- Oilers fell to Ducks 5-2 in Game 6 Thursday, losing the first-round series 4-2
- Connor McDavid called Edmonton “an average team all year” after the loss
- Read below for the full quote, the injuries that piled up, and where the Oilers go from here
The Oilers’ season ended Thursday night, and Connor McDavid didn’t sugarcoat what went wrong.
Edmonton dropped Game 6 to the Anaheim Ducks 5-2 to lose the first-round series 4-2, and McDavid gave a postgame answer that doesn’t usually come from the face of the franchise.
“We’ve been searching for consistency all year and obviously we didn’t find it here in the playoffs,” McDavid said, per NHL.com. “It’s tough. We were an average team all year; an average team with high expectations, you’re going to be disappointed. We just never found it.”
That assessment matches how the season actually went. Edmonton stumbled through the regular season, leaned on a soft Pacific Division to make the playoffs, and never looked like the team that ripped off back-to-back Stanley Cup Final runs the past two springs.
Injuries didn’t help.
McDavid rolled his ankle four minutes into the second period of Game 2 and was never the same after.
Leon Draisaitl missed the final 14 games of the regular season with a lower-body injury and admitted he was still playing through it. Edmonton was banged up enough that head coach Kris Knoblauch stacked McDavid and Draisaitl together on the top line for Game 6.
Third-line center Jason Dickinson was grinding through a lower-body injury he picked up blocking a shot back on April 7.
“Too hurt, too soon,” McDavid said.
The Ducks didn’t care about any of it. Anaheim pressured the Oilers in every zone, won the special teams battle 50 percent to 28.6 percent on the power play, and snapped the franchise’s eight-year playoff drought.
Here are the Game 6 highlights:
Anaheim sophomore Cutter Gauthier had a multi-goal night to bury Edmonton, the same kid who torched them for two goals back in Game 2.
Edmonton has now played 81 playoff games since 2022, the most of any team. Two trips to the Final, three Western Conference Finals in four years, and now this.
Draisaitl wasn’t sure if all that mileage finally caught up to them. He wasn’t making excuses, either.
“For sure, we never really found what you need to find at this time of year especially to go all the way,” Draisaitl said. “In my opinion, just not good enough.”
A summer of questions starts now in Edmonton.
