4 Takeaways From Oilers’ Game 1 Victory Over Ducks – The Hockey Writers – Edmonton Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Anaheim Ducks by a score of 4-3 in Game 1 of their Western Conference first round series at Rogers Place on Monday (April 20).

Jason Dickinson and Kasperi Kapanen each scored twice for the Oilers. Anaheim got two goals from Troy Terry and one from Leo Carlsson.

Edmonton netminder Connor Ingram stopped 25 shots, while Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal made 30 saves. Anaheim went 1-for-2 on the power play and killed off both man advantages for the Oilers.

With the victory, Edmonton takes a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. Game 2 is scheduled for 8 p.m. MT at Rogers Place on Wednesday (April 22).

Oilers Start and Finish Strong

Game 1 at Rogers Place was a tale of three periods: the Oilers started and finished strong, while the middle of the game belonged to the visitors.

It was a near-perfect opening 20 minutes for the Oilers, who took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission after outshooting Anaheim 14-4. But the Ducks woke up while the Oilers got sloppy, and a recharged Anaheim team capitalized on Edmonton errors, scoring three second period goals to go ahead 3-2 through 40 minutes.

The Ducks were only 8:30 away from victory when Dickinson scored to tie things up 3-3. Then, with less than two minutes remaining, Oilers winger Vasily Podkolzin backhanded a pass from behind the Anaheim net to Kapanen, who fired a shot from the slot past Dostal at 18:06 of the third period to lift Edmonton to victory.

Ingram Comes Up Big for Oilers

Goaltending was perhaps the biggest unknown surrounding the Oilers going into the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Ingram has been very solid for Edmonton in the second half of the season, stabilizing a shaky situation between the pipes. But before Monday, the 29-year-old had only started three career NHL playoff games, all with the Nashville Predators in 2022, and was 0-3.

So there were rightly questions about how Ingram would perform in the pressure-cooker that is the postseason in Edmonton. The answer? Tremendously.

Ingram really couldn’t be faulted for any of the three Anaheim goals, but it wasn’t about the pucks that got past him, anyway; It was about the shots he didn’t let in.

Just moments before Dickinson’s tying goal in the third period, Ingram absolutely robbed Beckett Sennecke, stopping a shot on the doorstep after the Ducks winger got behind Edmonton’s defence. It was the kind of game-changing save that Ingram’s predecessors were criticized for not making. Plain and simple, if Ingram doesn’t make that save, the Oilers almost certainly don’t come back in Game 1.

That wasn’t the last of the goalie’s heroics, however. After Kapanen had put Edmonton back in front, Ingram came up with a pair of saves in the final minute as Anaheim buzzed the Oilers net.

Triumphant Return for Oilers Forwards

Monday was Edmonton centre Leon Draisaitl’s first game since sustaining a lower-body injury on March 15. It also marked Dickinson’s return to the lineup after missing the Oilers final three games of the regular season with a leg injury.

Draisaitl had a couple of misplays, but was otherwise flying up and down the rink, finishing the game with a pair of assists, two shots on goal, and a whopping seven missed shots in 22:06 of ice time.

Dickinson, meanwhile, had a generational performance. The veteran centre became the first player with multiple goals in his Oilers playoff debut since defenceman Brian Glynn scored twice in Edmonton’s 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on April 18, 1992.

Oilers’ Depth Makes the Difference

Edmonton had five players record more than 50 points in 2025-26: NHL leader Connor McDavid, Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Evan Bouchard. But besides the two assists from Draisaitl, Edmonton’s top point producers were kept out of the scoring summary in Game 1.

No one could have imagined that Edmonton would score four times with Dickinson and Kapanen accounting for all the offence: Kapanen had just eight goals in the regular season, while Dickinson scored just once in 17 games with the Oilers after being acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in a trade on March 5. But on Monday, they were the unlikely heroes that Edmonton will need if it’s going to make a run at the Stanley Cup.

During the regular season, the Oilers lost all 15 games when McDavid was held without a goal or assist. Before Monday, Edmonton hadn’t won a regular season or playoff game in which its captain failed to get a point since beating the Vegas Golden Knights 1-0 in Game 5 of the second round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

If Anaheim can shut down Edmonton’s big guns again in Game 2, odds are very high that the Ducks will even up the series. But the odds are also very low that Anaheim will manage to shut down Edmonton’s big guns for a second consecutive game.