in shot share. So to me, it's like the Connor McGregor versus Dustin Porreier series where the dangerous striker was neutralized by the more dynamic striker. And that's Dallas. They're dangerous, but they're not dynamic. You don't see them with the double attacks, high cycle versus quick transitions plus rush, plus et cetera. You know, obviously, a lot of this is fueled by McDavid and dry sidled. But to me, I felt like the meltdown was just, again, a reflection.

of where these two teams are at in their respective window arcs. There's a lot of fascinating stuff there to unpack. I want to put a pin in it for a second because I just want to go through that entire sequence and kind of break it down, beat by beat, and then we can do a more macro level view of that and kind of what it represented in the series. So it starts off with Maverick Bork's first shift of the series, winding up in what I thought was an incredibly sloppy penalty where he just essentially high sticks, Bouchard, without even it really being part of the play

or providing any sort of edge. He just kind of wasn't looking. His stick was high. He wasn't in control of it. He gets them. And then the Oilers, as they've done in this series, convert on that and take advantage in short order. With the Corey Perry Power Play goal,

now what's interesting to me is you kind of watch all that play unfolds. And it was very symptomatic, I think, of why the Oilers were having so much success in that regard in this series. It was just an automatic McDavid entry. He kind of rims it around to Dreisaitle. Wyatt Johnson overplays him on the wall and gets lost above the puck and loses the PK structure that it held so well for the stars in the first two rounds. And then Lendell steps up to cover for him. Dricidal simply rims it around the boards back to McDavid.

CCC's McDavid getting the puck. And I think it's natural once you see that to be like, oh, I better go get him. So he leaves his position to close out on him. And that leaves Corey Perry left alone completely uncovered. And he converts it four and a half minutes later. there's that undisciplined line change you mentioned that lets Wallman just stretch the puck from his own to Arvinson at the blue line

and they wind up getting a Yanmark breakaway goal from it. Now that's where it gets interesting after that because the stars call a timeout and it was tough to see it in the heat of the moment. I think the replays did a really good job of capturing it where all the players for the stars

disperse from the bench after the timeout and go back on the bench and Pete DeBurr just angrily calls Audinger back and makes the goalie switch seven minutes and nine seconds of game action two goals against on two shots for the Oilers now both of those that we just described were grade A's

off the rush and wide open in front off a defensive breakdown but you know when a coach does something like that and I think this is a very extreme example of it because the stars were you know on the ropes their seasons on the line but we've seen goalie coaches in the past

kind of play this card or push this button to make the goalie switch to just try to not even reflect the goalie's performance necessarily but just to try to you know as a last resort or a desperation act wake up the team get them going a little bit try to change the momentum of the game and the stars certainly made a push later on that we're going to talk about but there weren't any immediate dividends because 58 seconds later petroich and bischel failed to exit the zone twice after an oiler's dump in and then lose a bunch of battles in front of the net and Jeff Skinner scores his first ever

playoff goal coming into the lineup for the injured Zach Hyman. I've got so many thoughts on the Jake Archer goalie poll and how it unfolded dare I say 32 of them. I'm curious for your take on it and obviously we have to loop in the post game comments by Pete DeBore as well and kind of tie it

all together but kind of how this unfolded what it means and ultimately what your takeaways were I think from kind of seeing it happen in real time. Yeah. There's so much. I think I'm going to kind of skip some of the sort of drama around kind of under and DeBoer and kind of just say, you know, first and foremost, right? If we're talking about kind of what, you know, sort of, you know, that kind of early, you know, whole represented, well,

then if you're starting with, say, for example, you know, the power play goal, right? Then you're looking at Wyatt Johnston, who's had a tough playoffs for, I think really for a lot of reasons that maybe we can kind of unpack later. But to me, I think the biggest thing is that, like, well, Adjinger has nothing to do with, for example, the breakdown on the PK, which, yes, was extremely stout. But it's something we saw all series, right? This wasn't just one game.

This was, you know, Edmonton scored a power play goal in every single game in the series. And they did it by doing what Winnipeg did, which was attacking down low. But the reason why the Oilers were successful here, where the Jets were not is that, well, one, McDavid and Drysodle, of course, but, you know, two, they did a really good job of Fainton with dry Sitals move to set up high only to switch, get the puck down low along the boards. It's something that was evident in all their playoffs or in their power play success, where they didn't rush to attack the bottom of Dallas's diamond formation.

The Jets would. The Jets were just like so quick to attack down low. It kind of made them a little predictable, and Edmonton didn't fall for that trap. And I think kind of what we saw too here, and especially, again, just focusing on kind of the first goal, what it represented, why Andger was not to blame is that a little bit of regression. Like the Oilers were 11.29 expected goals per 60, right on the main advantage, which is fourth this postseason. They were due. And then the stars were 11th and expected goals against per 60 short-handed. So they were also due. I think Andger really did a great job for the most part on the PK and that masked a lot of kind of general flaws.

And yeah, the second goal, Lindel bites too hard on Victor Arvinson breaking into the zone and he's not even coming with speed. And then C.C. with an assist to, of course, the line change as mentioned, you know, takes the bad, bad angle track and back. C.C. and Lindle, by the way, were minus 15 and minus 19 at even strength and shots again. against. So I'm going to try not to like say anything about that second pair, except that, you know, it was great work by Edmonton. Got a question why, Linda and Hawkingpaw were not good enough two years ago. And then we decide to, you know, get a worse version of them. Well, not only that, taking a step further, C, C, C, a player who obviously struggled in

last both season and really wound up getting laid off the ice by the time they got to the Stanley Cup final, the Oilers and the offseason. pay just to get him off the team and off the books and reorient that money onto better defensemen, which wound up playing a huge role in the series, and we'd talk more about that. And then the stars, on the other hand, at the deadline, pay to acquire that player and play him in a high leverage situation. And you can see it. You don't want to say it, but I will.

I was joking in the Discord that watching the handshake line after the series, I got to say, Cici gave out some of the best hugs I've ever seen in the handshake line. And, you know, I say that certainly tongue and cheek, although it is very reflective of the fact that whatever you want to say about is on ice acumen, everyone clearly loves him. And he's a great locker room guy. And I imagine that's been why he's had such longevity and sticking around on all these good teams. But also, he was a huge difference maker for the Oilers in this series because the stars got outscored not seven to two in his five on five minutes to go along with the numbers you mentioned there. I thought that, you know, I said earlier how we see sometimes these. these goalie switches in these moments and it's reflective of a coach just trying to

wake the team up in this case I think we can say that without I cycle analyzing it too much but obviously this is a big talking point coming out of it the combination of how visibly animated Pete DeBurr was when he did it and then the scathing post game comments that you alluded to earlier where he essentially just drove the bus back over on jr just to make sure one final time that he was dead after the first time he ran him over that this was. was performance driven in his mind. Now, in the one hand, I think it's impossible to argue against the reality that Andger was the second best goalie in the series, right?

You look at the end of the day, shots for the series, 133 to 132, high danger chances, 63, 62, yet the goals are 2211 because Skinner finished with a 924, say, percentage, and onjure had a 5, 853. In comparison, yet we can talk about what those shots and chances were actually like comparatively for the two teams. I just thought that the scene of Audinger sitting next to Ray Ferraro in the ESPN broadcast as he's talking about the events that had transpired seven minutes into the game was remarkably jarring.

And I think doubly so considering the context of how good Audinger was in getting them to this point in the first place, right? How well he played in the first two rounds, not giving up any bad goals against essentially really to go along with Randon's heroics and the special team stuff, carrying the team farther than I think anyone thought they'd get heading into the a postseason. And then the, you know, the tandem of the elephant in the room of Peter Burr's handling, I think, of goalies over the years with the sword through Mark Andre Flurray's back and that old situation. The commitment the stars have to Audenger long term as well, right,

where his eight-year deal is kicking in. They're going to be paying him $10 million in actual salary for each of the next two seasons and what he means as a foundational piece of this team moving forward. I don't know. I thought that it was a pretty stunning lack of composure for the most part. It wasn't why the stars lost this series because the Oilers were certainly the better team in a bunch of high leverage areas and we can break all those down as well. But it was kind of reminiscent to me of a similar situation two years ago when they lost in the West Final to Vegas when they just got drubbed 6-0 at home and the first period was incredibly

ugly to watch and it was very similar to this. But I just think ultimately all this stuff is kind of a red herring, right? because for all the talk about the goalies, and I do think it's a surprise heading in that Skinner outplayed Audinger to this level, you look and the stars finished with five, five-on-five goals in five games. All of them were scored by Jason Robertson and Tyler, say again.

Out of the 16 playoff teams this year, only Ottawa wound up scoring 5-1-5 goals less frequently than the stars did this postseason. The stars led for 1402 combined in this series, all of it in game one after that third period comeback, and just being relegated to kind of chasing the game the entire time through games two to five, kind of like they did early in round one against Colorado and got away with it, but what a slippery slope that is.

And then the power play stuff we mentioned with Oilers won up and goal, making them six for 15 in this series and how dynamite they'd been in picking apart the stars, BK, that it really carried them in the first two rounds. So all that stuff, I think, kind of comes together. And there were so many reasons why the Oilers won, beyond the goal tending, but yet coming out of that game just because of the optics of it and how it played out, that's obviously why we're talking about and why I think everyone that's covering this series is going to wind up spending a good portion of time kind of dissecting it.

Yeah, no, it really is a kind of red meat masses, et cetera, kind of talking point. And I don't think it's the kind of thing that I do think there is some smoke kind of the notion of like divorce history, goalies, and the decision itself. Like I honestly thought, especially after DeSmith gave up the third goal, I thought, okay, trying to spark the team, but Audinger's going to come back, right? Because, I mean, yeah, sure, you know, getting scored on by Yanmark is not a good look, but it was a much worse look for the defense in general and for the team at large, right? Especially just kind of being sloppy with the line change. And, you know, to be fair, you know, Yanmark did this last year against Florida, right, with his breakaway goal. and that kind of looked like a goal scorer's goal.

He's not a goal score. I get it. But one thing I do want to say really quick that has like kind of nothing to do with the sort of oddra drama, which is that I do want to just credit Yanmark for, you know, the guy has an actual joint disorder, osteocondritis disacans, which I'm sure I'm butchering and still continues living his best life. So credit to him. Like I'm always happy to see Yanmark do well.

But, you know, I think with the Odger thing. It's, I don't think it was the right decision, but it's, it's not a decision, kind of like you said, and what, like we all kind of know, it's not a decision that decided the series. It's not a decision that deserves, I think, the oxygen of publicity that it's going to get over and over. And I'm sure they'll patch things up and, you know, it'll, you know, they'll kind of get over it and whatnot. to me, that is all secondary, tertiary, the fact that Dallas, like, you have a blue line that can't get the puck to your forwards. There's a reason why Edmonton outscored Dallas 13 to 5, but even strength. And it's because Edmonton from pair one to pair two to pair three had defenders

that could facilitate the puck up ice, that could handle the puck like it was not a grenade. and this is what allowed Edmonton more than just simply two goal scores and even strength to have success. And so that to me is the bigger thing. It's, it's, I mean, again, like, I just don't, I don't really find that discussion just that interesting with Audjur. I think it's, it's a kind of thing that will maybe kind of develop into something bigger than it is. But, but it's just, it's not critical to, you know, the hockey side of like, well, why did Dallas lose, especially I mean, you could argue that Dallas shouldn't have been in this game if it wasn't for, what was it, like a six-minute burst of power play minutes with three goals in game one

all in the third period, right? So, I mean, that's just, that's kind of, I'm, I just don't, I mean, there are a lot of narratives with this Dallas team about like, oh, the, the hint slash and, you know, the odd and your pool that I think are just going to completely distract. from the reality and the underlying truth, which is Edmonton was the better team. And perhaps even good enough to beat Florida. Like I was super impressed with the Oilers. Oh, I was too.

I thought they did some incredible stuff and we're going to spend a lot more time talking about that. The reason why I wanted to lead with the goalie stuff, though, beyond the drama is I do think the performance of the two goalies that either ends is sort of emblematic. I think of a conversation I've been having and covering all these games throughout the series of how the disparity between how the two teams were creating their looks offensively and in the environments they found themselves within, right? And you hit on that with the quality of the defenseman comparatively. And the best example of that is the rush offense for the two teams, right?

By my count, the goals in transition for the series were 10 to 3 for the Oilers. Those three stars goals, two of them were by Sega in game one. And then Jason Robertson's early third period goal in this game five was the other. Now, what was notable on that one to me was it was kind of a great example of what the stars just weren't really doing in this series. And I think it's partly because, I mean, they have the personnel to do so. I think it's just because of how well the Oilers were backtracking and gaping up and closing off a lot of the lanes. And it came off of a rant in an entry, an east-west cross-ice pass to Robertson. It's a pretty soft goal along the ice, but there's some pre-shaw movement required for Skinner.

and we know how that's one area you could probably beat him in more likely than not when he's able to get set and face a direct shot he's quite good and the stars were resorting to a lot of that type of offense throughout whenever they would get off on the rush it would be a very straight line shot there were very few of those instances of the rant and into robertson cross ice whereas the oilers were just feasting in transition throughout and and you know i think that the reason for that is the largely defense driven and the concept of, you know, your defenseman being the initiators of the offense and helping set the table and get your team moving in the right direction. I just think the number of plays that died on the sticks of Stars defensemen in this series was crazy, right? Whether it was seemingly always finding CC as the trigger man, uh, which is a cruel fate or then being unable to, you know, after sustained pressure, keep the puck into the zone and, and maintain possession. Whereas you look at Bouchard, who's probably the best player in the world at doing so and how often he would sustain a lot of those sequences for the Oilers, or just failing as on the 3-0 goal just to get out of the zone. And what the stars did with their blue line, and they got to this point despite it, but it eventually came to bite them and came to roost.

Whereas the Oilers, to their credit, they totally revamped this blue line, right? whether it was getting rid of CC in the first place last off season, taking a shot on Klingberg in season, trading for Walman at the deadline. That Walman-Klingberg pair was remarkable for them in this series and really has been throughout the postseason to date. Troy Stetcher, who they wound up retaining on July 1st for less than 800,000 and the role he played in the first four games,

stabilizing that nurse pair and just giving them a six defenseman who could be trusted to move around and skate freely and get the, puck to the forwards. And time and time again, the difference in the series for me was the Oilers was able to get out of the zone, get the puck to their forwards, attack with numbers, even on the five three goal, right? The response that are Robertson one early in the third. The end result is a fortunate bounce where it goes, Kane kind of throws it off Lindell and it bounces in and past Casey to Smith, but backtrack 10 seconds. And it's another instance of Walman diffusing pressure going around the net, quick-hoping it to dry-sidal for a clean exit.

Drysidal is able to facilitate a clean entry, gets it decayed, and then they're moving downhill. And when you put yourself in those spots, regardless of the balance that follows, good things are generally going to happen. And the Oilers were doing that time and time again, whereas the stars just really had no real answers or recourse for facilitating those types of actions. Yeah, no. I mean, it's a big part of, it's just, it's a really stark contrast between two opposing philosophies where, you know, whatever you want to say about Edmonton's management.

And yeah, it looked like they kind of screwed up the off season, you know, Let in Holloway and Broberg walk, but still understanding kind of their team identity and understanding the concept of fit. I mean, nobody would kind of look at, well, other than, you know, chart huggers, look at Brett Kulak and say like, oh, there's a defenseman I need to have my top four. But Edmonton, you know, kind of seeing that along with players like Wallman, Klingberg, et cetera. and yeah, even Stetcher to a lesser extent, you know, knowing that, hey, we're a rush-oriented team, how can we find players that add value within the context of our identity? Dallas, meanwhile, kind of just, you know, you saw this with the offseason, right?

Like, well, how can we find defenders that can just, you know, plug in minutes? And you can find those people anywhere. That's why they had Alex Petrovich, you know, pretty much a career HLER, playing over those guys who are over six million, you know, on the cap per year between Dumbull and Lubbushkin. And, and it's, I think, I mean, from the Star's perspective, like, we get it. You know, like the blue line, you know, really sucks beyond Harley and Heiskenen. To a lesser extent, Lindell, I think is a fantastic shutdown defenseman. But he's also a really good example of, like, when you have a defenseman like that, you really need to compliment him.

There's a reason why Tanniff and Klingberg worked is because he's not good at getting the puck out of the zone. Like he's not good at that. Like he has some very clear strengths. He has some very clear weaknesses. And not respecting that concept of like chemistry and fit and interlinking skills is, you know, a big part of why Edmonton is moving on and Dallas is not. I mean, it was a weakness that we all talked about ad nauseum. But one thing I do want to say, and hopefully we're not, I'm not getting ahead of my

is the job of Evan Bouchard, who is a player that I think, you know, I think for the most part, he's respected as a number one defenseman and just a really good player in general. We all get it. But for the most part, it's never really kind of entered into the serious kind of Norris consideration and not to overreact to kind of one series. But I do think this series in particular was a great example of. And I know Stars fans are going to hate this, but Richard reminds me, at least at his defensive best, of Zubov. Because it's such a highlight and spotlight on how important offensive skills are in the defensive zone and how he leverages those.

I know Jack Hahn wrote a quick piece that was great about his passing. But like with Zubov, to me, it's also about his posture and attitude. He's calm, cool, and collected handling the puck in tight, often dangerous spaces. and you saw that so often with Dallas kind of trying to pressure him and him just kind of, you know, pulling some, you know, jujitsu with his with his puck work. It's something that I think is, you know, he sometimes kind of gets criticized because, you know, there's not like a ton of urgency in his game because he's not like a, you know, an athlete with a capital A.

But what he is is an elite play processor. And when you have that with those, you know, elite offensive. skills, then you have a guy in the defensive zone who's just going to negate what you're trying to do on the forecheck. And Dallas had moments. I think they probably deserved a better fate even strength, maybe a bit of a hot take than they perhaps deserve. But it's Edmonton's defenders being able to kind of just maneuver around whatever Dallas

was spamming at them is far more critical than, you know, And you're being pulled after getting scored on by Yanmark and etc, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, it's one more. It's way more than just the one series. I think Bouchard has clearly established himself as a big time playoff performer, I think, his game since about, you know, when that round one series flipped against the Kings game three or four has been absolutely exquisite. What he did in this series, forget the two goals and three assists. He plays 35 minutes five and five against Ranton and 21 against Waijo, 17 against Duchenne,

the stars don't score a single goal in that time. He was killing so many plays well before they could materialize in the neutral zone or at the blue line by gaping up some of his reads to knock pucks down and then get it to an Oilers forward before the stars could get set. We're huge in this series. He even had to play in the first period that I noted down in my game notes where it didn't wind up leading to anything because I think Kane couldn't get a shot off on it, but he basically just gets the puck of the blue line in the ozone. and fires over one of those cross-seam darts to the opposite circle and sets him up for a great A out of nothing. And he was just doing that time and time again. So, yeah, I thought, I thought his play and the play of the Oilers defensemen in general

was not only the difference in this series, but also a big X factor heading into the Stanley Cup final on something. I'm sure I'm going to talk a lot about with Jack Hahn when we do that preview. Let's take our break here, David. And then when we come back, we will jump right back into it and close out today's conversation on the West Final. you're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedocast with David Castillo,

recapping the West Final. Let's jump right back into it. You know, I thought that the stars in the second period of Game 5 certainly made a big push. They whittled the lead down to one. The first goal was Wyatt Johnson finally getting on the board with his first point of the series, forcing a cool acturnal. resulting in Robertson's 3-1 goal. I do think it's the faintest of silver linings for the stars,

but the fact that Robertson was able to come back, and I thought look as good as he did in the final three games of this series where he scores, what, the three goals, four goals, generates 23 shots along the way in those three games, especially considering not only the injury this year, but some of the concerns about his past playoff efficiency, I think that's a very welcome sign for the stars moving forward. they get the power play goal off of another really good sequence

where Robertson and Y. Johnson together with Maverick Bork, create a bunch of pressure, get a couple chances, draw a penalty, and then hit scores in the ensuing power play. And this is where it gets us to finally talk about Connor McDavid, because I thought the goal he scored here was incredible. It was a McDavid breakaway goal, and he scored so many of them that I think we've almost become desensitized to it to just, it's another day at the office, essentially.

but both the nature of it in terms of kind of going against the flow to really just stick the knife in as one of the final daggers in this series very similar to what he did at the end of the second period in game three when the stars were mounting their push and immediately erase any sort of hope of a comeback was incredible. I thought the feed itself of, you know, Harley takes a shot in the offensive zone and it gets blocked off with that cold and it goes into the neutral zone.

McDavid tracks it down and he's got, he's going full speed. He's got hints pressuring him as well as you can really expect anyone to in the back pocket short of taking a penalty. And he just maintains complete control throughout while going at that speed without pressure and tucks it in casually past DeSmith. And I mean, I just thought it was an incredible goal. It was the latest and a long list of them for McDavid. I thought he was for all the talk about the defensemen. I think they play a role in creating some of that. infrastructure support for these star players, just putting them in more advantageous situations

to attack with the puck. Another difference between the two teams here was just at the top of the lineup. And around the deadline, we spoke a lot about how part of the logic for the stars in acquiring Ranton and paying the price they did so and then signing them to eight-year deal is finally giving themselves a player that can go head to head in these types of situations with the other best players in the world, taking the stars from being kind of reliant on. a team effort to being able to exchange firepower at the top of the lineup. And he certainly did so in round one. He did so for stretches in round two as well.

But in this series, you look all told, there was 40 minutes and 40 seconds, 5 on 5 on 5 of Randon and versus McDavid. In that time, goals were 4-1 for the Oilers. Chances were 11 to 3 for the Oilers and shots on goal were 26 to 15, Redmondton. And they decisively won those minutes. McDavid-Drey Settle and RNH who had a fantastic series as well as we spoken about. all had nine points in five games. And that was a massive point of delineation, I think, between the two. The secondary scoring certainly plays a role. We could talk more about them getting nothing from guys like Ben or after game one from the Dushain Marchmont combo.

But just the fact that they wanted the top of the lineup in that manner in all those head-to-head minutes was a massive driving point here for why the Oilers won the series in five. Yeah, that fourth goal, you know, something that, I think one of the reasons why I thought Audendra might come back is because DeSmith does something really weird that Ferrar pointed out on the ESPN broadcast on that McDavid goal. You know, Hince is such a speed freak. You know, what does it say about McDavid that he was able to beat him? And I know this kind of analysis is probably easy to point out

from the comfort of a keyboard because I don't know that there's an easy way to retreat for any goal having to deal with McDavid. But Hintz probably gets credit for Caching him if the Smith doesn't leave the left side, like completely wide open. McDavid doesn't even really shoot the puck there. He just kind of softly directs it. Now, that's still a part of goal scoring, still what makes McDavid the best play in the world.

And I don't think there's any real bad goal you can ever give up to McDavid. I do kind of sometimes wonder how that play looks if it's Audra net without kind of bringing it back to the whole sort of like, Ander drama. But yeah, it's, it's McDavid's, I think, performance. And the thing that I think, makes McDavid's performance all the more impressive kind of in general beyond just like that, you know, that goal number four in game five is that I thought Dallas actually defended him reasonably well, right? You're never going to stop McDavid. He's going to score. He's going to make

plays. And, you know, you, the best you can do is just hope it doesn't kind of burn you long term. And I thought for the most part as a team, like, you know, again, they lost the minutes. They lost the matchup. But for the most part, I thought, you know, hints especially, Heiskenen, sorry, Heyskenen, doing a pretty good job. Even Thomas Harley, he had some, like, kind of, Harley had some off moments for sure. But I think for the most part, Dallas did a pretty, as good a job as you can do, defending McDavid. And it just says so much about his overall game,

the way he's kind of stepped up, not to mention his chemistry with Nugent Hopkins. Like, New Jersey Hopkins just killed the stars. Like, who's one of their best forwards. You know, you could probably do a whole episode on just like how he's kind of, he's developed himself. But I thought that was what was most impressive about McDavid in the series is that I thought Dallas did everything they could have done within their power to stop him. And it wasn't enough, right? Just wasn't enough. Even hints backtracking wasn't enough.

And so, I mean, there's really not a whole lot you can say about McDavid being the best player in the world other than that he's the best player in the world. But he's also just kind of the best in terms of those dual attacks, you know, being able to kind of threaten not just up high, but down low on the rush, on the cycle. And it's something that Dallas didn't have. It's it was so clear all series, you know, who was kind of lacking in that dynamism that I kind of talked about in the cycle. the silly analogy between McGregor and Porre. Yeah, I think it's a point well taken about the stars having their moments defensively against him, especially with some of the Hayskin and one-on-one stick work and, you know, doing as well as you could hope for in diffusing the threat of some of those.

Yet I'm going to post, as soon as we're done recording, I'll post a full mixtape of McDavid in this series. And he was absolutely psychotic in terms of how many looks he was creating. And I think in particular the microcosm, it, it portrayed this series of kind of the suddenness of it, regardless of what else was happening, and how threatening it immediately became, as opposed to how methodical and deliberate the Euler's D

was forcing the stars into playing and sort of what that means for the likelihood of those shots turning into goals and the environment it creates for the goalies that are facing them. I thought, you know, we talked about the Oilers defense, talked about McDavid here in the top of the lineup. I think arguably the most impressive part of the series for me coming out of it from the Oilers was, how good they were in finishing off these games and their performance in the third periods

where they just completely suck the life out of the game and killed any hopes the stars had. There was that good exchange of goals in the first three minutes of the third period here in game five, where Robertson scores off the rush, then Kane gets one back. It's five three. The Oilers don't give up a single shot on goal in the final 16, 17 of this game in games three, four, and five all games where they entered the third period with leads. They held the stars to four shots on goal in each of those periods. And we spent so much time over the years, you know, questioning the Oilers defensive ability

because the offense has certainly never been up for debate and how serious they were to be taken as a contender and a potential title team because of that and how they'd have these breakdowns and, you know, comedic sequences where they'd score a bunch of goals, but then just give it right back. and whether it would be a net positive ultimately. And as this postseason has progressed, and especially in this series, I thought it was just such a mature, locked-in effort from them

in terms of applying themselves, not taking too long of shifts and exposing themselves and making themselves vulnerable, everyone just doing their part. And you could see that in these third periods, right? Where it was just a steady dose of retrieving the puck, getting it out, dumping it deep, killing 40 seconds off the clock,

and just doing that over and over again until there was no time left on the clock. And so it's crazy with your season on the line, you're down two goals, final 16 minutes at home to not register a single shot on goal. But I think that's to this Oilers credit because they're just defensive effort here was massive. Well, and to be fair,

and this is, I'm not like saying that you've ever said this, but I think some of that, right, the whole like Edmonton defense comes from that sort of conflation between, you know, defense and goal suppression, right, between, you know, shot suppression and goal tendon, which is that I think for a while they've had a pretty decent blue line. Sure, Darnell Nurse, you know, not the greatest contract, but for the most part, they have a really solid unit of players that are able to kind of collapse effectively when they need to, but kind of getting back to that sort of speed and level change that they have that Dallas lacked,

you know, being able to play that kind of grindy dump it out, but then in addition, having an effective forecheck so that you're able to make the most of those dumpouts. So you're able to get the puck into the opponent's zone, you know, kind of, right, offense comes from defense. Defense comes from offense in a three zone world. And Edmonton really reflects that, I think, to a team. without getting ahead of the preview against Florida, you know, one of the reasons why they were so effective against the Panthers last year.

And one of the reasons why they just don't seem to get the credit that they deserve because, well, hey, Stuart Skinner has these, like, you know, wretched games every now and then. But, I mean, you look at it like Skinner's underlying numbers, you know, over the past three seasons. Like, he's decent. His number, his, like, true save percentage is pretty much identical to J. Goddinger. David, don't be bringing up the Delta Fenwick expected say percentage again.

Don't do it. Okay, all right. The point is, you know, like I think the way we evaluate goalies, I think it was expected Buffalo had a really great kind of quadrant of like their goalies are either widely varying

degrees of good, consistently good, bad, and widely varying degrees of bad. Hopefully that's, you know, much more statistical and methodical and mathematical and mathematical. But yeah, man, like it was really, you know, as much as it hurts for a starspan, it really is a pleasure, especially as a hockey purist, to kind of watch what is going to be the two best teams stand, which is Edmonton and Florida.

And you know what? Like, for that matter, I think Darnell Nurse played well. I think, you know, for as much grief as he gets, he's still a player that that's able to kind of play that scramble game that Edmonton sometimes, you know, granted, like this, this doesn't apply to when he's like body surfing and playing defense that way. But I think, you know, when it comes to Edmonton having to scramble out of, you know, pressure and rushes, they do a really good job of it, man. Like I've always kind of liked the way they played this kind of rugged, you know, style of defense that doesn't always look pretty, but that gets the job done. Yeah, I thought his game with Stetcher on the first four

was much more quiet and that's a good thing with oilers. Some of his work around the net in the own zone. I thought, Walman, you know, he gets a lot of credit for just the puck moving and he helped set up a couple of those goals off the rush by just getting it quickly up to a forward and kind of, you know, holding onto it, not forcing it out, working it around behind his net and then making a clean pass up the ice. But it felt like every time the stars would be in a position to get a high danger opportunity

off or had a good look at the net, he would just show up out of nowhere and observe. orbit and block it and get it out of the way. And he did that a couple of times here. There was that sequence in the second period. I think it was still 3-1 at the time where there was a nice passing play in the Ozone, where Hayskinan goes cross-eemed to Dushain. Dushane gets at the marchment. He's in a great scoring position.

Skinner is kind of out of position. And he flubs the shot a little bit, but also Walman's right there to just eat it up. And I thought that was very symbolic for both sides. You got any other notes from this series in terms of key differences or reasons why? this only went five that we haven't gotten to yet. I feel like we kind of hit a lot of the main ones so far. Maybe to discuss some of the players on the peripheries that were involved in that. But I think we got to a lot of the main concepts here.

I think just kind of like closing out. Like I think a couple of players like for Edmonton that deserve kind of high marks is, is the Pud Colson with Capitan kind of there, kind of brief minutes with dry sidle because that was a matchup. When Starzvans talk about Wyatt Johnson and his struggles, you know, this was largely a byproduct of one Johnson playing in tough minutes for the first two series. Now, they got him off the tough matchups versus the top lines versus Edmonton. But through the first two series, had him playing this kind of 22-year-old doing a Bergeron-type role. And it was okay.

But, you know, part of the issue is that, well, you know, he didn't have wingers that could really. help and support his game. Like Ben and Dadaunoff, kind of mostly nowhere to be found. Whereas I think, you know, it's with dry sidel and kind of, you know, his minutes with Potokulz and Cappan, again, a good example of like, hey, you know, these aren't the greatest wingers in the world. But there is at least is, there at least is a set of interlinked skills that pair together and that can do certain things effectively, even if, you know, they're not going to set the

world ablaze. And that was just a complete opposite. I think Johnston's kind of performance is a really interesting story because it gets bogged down in like lame discussions about plus minus but the truth is that you have a young player who started out with a really tough role,

really tough, you know, starts and quality of competition and ultimately was dragged down by his teammates in my personal opinion. But I think also just, hey, you know, sometimes these players are not ready. And I think for Johnston, he's just not ready for that role.

and I think that was also a big part of Edmonton kind of overcoming the series, which is that, you know, you keep up a 70-point center completely quiet. You're doing a pretty good job. Yeah, I thought that's a great point by you in terms of what the Oilers were able to do with their forward group in this series. And I think part of it was a byproduct of getting those early leads and just playing from ahead and not having to, you know, frantically chase offense and try to create goals.

and so what they wound up being able to do is I believe in the five games Dreisidal and McDavid played only 14 minutes 5-1-5 together a lot of those were these isolated instances where it would be post-PK and they'd be out there or in game one in the third period when they gave up that lead after the star's power play goals and then they were pushing for offense they really were able to spread it out and just have each guy occupy their own minutes and I do feel like despite how cool it is when they're out there together and how dangerous and threatening can be offensively,

this just makes them a better team. And full credit, as you said, to what they got from Port Coulson and Cappanan in coming in here because they executed their roles perfectly just with their speed. They're able to cover ice and make life easier for a dry cycle to occupy the middle. And that worked out really well for them.

And the stars just didn't have that luxury from a lot of those depth pieces. So I think that's a point really well taken. I mean, I think you're being very generous to why Johnson's team. mates in saying they didn't get much from them. And that being the reason for his offensive struggles, I mean, Jamie Ben, and listen, he is a 36-year-old, so I don't think it's groundbreaking analysis to say that he struggled.

But considering, I think, the context of his deal being up and questions about the future and what that's going to look like, it is worth hammering home here that he played 57 minutes in these five games. He had just five shots the entire time, zero points. got outscored 4-0 if I won 5 and was just essentially doing cardio out there and putting Johnson in that spot. I think in particular, I know they experimented with it, especially against Winnipeg, kind of loading up Robertson, Ranton and Johnson.

They didn't do it as much here. But during that second period push, how dangerous Robertson and Johnson in particular looked together, you would have liked to maybe see more of that. And I think that's something they, as they take time off here and reflect on the season and this series in particular and look ahead to next year. I want to see more of that. So yeah, I think all that is interesting stuff. Anything else?

I mean, we covered the goalies. We cover the special teams. We cover the defense, the top of the lineup, the supporting casts. I thought it was, as I said, an very impressive effort by the Oilers here. I'm very excited about this upcoming Stanley Cup final. And if they can play this way, you've got to feel, I know it's going to be a tougher test against the Panthers

and the pressure they're able to provide. and how much, you know, when you compare the forward groups and what they've been getting from their secondary scoring, compared to what the stars really did all postseason, it's an entirely different test with Oilers, but yet a lot of the hallmarks that gave them the success in the blueprint in this series, I do feel like are very applicable to what they're going to have to do to beat Florida and get revenge for last season. The only question I had, because I'm curious, you know, I'm curious if this is becoming a thing in the same way. you know, kind of pulling goalies, you know, a little bit earlier is our teams load in it. Like, I haven't really paid attention to our teams, right, because statistically,

and Mike and Blake McCurdy has some great, like, heat maps for this stuff. Statistically, right, like the seconds immediately after a power play ends are just chaos, maximum chaos. Our team's doing that. Obviously, Edmonton is doing that, right? McDavid and Drysiddle right at the end of a penalty. I'm wondering if, like, that's a broad trend. in general.

I think it's an extreme one in this case, yet I can, I mean, the eye test backs it up as well. It makes sense because there's so much confusion, I think, especially for the opposing power play, assuming they didn't score on their opportunity. All of a sudden, you've got probably a different combination of players

on the ice that are used to play together. At 515, maybe you even have only one defenseman out there still with four forwards, kind of everyone is unsure of all of a sudden their assignment, and what they need to do, the puck might be either a loose 50-50 puck or in the neutral zone. And so all of a sudden there's just a lot of miscommunication, a lot of chaos that you mentioned. And that feels like a good opportunity for you to build on whatever momentum you got off killing the penalty. And then striking and the Oilers probably do that better than anyone.

I feel like especially considering they didn't really play Dr. Settled McDavid together in the series 5-on-5 for the most part, for them to be just going to that as a staple of their team and part of their identity, I think is pretty cool and definitely on the extreme end of things. Yeah, beyond that, Dallas, start looking for the next Arturi-Lecan, not the next, you know, Matt Dushan, Maddieus Mice Shelley, come on down. Yeah, it'll be an interesting summer for them. You know, we're going to have a lot of time to talk about the most interesting teams this offseason. I think certainly in revamping the blue line and shedding some contracts,

It's obviously the UFA status of Dushain and Ben, I think, likely looking for another place to descend Marchments 4.5 million based on how this postseason progressed from with all the penalties and the lack of offensive contribution and just trying to make the math work for the cap. I think that's going to be a big story. And so, yeah, it feels like, you know, on the one hand, the stars did a lot of their work at the deadline by acquiring, ran to and signing him today, your deal, getting the Johnson extension done. they've got Robertson and Harley coming ahead as well. Yet, I imagine, despite that core kind of being in place, there probably will be a lot of changes on the peripheries with a lot of these other names for a team that's made it to three straight Western Conference Finals the way they have.

Yeah, no, it's something that I think for as much as, I know Stars fans are like, they're down bad, they're doom and gloom, but man, this is still a team with rantan-in-in-signed long-term, with a lot of elite talent sign long-term, and a lot of youth, you know, within that core. So I definitely feel like just dealing with the margins, kind of really kind of similar to what Toronto has done over the years, right? Kind of, you know, bringing in, you know, more effective kind of puck movers. You don't have to, you know, sign some $8 million dollar veteran, which, of course, they can't do anyways. But I think if they blow up the right side of the blue line,

that that'll like just go a long way. That alone will be enough. And but still, like credit to Dallas for giving hockey a super exciting trade deadline, one of the most exciting in probably over a decade. And, and yeah, you know, it's disappointed if you're a stars fan, exciting if you're an oilish fan. But this was, I thought this was really good series. It wasn't close, but I think it was more competitive than it seemed on the score sheet.

Yeah. I think that's right. I think it was eventful. I think it was played at a really high level. And the score lines didn't really reflect it. But I definitely enjoyed all five of these games. All right, David, we're going to get out here. I'll let you plug some stuff here and let the listeners know about where they can check it out. What you got ahead here now that there's no more Stars games to cover for you. So, you know, I'll just be in the peanut gallery playing Armchair GM at the Starstack and probably writing quite a bit at D Magazine. You know, my personal thoughts on kind of, you know, what. Dallas needs to do kind of moving forward, what lessons can be learned, all the sort of generic stuff that you're used to in terms of, hey, what did we do wrong? All right, buddy. Well, looking forward to that and having you back on in the offseason and as we get ahead to next year as well, once the postseason is done, give us a five-star review wherever

you listen to the show. If you enjoyed today's episode, we're not done yet. Because as I said, off the top, we're going to get Jack Hahn in here to help us look ahead to that Stanley Cup final and preview Oilers Panthers rematch to close out the week. Thank you for listening to the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.