You can throw away home-ice advantage in the second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series between the Edmonton Oilers and the Anaheim Ducks, as the Oilers fell to the Ducks in overtime on Wednesday, 4-3. The series is now tied at two games apiece, with both teams having won their all their contests on the road to get to this point.
Edmonton will need to keep its intensity on the attack at a high level for Game 5 in Anaheim and hopefully maintain any lead it gets this time around. The team went up 2-0 early in the first period of Game 4, but couldn’t hold on for the win in the end.
Milan Lucic’s power play goal to open the contest is a good sign that the Oilers, who were fifth in the league in scoring with the man advantage during the regular season, are still getting it done on offense. They’ve scored four power play goals in 15 opportunites this entire series. Leading Hart Trophy candidate Connor McDavid also scored for the second-consecutive game to give him five goals this postseason, so the Oilers’ marquee players haven’t lost any confidence just yet.
However, goalie Cam Talbot had another enduring night trying to contain the Ducks. He stopped 35 of 38 shots he faced, and that’s really too much for him to handle alone. Talbot has seen an average of 35.8 shots from Anaheim this series, which means Edmonton’s blueliners have got to clamp down on defense to aid their netminder.
All of a sudden, the Anaheim Ducks’ offense has come alive to counter the equally-potent attack of the Oilers. The Ducks have scored a total of 10 goals over the past two games in Edmonton with their top players breaking out at the right time.
Team captain Ryan Getzlaf had his hand in all of Anaheim’s scoring opportunites in Game 4 with a pair of goals. He also assisted on Rickard Rakell’s goal in the second period to tie the contest, as well as Jakob Silfverberg’s game-winner less than one minute into overtime.
Getzlaf now has 36-career goals in the playoffs, moving him past Teemu Selanne as the franchise’s all-time playoff scoring leader. He and Rakell have also combined for 11 goals this postseason, and they’ll need to continue their scoring barrage this Friday night to take the pivotal lead in the series when Game 5 is all said and done.
Prior to their losses to the Oilers in Games 1 and 2, the Ducks actually won eight-straight games at the Honda Center. They scored no less than three goals in each of those eight victories and with an average of 3.75 goals at that. In turn, we should expect Anaheim to come out guns blazing and give Edmonton fits yet again on the defensive end.
Writer’s Prediction
The Ducks (-140) prevail with the first win for the home team in the series, 5-3.
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