Article content Edmonton doesn’t have the goaltending, they said. The Oilers don’t have the depth, they said. They can’t hold a lead, they said.
Dallas is going to drink Edmonton’s milkshake, boasted long-time Dallas broadcast Daryl “Razor” Reaugh, a movie reference to the total domination and humiliation of one party over another. The consensus of 80 per cent of the experts who predicted the outcome of the Western Conference final was that Dallas had already knocked off the two past Stanley Cup champions this playoff season and was going to do the same to the Oilers. But it didn’t happen.
Instead, the Oilers won the series in bewildering fashion, beating Dallas 2-1 in Game 6 to advance to the Stanley Cup finals against the Florida Panthers. The shots in the game were 35 to ten for Dallas. The ten shots were the fewest for any winning team in NHL history, said Sportsnet’s Ron MacLean.
The Oilers did it with goaltending and depth, by cutting down on ugly mental errors on defence, and with a bit of Connor McDavid magic. “It feels like a dream honestly,” McDavid said at the closing whistle on going to the Stanley Cup finals. “It was a crazy one tonight, not our best effort, but we hung in there.
.. Just hung in there.
” Edmonton’s power play and penalty kill were excellent and decisive in Games 5 and 6. But just as brilliant was Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner, who out-duelled star Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger repeatedly in games, including this one. Skinn.