After falling behind 3-0 to the Florida Panthers within the 2024 Stanley Cup Ultimate, the Edmonton Oilers have roared again to win Video games 4 and 5 of the best-of-seven championship collection. Connor McDavid has led Edmonton’s resurgence, recording consecutive four-point video games because the Oilers defeated Florida 8-1 at Rogers Place on Saturday (June 15) and 5-3 at Amerant Financial institution Enviornment on Tuesday (June 18).
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Edmonton’s captain has performed chic within the final two video games, setting quite a few information together with probably the most factors whereas dealing with elimination in an NHL championship collection. McDavid now leads all gamers within the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs with 42 factors, the fourth most ever in a single NHL postseason.
Since being drafted first total by the Oilers in 2015, McDavid has spent 9 years attempting to achieve the championship spherical, and now that he’s right here, the five-time Artwork Ross Trophy winner has taken his recreation to a degree that hockey followers didn’t even know existed.
That, nevertheless, can’t be stated of the opposite half of Edmonton’s dynamic duo, the Batman to McDavid’s Superman, 28-year-old centre Leon Draisaitl.
Draisiatl and McDavid Have Been on Journey Collectively
From Day 1, Draisaitl has been proper subsequent to McDavid. He’s gone by all of the trials and tribulations that McDavid has endured. He’s gained all of the honours and awards that McDavid has acquired. He’s been broadly acknowledged as one half of the very best duos ever in hockey, and heard the whispers that they couldn’t carry the Oilers to a championship.
After a decade within the NHL, Draisaitl can also be enjoying in his first Stanley Cup Ultimate. However in contrast to McDavid, he has been a non-factor on the NHL’s grandest stage. He has zero targets and two assists in 5 video games towards the Panthers, with each factors coming in Edmonton’s Recreation 4 blowout victory. In 22:19 of ice time on Tuesday, he was held pointless, had no hits, managed only one shot on objective, and went 8-for-20 within the face-off circle.
The five-time NHL All-Star, who has tallied at a price of just about 50 targets per 82 video games over the previous six common seasons, hasn’t scored a objective in three weeks. He’s bought simply six factors for the reason that begin of the Western Convention Ultimate.
Draisaitl Was Dominant in First 2 Rounds
What makes Draisaitl’s disappearance most conspicuous is how brilliantly he carried out within the opening two rounds of the postseason, throughout which he led the league in factors. He had not less than one level in Edmonton’s first 13 video games of the 2024 NHL Playoffs, tied for the fifth-longest level streak from the beginning of a postseason in NHL historical past.
In Edmonton’s 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings in Spherical 1, Draisaitl had 5 targets, 5 assists, 23 photographs, and was an amazing 62/108 on face-offs. He even blocked 9 photographs in 5 video games towards the Kings, second most amongst all NHL forwards within the playoffs’ opening spherical.
Towards the Vancouver Canucks within the second spherical, Draisaitl racked up 14 factors because the Oilers rallied from trailing within the collection on three separate events (1-0, 2-1, and 3-2) to in the end prevail in seven video games.
Accidents Might Be Hampering Draisaitl
Many have speculated that Draisaitl is enjoying damage. He hasn’t stated nor have the Oilers reported something to that impact, however no one goes to disclose something about accidents right now of 12 months.
There was the state of affairs in Recreation 1 of Spherical 2 when Draisaitl missed a lot of the second interval and seemed to be in ache when he returned to play within the third interval, however Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch chalked that up to “cramping and gear points”, and Draisaitl went on have a spectacular collection, showing no worse for put on.
Then there’s that splint that Draisaitl has been noticed carrying on his finger, which could clarify why the participant with probably the greatest one-timers within the league all of a sudden appears unable to lift the puck with any regularity.
It’s attainable, too, that Draisaitl is simply in a hunch. That wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. He had a stretch of 15 video games early in Edmonton’s 2023-24 schedule the place he scored simply twice, and has a streak of seven video games with out a objective in every of the final two common seasons.
He additionally failed to attain a objective within the Oilers’ ultimate seven video games of the 2022 Playoffs, once they superior to the Western Convention Ultimate. However that was whereas enjoying with a excessive ankle sprain. So he has persevered by postseason ache earlier than.
It might have been a disgrace if Edmonton had lastly reached this level, solely to be unceremoniously swept apart with out getting any contributions from Draisaitl. However now the Oilers have life, and he has an opportunity to write down a distinct ending to what would have been a really disappointing story, by performing just like the superhero he’s proven himself to be so usually over the past a number of seasons.
Even with McDavid in full-on Man of Metal mode, it’s arduous to see the Oilers profitable two extra video games towards a terrific Florida group in the event that they don’t get not less than one large night time from the opposite half of their dynamic duo. Does Draisaitl have it in him?
