After a two-game stretch that saw the Edmonton Oilers outscore their opponents 13-2, including nine points from captain Connor McDavid, the hockey world is asking themselves: Are the Oilers finally back?
On Monday’s episode of "Daily Faceoff LIVE," Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss the Oilers’ 5-0 win over the Washington Capitals on Friday and their 8-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, and whether this two-game winning streak can be what kickstarts the Oilers’ climb up the Western Conference standings.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Edmonton Oilers thumped the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday in an 8-2 victory. It comes after the Oilers shut out the Washington Capitals 5-0 on Friday. Their power play is also starting to find its legs, we heard that Leon Draisaitl sent everyone on the power play a text over the weekend saying “Let’s figure this out,” because it was not looking like its historically great self.
The Oilers appear to be finding their groove a little bit, the question is: Are the Oilers back?
Frank Seravalli: I think they are. You don’t want to say too definitively if we were grading on a scale of one to 10, I’d say it’s a seven. Connor McDavid has nine points in his last two games, going from 56th to 16th in league scoring — over the weekend. This was a three-day stretch where he’s suddenly back to life, and the power play is clicking again. You look at this and think, “Maybe they can outrun some of their mistakes that they have defensively, maybe they can outscore some of the goals they give up.”
I wanted to talk about the Oilers today because we’ve hammered them the last couple of weeks, and rightfully so, but when you have a weekend this good, and you do it on two different sides of the continent, and you do it against a Capitals’ penalty kill that’s really good this season, you’re probably in pretty good shape and you’ve earned some confidence to get back into the playoff race.
You can watch the full episode here…
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