How the Oilers’ 2022 series win over the Flames helped turn them into contenders

Yesterday marked the third anniversary of Connor McDavid’s Game 5 overtime winner that ended the Edmonton Oilers’ playoff series against the Calgary Flames.

A lot of Oilers fans are quick to jump on the idea that the Battle of Alberta victory ended up pushing the Flames into a rebuild. It’s a fun thought for sure, although I would imagine that Matthew Tkachuk still forces his way out regardless of the outcome of that Flames playoff run.

What about the other side of that goal? What about what it did for the Edmonton Oilers organization?

If you wanted to try and let a very grim hypothetical play out, then you could try to imagine what the Oilers would have done that summer if they hadn’t bounced back from their Game 1 loss against the Flames and lost that series.

We don’t need to have that conversation, though.

Instead, let’s look at that moment as a turning point for the Oilers franchise.

After two bitterly disappointing first-round exits in 2020 and 2021, the Oilers got through the first round for just the second time in the Connor McDavid era thanks to a Game 7 victory against the Los Angeles Kings that year.

Then that McDavid goal pushed them to the Conference Finals for the first time since 2006.

They were halfway to a Stanley Cup.

Of course, they never got any closer than that as the Colorado Avalanche swept them, but still, that McDavid goal gave me hope that this team could eventually get the job done and since then, the Oilers have been one of the most successful playoff teams in the NHL.

Since the start of that 2022 playoff run, the Oilers have played the second-most playoff games played in the entire league (only the Florida Panthers have played more) and are one of just four teams to have won more than 30 playoff games in the last three seasons.

Even if the ultimate goal hasn’t been reached yet, it is absolutely fair to call the Oilers perennial Stanley Cup contenders and that McDavid overtime winner really does feel like the point where things turned for this franchise.

Inside that locker room there is very clearly a strong sense of belief. It’s why they’re capable of pulling off crazy comebacks within a game or why they don’t seem phased even when they go down 2-0, or 3-0 in a series.

They’ve been through basically every single playoff scenario that you could come up with and more often than not, they come out on the right side of it. If you don’t think that’s played a factor in this year’s playoff run, you’re dead wrong.

On paper, they aren’t the most talented team in the Western Conference. But they play such a composed, mature style of hockey on most nights and that combined with the high-end skill on their roster, makes it very difficult to beat them four times in a seven game series.

Some nights, it’s the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl show. Some nights, they’ll grind out a low scoring win. Some nights, Stuart Skinner will steal them one.

They can win in different ways and are comfortable playing any style of hockey. That’s been evident again as they worked their way to their third Western Conference Final in just four seasons.

At least within the fan base, there used to be a sense of “how is this going to blow up in our faces?” and since that goal in 2022, it feels like there’s been a shift to “this team is capable of anything”.

That strong belief is also probably why the fan base is feeling so good about where the team stands in this Western Conference Final, even though they’re only up 2-1.

It just feels like a foregone conclusion that they’ll be able to finish the job against this Dallas Stars team and move on to their second straight Stanley Cup Final.

But overconfidence come playoff time can be a dangerous thing.

Sure, it’s harmless if the fanbase is feeling a little cocky after a 6-1 win in Game 3.

But the team, weirdly enough, probably shouldn’t be feeling too good.

They were not the better team for long stretches in that hockey game. Dallas brought their best, and if the Stars outplay the Oilers the way they did in the second period on Sunday afternoon again on Tuesday night, then this series could very well be tied heading back to Texas.

Momentum really doesn’t carry over from game to game. The Oilers are going to need to find the form that they showed in Game 2 of the series if they want to push the Stars to the brink of elimination.

Stuart Skinner was excellent and it’s really hard to complain about the offense when you get six goals, but one area in which the Oilers need to be better is getting out of their own end without giving up possession of the puck.

There were far too many times when they couldn’t make a clean play from below their own goalline and it resulted in Dallas being able to hold the puck in the zone or the Oilers wingers having to just chip it out to centre ice.

Cleaner play with the puck in their own end will drastically cut down on the amount of dangerous looks that Skinner has to face, which will be a major key in Game 4.