3 Takeaways from Oilers’ Massive Game 5 Victory Over the Ducks – The Hockey Writers –

The Edmonton Oilers had their backs up against the wall on Tuesday night, and they put forth their best performance in quite some time. Trailing the Anaheim Ducks 3-1 in their best of seven series, the Oilers had no room left for error. That said, they didn’t at all look like a team who was feeling pressure.

Rather than coming out of the gates nervous, the Oilers looked like the team fans have become accustomed to in recent years. They came out flying out of the gates and were able to play with the lead much better than what we’ve seen so far this series. By the time the final horn sounded, they walked away with a 4-1 victory and will now prepare for Game 6 on Thursday. With that said, here are the three main takeaways from Tuesday’s outing.

Draisaitl Played Like a Man Possessed

While much has been made about the struggles of the injured Connor McDavid in this series, what hasn’t been talked bout nearly as much was the fact that Leon Draisaitl was far from his best. While he did enter Game 5 with a team-leading seven points in this series, he wasn’t taking over games the way fans have seen him do in past postseasons.

Whether it was due to the high stakes of Game 5 or simply just snapping out of a slump, Draisaitl was flat-out elite in this one. He seemingly controlled play and created scoring chances each and every time he was on the ice, and wound up finishing the game with two goals and three points. They’ll need more of the same from him on Thursday.

Ingram Steps Up with Solid Performance

Some were rather puzzled early Tuesday when head coach Kris Knoblauch confirmed that Connor Ingram would be back between the pipes. The 29-year-old struggled through the first three games of the series, resulting in the Oilers turning to Tristan Jarry in Game 4. Though Jarry wasn’t able to pick up the win, he played well, stopping 34 of the 38 shots he faced.

“I thought he made a lot of a lot of good saves,” Knoblauch said postgame. “His talent is making hard saves look easy. He’s compact, he doesn’t move very much.”

Despite the solid performance from Jarry, Knoblauch went with his gut and chose to throw Ingram back in for Game 5. It was clearly the right decision, as the Oilers netminder, while not tested a ton, made key saves at the right time to pick up his second win of the playoffs. He ended his night kicking aside 29 of 30 shots.

McDavid’s Minutes Elevated

As previously mentioned, it’s been discussed plenty that McDavid isn’t at 100 per cent in this series. The Oilers captain appeared to suffer a lower-body injury in Game 1 and hasn’t had the same sort of jump he’s become famous for since. Concerns about his injury grew even further after he played less than 20 minutes in Game 4, an outing which went to overtime.

Perhaps the few days of rest helped McDavid somewhat in terms of his recovery. While he still didn’t dominate this game by any means, he was creating more off the rush and finished with 24:09 in ice time. He’ll look to continue getting back to his usual self in Game 6.

Oilers Still Capable of More

Though this was a much better performance overall from the Oilers, they did seem to slow down as the game went on. The real test for them going forward will be to play an entire 60 minutes the way they played the first period on Tuesday night. Should they be able to do that going forward, they could very well come out on top of this series.