What Each Team Needs: Ducks Lead Oilers 3-2, Game 6 Looms in Anaheim

Connor McDavid has one goal in five playoff games. The Edmonton Oilers trail the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 in their first-round series, facing elimination Thursday night at Honda Center, and the best player in hockey has scored once since April 21st.

This isn't a containment job in the traditional sense. No one locks down McDavid for long stretches. He's still skating 21 minutes a night, still generating chances, still threading passes through seams that don't exist for anyone else. The Ducks aren't stopping him. They're just making sure he can't beat them alone, and so far, no one else in Edmonton's lineup has made them pay for it.

The numbers tell the story: McDavid has six points, all assists, through five games. Leon Draisaitl has nine points and has been excellent, but he's carrying too much of the load. Kasperi Kapanen has four goals, an unexpected lift, but depth scoring beyond those two has dried up at the worst possible time. The Oilers posted a 41-30-11 record and 93 points this season, one point ahead of Anaheim's 43-33-6 and 92 points, but they were supposed to be the team with two generational talents. Right now, only one of them is producing like it.

Meanwhile, Anaheim is getting offense from everywhere. Jackson LaCombe, a 23-year-old defenseman, has eight points and is quarterbacking the power play like a veteran. Alex Killorn has six points and looks like the playoff performer Tampa Bay paid him to be for six seasons. Cutter Gauthier has three goals in his first postseason series and is playing like someone who doesn't realize he's supposed to lose.

The Oilers clawed back from 3-1 down with a dominant Game 5 performance at Rogers Place, Draisaitl scoring twice, the building deafening, Edmonton finally looking like the team everyone expected. And now they have to do it again, 2,200 miles west, in a building that hasn't seen a playoff crowd this loud since 2017.

This is what the series comes down to: Can Edmonton solve a team that has no business being here before it's too late? And can Anaheim, young and chaotic and held together by momentum, finish what they started without letting the moment get too big?

What's Working for the Ducks

Start here: The Ducks weren't supposed to make noise this spring. They finished one point behind Edmonton in the standings, but the prevailing thought all season was that they were still a year or two away. Young forwards learning how to defend. A defensive corps without a true number-one option. A goaltending tandem that was fine until it wasn't.

Then the playoffs started, and none of that mattered.

LaCombe is the linchpin. He's running the power play, jumping into rushes, moving pucks out of trouble before Edmonton's forecheck can falter. Seven of his eight points are assists because he's making the kind of reads that elite offensive defensemen make - finding seams, delaying just long enough to freeze defenders, hitting Gauthier and Ryan Poehling in stride. Anaheim doesn't have a Norris Trophy candidate back there. They have a second-year player playing the best hockey of his life when it matters most.

Killorn provides what this roster desperately needs: a presence that's been here before. Three goals, three assists, and a calming influence when things get tight. He's taken key defensive-zone draws. He's been first over the boards when the Ducks need a goal. Six years in Tampa Bay taught him how to play when every shift carries weight, and it shows.

The depth scoring is the real edge. Anaheim had 26 comeback wins in the regular season, tied for the NHL lead, and they're a team that has spent all year learning how to claw back. Poehling has three goals. Gauthier has three. LaCombe has eight points from the blue line. The Oilers are getting production from Kapanen, which is great, but they can't match Anaheim's secondary scoring right now.

And most critically, Edmonton's elite offensive engine hasn't overwhelmed them. McDavid has one goal. Draisaitl has been excellent, nine points through five games, but he's the only consistent source beyond Kapanen's unexpected burst. Evan Bouchard has seven points from the blue line, but the Ducks have done enough to keep Edmonton's power play - 31.3% in the regular season, only the second team since 1980 to break 30% - from taking over the series. Anaheim's 76.3% penalty kill ranked 23rd in the league during the regular season, and yet they haven't been buried. That's partly discipline. Partly Lukas Dostal and Ville Husso making saves when the math said they shouldn't.

Team Comparison

Anaheim Ducks

43-33-6 · 92 PTS

Edmonton Oilers

41-30-11 · 93 PTS

92

PTS

93

273

GF

282

288

GA

265

18.6

PP%

30.6

76.4

PK%

77.8

The McDavid Question

One goal. Five games. Six points total, all assists, and the last one coming in a Game 5 win where the Oilers controlled territory but needed Draisaitl to do the finishing.

This isn't a cold stretch in the traditional sense. McDavid is getting his looks. He had five shots on goal in Game 4, four in Game 5. He's creating offense for others - Draisaitl's production doesn't happen without McDavid pulling defenders. But Anaheim is playing a defensive structure designed specifically to keep number 97 from beating them by himself, and through five games, it's held.

The Ducks are faltering hard on McDavid in transition, forcing him wide, making him skate through multiple layers before he can get to dangerous ice. When he does find space, they're switching aggressively, ensuring he's never skating into clean looks. LaCombe and Anaheim's other defensemen are playing deeper gaps than usual, conceding the blue line if it means not getting walked. It's not perfect - McDavid still generates - but it's effective enough that he hasn't taken over a single game yet.

Drew Remenda, previewing Game 3 for Sportsnet's FAN Hockey Show, noted McDavid's quiet start in the first two games of the series. Through five, that hasn't changed enough to swing the outcome.

Edmonton needs to change that Thursday night, and the blueprint is straightforward: Get McDavid the puck in motion, in the neutral zone, with speed. Stop trying to cycle him into offense from static faceoffs. Stop letting Anaheim set their structure. The Oilers' best chance is catching the Ducks in transition, creating odd-man rushes where McDavid can attack before they can load up defensively.

If that doesn't work, the Oilers should consider loading one line - McDavid with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Draisaitl - and daring Anaheim to match. Force LaCombe to defend all three. Force the Ducks to choose. Edmonton has spread offense across three lines all year, but this is an elimination game. There's no prize for being fair about it.

What Edmonton Must Do in Game 6

The Oilers won Game 5 because they did three things right: They got Draisaitl going (two goals), they tightened up defensively (one goal allowed), and Tristan Jarry gave them a clean performance in net (34 saves on 38 shots, which isn't elite but is good enough when your offense shows up).

They need all three again, and they need the power play to break through. Edmonton's power play was historically good in the regular season at 31.3%, but it's been merely fine in this series, not dominant. Bouchard has seven points, but the Oilers are 0-for-3 on the power play when they absolutely need a goal. Anaheim's penalty kill is 76.3%, 23rd in the league. It's beatable. Edmonton has to beat it.

Defensively, the Oilers have to stop giving Anaheim's depth players clean looks in the slot. Gauthier has three goals because he's getting space where it matters. Poehling has three because Edmonton's third defensive pair keeps losing track of him. The Ducks are not a team you can just outscore. They have too many finishers, and they're too comfortable playing from behind. Edmonton's clearest path to Game 7 is a controlled 3-1 or 4-2 win where they dictate tempo from the opening shift and never let Anaheim build momentum.

And someone beyond Draisaitl and Kapanen has to score. Nugent-Hopkins has five points, which is fine. McDavid has six, which would be excellent for most players but isn't enough for him. Zach Hyman scored in Game 5, but the Oilers need more than one goal from their depth. They need a second wave that Anaheim can't account for.

What Anaheim Must Do to Close It

The Ducks don't need to win 6-4. They don't need another third-period comeback. They need a clean, disciplined performance, take what the Oilers give them, and let Dostal or Husso - whoever gets the start - handle the rest.

That means staying out of the penalty box. It means not giving McDavid clean zone entries. It means making Edmonton work for every inch of ice and trusting that Anaheim's offensive depth will eventually find a gap.

Anaheim's power play has been good enough this series, and if they get one or two chances on the man advantage, they have to convert. Killorn has to keep doing what he's been doing. Gauthier has to keep attacking. LaCombe has to keep running the show from the back end.

And the Ducks have to manage the moment. They're up 3-2, at home, with a chance to eliminate the team that finished one point behind them in the standings but was supposed to walk through this matchup. The pressure is real. The crowd will be loud, but crowds can turn. If Edmonton scores first, if the Oilers grab an early lead, Anaheim has to stay composed. They've done it all year - 26 comeback wins, tied for the NHL lead. They have to do it one more time.

The Goaltending Edge

Dostal is expected to start Game 6, and that's the right call. He's been Anaheim's best goaltender all season, and he gives them the best chance to win a close game. Husso came in relief in Game 5 and was solid, and if Dostal falters early, the Ducks have a viable backup option. That's a luxury Edmonton doesn't have.

Jarry was fine in Game 5. He made the saves he had to make, and the Oilers played well enough in front of him that he didn't need to be spectacular. But he hasn't been great this series, and if Edmonton forces a Game 7, they're going to need him to steal a period or two along the way. The margin for error in net is razor-thin for the Oilers.

The Bottom Line

If you're picking based on how this series has gone, you pick the Ducks. They've been the better team in four of five games. They have more ways to score. They have a goaltender who's been better more often. They're at home.

But playoff series turn on individual performances, and if McDavid finally breaks through Thursday night, if he scores twice, if he drags Edmonton to a Game 7 the way elite players do, then none of the previous five games matter.

The safe pick is that this goes seven. The Oilers are too talented to go out quietly at Honda Center, and the Ducks are young enough that the moment might swell larger than they can handle. But if Anaheim plays the way they've played for most of this series - disciplined, opportunistic, confident - they'll advance. And if they do, it won't register as an upset anymore. It'll just be what happened.

Ducks in six. But barely.