EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers beat their 2017 selves Monday night, a look in the rearview mirror at an Anaheim Ducks team that presents very much the way these Oilers once did.
“Yeah, without a doubt,” smiled Leon Draisaitl, who had four assists in a 7-4 Oilers win. “A lot of lot of fresh legs, a lot of enthusiasm. Lots of skill. A team that has a radiant future without a doubt.”
Edmonton had missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive springs when they broke out in 2017, beating San Jose in Round 1 to advance to a second-round series against the veteran Ducks.
Anaheim has missed the playoffs for seven straight years. At the 53-game mark they’ve only a four-point bulge on San Jose and Los Angeles, and a long stretch of meaningful games await, something the folks in Anaheim haven’t experienced in most of a decade.
“It gets harder from here on out,” warned Draisaitl.“And then you get into the playoffs and it gets really hard, right? That’s where you measure yourself.
“No disrespect (to Anaheim) — it’s good getting off to a good start and being in a playoff spot right now. But it’s only going to get harder. We’ll see if they’re able to, I guess, handle that pressure. But they’ve got a bright future ahead without a doubt.”
Remember when Todd McLellan’s Oilers finally busted into the playoffs in 2017, beat San jose in Round 1, and then ran right into Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and the veteran Ducks?
Remember how Edmonton had Anaheim on the ropes in that second-round series? How the Ducks hung in there, somehow winning Game 5 at home, a game that the Oilers had led with three minutes to play, then gutted out a 2-1 win in Game 7?
That Oilers team that just didn’t have the gamesmanship or attention to detail that Anaheim had forged over a decade as a Western power.
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