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Chapter 1: What are the Oilers' playoff expectations this season?
Hey, it's Bob Stauffer. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Oilers Now ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. A nurse is a plus three in this series. So far, he's averaging 22, 36 per game. I think him and Connor Murphy have been very good together. We're going to head off to the River Creek Resort and Casino Hotlines and do our Friesen Brothers Playoff Roundtable.
Just like the Oilers, their famous sourdough. rises to the occasion this postseason. Stop by for the local ingredients that make every game night a winner. And we welcome back to the show from the Got Your Back podcast and TSN Ryan Rashog. Hello, Ryan. How you doing?
Fantastic, Bob. Looking forward to tonight, man. It's going to be awesome.
Chapter 2: How did the Oilers perform in the regular season compared to expectations?
It is going to be awesome. It's fun to be a part of. And Ryan, I'm going to ask you this up front. Do we maybe take a bit of it for granted? And I'll tell you why. You know, the Oilers of the 1980s, great team, never had four consecutive years where they won playoff series. You know, the Oilers obviously are trying to make it five straight years with a playoff series victory.
People forget 48 points ahead of the Kings, right? Back in 82, lost in the opening round. Went to the finals the next three years, won in 84-85, got beat in the first round by the Flames in 86. Won the Cup in 87-88.
got beaten the first round by the Kings in 89, and then won the Cup in 90, and on the fumes of those great teams, the seven Hall of Famers, several of whom have left, still got to the third round in 91-92. It's hard to win. That's the point I'm making. I'm not writing the Oilers off for a second.
Chapter 3: What challenges are the Oilers facing in the playoffs?
I'm just saying... Let's go around here, Bob. Let's go around here. Where are you going with this? Now, some could read into this as though you're trying to soften the blow ahead of time.
No, I'm saying... Oh, I made a mistake. Tyler Hupka just gave me crap right now saying, Bob, you're wrong. The Oilers lost to the Flames in round two. That's right. I forgot about the mercy killing over the Vancouver Canucks. Nice job, Tyler. There goes that idea. What I'm saying is you said something. You're looking forward to it.
For us, we get to live it and experience it and be on the periphery of it, and it's awesome to be a part of, but it's taxing on the players, isn't it?
Chapter 4: How are injuries impacting the Oilers' performance?
Yeah, for sure it's taxing on the players. I think, you know, we've seen that. We watched them, you know, we watched them grind through a couple of them Stanley Cup. It's not impossible, though, Bob. And I, like the Florida Panthers, I'm pretty sure got the three straight cup finals, didn't they? They did.
And I'm pretty sure they won two of those three, including the second and third ones they were in. In seven and six, and when the heat was on them.
And when the heat was on them after blowing a 3-0 lead, absolutely.
I'm not going to look at the Edmonton Oilers playoff year this year with a sympathetic eye, fatigue-wise. I'm not. I'm not. Teams have done it. They can do it. Right?
Chapter 5: What role do the Oilers' star players play in their success?
Has it been fatiguing for Bob? Had they crushed it all regular season and been the top team in the league during the regular season and gotten to the finish line and just with the tank empty because they played later than everybody else and then they took the regular season a lot off. They took a lot off nights in the regular season, Bob.
This is not a team that killed itself during the regular season. So there's some gas in the tank here in the playoffs. Injuries are real. But the Florida Panthers got the three straight cup finals. The Oilers can do it too. They had a regular season where their foot was on and off the gas all year long. It was underwhelming. It was underwhelming, and I'm just not buying it.
So I'm not going to say, yep, boy, they just played a lot of hockey. I'm not going to be one of the guys saying that. I get it, but that's part of it. And when you have the world-class players that these guys have ā
Chapter 6: How has Evan Bouchard's performance affected the team?
You know, the expectation should be to get there. And I'm going to allow for injury. That is a little bit of a different thing. But no, I don't take it for granted. I covered this team through the decade of darkness where I sat at home or had to go to world championships while other reporters were out, you know, covering the team that they covered. So no, I don't take it for granted.
And I'm, I'm really, you know, me, I'm not a, I'm not a big guy that cheers either way, but I love great hockey and I'm looking forward to this tonight. So are you talking expectations, Bob?
No, I mean, I, I expected the team to win 50 games in the regular season. They didn't come close to that. I don't think they got enough out of their support players. I mean, at the end of the day, Connor McDavid had another all world regular season. Leon Drysaddle was on pace for one until he got hurt for the final 14 games. Ended up missing 17 games this year.
Bouchard led the league in defense scoring, and that's where I'm going to go next.
Chapter 7: What insights can we gain from the Oilers' playoff strategy?
And we will talk about Vasily Putkolzin, but game five, the Oilers' big dogs got going. How much of a difference was that for them?
Well, it was big. I mean, you know, McDavid, you know, still managed to get two points a game before, even though we all see him limping around out there. I think the fact that he played 24 minutes and skated like
see him from Connor McDavid because straight ahead speed seems to be there as acceleration is getting there we're not seeing that crazy agility left to right his hard cuts we're not seeing that yet So it tells me he's not close to 100% yet because he doesn't have that all-world agility. But he's getting better, Bob, in series, and that's a huge break for the Oilers.
Evan Bouchard, of the three Oiler players at the top of the food chain, Dreisaitl, McDavid, and Bouchard, the one who deserved the most criticism by a stellar mile through the first four games of the series was Evan Bouchard. He wasn't even close to where he needed to be. and he found it in one game and was exceptionally good.
Like the highest high end of his game was there all the way around, and it was really good. So that is really big for the group. The fact that McDavid's getting healthier, the fact that Bouchard found it, the fact that Dreisaitl bangs in a couple, the power plays waking up, like there are a lot of reasons to think that this Euler group has it
going in the right direction, that they're coming around.
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Chapter 8: What predictions are made for the upcoming games?
But this is also the same oiler group that could not find its high-end game for any more than two or three days at a time during the regular season, Bob. 100%. That's an issue. It's an issue. And I'll say this. I think that I get they played a lot of hockey and I get that the regular season could be monotonous, as Connor had said.
But I think it's a little bit risky to just think you can do whatever you want during the regular season and flip a switch in the playoffs over and over and over again. Sometimes you run out of luck. And that's what they have been playing. That's the fire that they've been playing with. And so I think in some ways you become who you are during the regular season.
And maybe this group as a leadership group and as a team and as a culture in that room, maybe there does need to be a little bit more focus about the importance of the regular season and what it means because you become who you're going to be. They might get out of this one, Bob. They might get out of this tight spot. But it came about because the group did not have access to its high-end game.
And that was a result of their regular season.
So how much of that is on the players and how much of that is on the coaching staff, in your opinion, Ryan?
It's on the players. The players are the ones that have to go out there and play the game at a requisite. The coaches would love for them all to play 100% as hard as they can every night, and that's what they tell them to go do. Some of them do it, some of them don't.
so it's about a group that can these groups need to learn how to regulate themselves right how to step on the pedal how to push each other how to make sure what's acceptable what's not acceptable we saw the absolute crater at the start of the year right then they kind of got it together a little bit had one nice little run and you know then it was messy for a bunch then it was okay at the finish it was just like just like an engine revving up and down and all over the place it's on the group in there
to be able to regulate itself, to stay at a high enough level. To me, Bob, this is what culture is about, right? What is and is not acceptable day to day to day to day. And I think that this group has the skill and the ability and the talent and the leadership in there to do it. I just think that for whatever reason, they struggled this season to extract that from one another, quite frankly.
Well, by the way, Ryan, do you know what today is the anniversary of? Some 40 years ago today? Tell me, Bob. Steve Smith bank shot back in 1986 against the Calgary Flames in game seven. And I bring that up because at 20, I learned a great lesson in life. Doesn't matter how good you are, right? Doesn't matter how, because they were good. I mean, those guys were amazing.
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