Oilers Need More From Draisaitl and McDavid

The Edmonton Oilers will face off against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday (May 14) with a 3-1 lead in their Stanley Cup Playoffs best-of-seven second round series.

It’s no surprise that the Oilers find themselves one win away from advancing to the Western Conference Final. They are, after all, the defending conference champs and were the preseason favourite to win the Stanley Cup.

But what is surprising is that Edmonton is just one win away from the conference final despite getting just three goals combined from Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid thus far in its series against the Golden Knights.

Point Totals Are Down

The Dynamic Duo have not produced to their usual standards of late. Over Edmonton’s last six games this postseason, McDavid and Draisaitl have recorded eight and six points, respectively. For most players, those would be good numbers. For arguably the two best players on the planet, they represent an offensive drought.

McDavid is on an eight-game point streak, but he isn’t delivering the monster performances he’s known for. The last time McDavid recorded more than two points in a contest was Game 3 of Round 1 against the Los Angeles Kings.

Draisaitl had nine points in the Oilers’ first four playoff games, but has just six points in the six games since. The Hart Trophy finalist has been held without a point in two of Edmonton’s last five games.

While the Dynamic Duo linked up in overtime of Game 2 against the Golden Knights, with McDavid making a jaw-dropping deke before setting up Draisaitl for the winning goal, their contributions have been minimal to most of Edmonton’s recent victories.

In Game 5 against the Kings, a 3-1 win for the Oilers, they each finished with one assist. In the next game, when Edmonton closed out the series with a 6-4 victory over Los Angeles, they combined for one assist. Then on Monday (May 12), they again combined for just one assist as the Oilers defeated Vegas 3-0 to take a stranglehold on the series.

Haven’t Played Their Best

Numbers, of course, often don’t tell a full story, but from even just observing Draisaitl and McDavid over the last few games, it’s obvious they’ve not been themselves, the former in particular. Draisaitl had a particularly dreadful outing in Game 3, capped off by deflecting a shot that was going wide into his own net, resulting in the winning goal for Vegas forward Reilly Smith with less than a second remaining. Draisaitl has looked so off his game of late that many have speculated the 29-year-old forward is injured, but that theory has been debunked by sources on the team.