Ducks missed their best shot at a win in Edmonton
The young and aspiring Anaheim Ducks seemingly had the Edmonton Oilers on the ropes in the opening game of their Pacific Division Semifinal. However, inexperience showed when they couldn’t get the job done.
The Ducks fell behind the high-powered Oilers 2-0 in Game 1 on Monday night, but thanks to great performances from Troy Terry and Leo Carlsson, the team rallied back, scoring three unanswered goals to take the lead. Anaheim took that lead well into the third period, but Edmonton was able to steal the game back. Goals from Jason Dickinson and Kasperi Kapanen gave the Oilers a 4-3 victory, despite captain Connor McDavid failing to put his name on the scoresheet.
On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, DFO Rundown host Jason Gregor joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to explain why Monday night was the Ducks’ best chance at stealing a game in Edmonton.
Jason Gregor: I think they missed their shot a little bit. Um, two of the Oilers’ best players had average games at best in Draisaitl Bouchard and McDavid. The Oilers don’t win a ton of games when McDavid doesn’t get points, even in the playoffs. … How about the fact that Tim Washe played the most minutes of any Ducks forward against Connor McDavid last night and drew even with them in 6:40? That’s a third of McDavid’s ice time. He played against their fourth line, and the shots were 1-1. They basically used the first and second pair of defense, pretty much split down the middle. .. I thought Anaheim checked them well.
I look at it, the Ducks a little bit lost. Like, unlucky. Gudas falls down when it’s 3-2 just backwards skating, gives Ekholm that free lane, and Dickinson scores. Dickinson and Kapanen…you need games where guys you don’t expect to score, to score goals. But for both of them to get a pair of goals, it’s only the second time each one of them’s ever done it in their career, right? These are guys that played 50-plus games. So, I think it was probably more of a, a Ducks look back at that one and say, “God, we let one get away.”
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…