Another team with a high-powered offense has clinched a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Over the weekend, the Edmonton Oilers officially earned a berth into this year’s postseason, not that anyone was surprised. Now, the team is pressured to live up to the hype once again.
With a team featuring the talents of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman, expectations have been high over the last few seasons, but the Oilers have managed to bow out earlier than expected.
The biggest question is, what can this year’s team do to get over the hump?
On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk explain what Edmonton’s main focus must be if they want to head to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The strengths are simple with this team–scoring. They have a third line that’s humming along. The whole top nine seems to be moving at a pretty good pace. The weakness is just as easy to identify–it’s their blueline.
Frank Seravalli: I think it’s this team, time and time again, is it’s own worst enemy. It’s not allowing singles and doubles turn into grand slams, and they do that too often. To me, it’s not any one person, it’s not just on Darnell Nurse, it’s not just on Evan Bouchard…there’s a number of players with this team that have all the talent in the world, yet they often shoot themselves in the foot. That’s going back four years.
Are you going to make mistakes? Sure. Try and limit how big the wound is…I wouldn’t be shocked if they won the Stanley Cup this year, and I also wouldn’t be shocked if, let’s say they’re facing the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round, they lost this year.
You can watch the entire segment, and the full episode here…
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