April 20, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg

After four consecutive seasons of having the same opponent in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Edmonton Oilers will take on a different foe this time around. The trip will feel all too familiar, but the opponent is quite dissimilar. The Oilers are taking on the upstart Anaheim Ducks, who are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2018.

Tale of the tape

Anaheim Ducks

The Ducks are led by a trio of high flying ducklings. NHL sophomore Cutter Gauthier led their team in goals and points, followed closely by third year NHLer and Swedish Olympian Leo Carlsson. Beckett Sennecke is squarely in the Calder Trophy conversation after a strong 60-point rookie campaign. These kids are big, fast, and tremendously skilled. Mikael Granlund and Chris Kreider provide the veteran leadership up front.

They bolstered their back end by acquiring John Carlson at the trade deadline. It was already a standout unit with Jackson Lacombe, Jacob Trouba, Radko Gudas, Olen Zellweger, and Pavel Mintyukov. Carlson gives them an impactful presence from the back end and ensures everyone is slotted on the depth chart appropriately.

The Ducks balance speed and skill with big and physical quite well. They lack a true game breaker up front, but they won’t be for long assuming Gauthier, Carlsson, and Sennecke continue progressing upwards. They can score enough goals to keep up, but their problem is with keeping the puck out of their net. Lukas Dostal is a fantastic young goaltender, but he can only do so much.

Edmonton Oilers

Despite losing a ton of skill and experience over the summer, the Oilers managed to score 23 more goals this year than they did last year. Connor McDavid had the second most productive season of his career (138 points), and according to Sportsnet Stats, his 1.82 points per game against the Ducks over his career is the highest such rate for one player against any opponent (minimum 30 games played). Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman are humming along like usual. Evan Bouchard led all NHL defencemen in scoring (95 points). The fact that Matt Savoie has emerged into a legitimate top six winger since the Olympic break is a sweet bonus.

Much like the Ducks, the Oilers’ biggest weakness is keeping the puck out of their net. The Oilers changed both goalies in their tandem during the season, going from Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard to Connor Ingram and Tristan Jarry. Ingram has played well since being called up in mid-December, but he only has three games of NHL playoff experience. Jarry (8) doesn’t have much more.

It doesn’t all bank on the goaltending though. The Oilers have been much improved defensively since the Olympic break. Head coach Kris Knoblauch employed some new defensive tactics, assistant coach Paul Coffey made his triumphant return to the bench, and the Oilers added defensive specialists Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson at the trade deadline. They also had to shut it down defensively after it was announced that Draisaitl would miss the last four weeks of the regular season. The sum is an Oilers team that reduced the amount of goals it allows significantly down the stretch, which will be vital to their playoff success.

Five on Five Play: EVEN

These teams appear to be fairly even in terms of five-on-five play. The Ducks were ninth in five-on-five expected goals for percentage (xGF%), and the Oilers were tenth according to MoneyPuck. Two teams finished between them in actual goals for percentage (GF%). The Ducks had the better xGF%, and the Oilers had the better GF%. Only one team sat between them in terms of five-on-five goal differential, but the Oilers (-13) were better than the Ducks (-19) in this metric.

The interesting thing about these teams is that they both allowed far more goals than they were expected to according to MoneyPuck’s data. The Ducks and Oilers ranked 26th and 27th in goals allowed above expected respectively. This says that when things go wrong, they really go wrong for both teams. Mistakes tend to end up in the back of their nets.

Both teams also scored fewer goals than expected. The Oilers were 21st in this metric, and the Ducks were 27th; but they ranked fourth and third respectively in expected goals for. 

They generate chances, but struggle to finish those chances. Both teams also struggle to prevent mistakes from ending up in goals against. That adds up to a wild series full of goals and momentum swings, so it should be highly entertaining hockey, as we saw multiple times between these teams during the regular season.

I’d give a slight edge to the Oilers in five-on-five play, but there isn’t a great enough difference between these teams for me to give the advantage fully to the Oilers.

Special Teams: Advantage EDM

There really isn’t much to dive into here. The Oilers had the best powerplay in the league this season, and the Ducks were in the bottom third of the league in both special teams categories.

The Oilers powerplay has struggled lately, but that was because Draisaitl missed four weeks of action and Hyman missed some games as well. Now that the top unit is back intact, the Oilers should continue doing what they do on the powerplay. The young Ducks will need to keep their composure and stay out of the penalty box if they don’t want the Oilers powerplay to be a storyline in this series.

Granlund scored a hat trick on the powerplay against the Oilers on January 26, but that was an outlier of a game and the Oilers PK has improved since then. Adding Dickinson and Murphy, the top forward and defenceman from the Blackhawks’ league leading PK unit, and getting Adam Henrique back after the Olympic break have helped the Oilers improve on the PK. 

I see no reason to suggest the Ducks will have any kind of advantage on special teams.

Goaltending: Advantage ANA

Ingram’s numbers are better than Dostal’s (albeit in a smaller sample of play); but let’s not kid ourselves: Dostal is the best goaltender in this series. He was tied for seventh in the league with 55 starts for a reason. Dostal is the one player on the Ducks roster that could steal a win or a series for them.

Keys to Victory

Ducks: The Oilers tend to struggle against young, fast teams. More specifically, their defence struggles to move the puck against fast, aggressive forechecking teams. The Ducks would be wise to send two forecheckers to pursue the Oilers defence aggressively. That’s the best way to force the Oilers into costly mistakes.

Aside from that, the Ducks need to stay out of the box and hope Dostal can steal them a game or two.

Oilers: The Oilers need to limit mistakes that give the Ducks energy. Worded more directly, the Oilers need to manage the puck well. They could hold their own in a track meet with the Ducks, but the Oilers should be able to produce enough offence to beat the Ducks if they limit their mistakes and don’t give the Ducks any freebies. If the Oilers keep defending as tightly as they have been recently, they will win the series.

X Factors

Ducks: Beckett Senecke

Sennecke is an intriguing young player. He’s like a mix of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. At 6’3” and 206 lbs, he’s got the size and reach. He’s got the silky hands of Getzlaf, and the net presence of Perry. If the 2024 third overall pick gets comfortable in the playoff environment, he could have a big series.

Oilers: Connor Murphy

The Oilers acquired Murphy to be a shutdown defender at five-on-five and on the penalty kill. He has primarily played alongside Darnell Nurse. The goals against have declined for Nurse’s pairing ever since Murphy started skating beside him. I have to be careful about how I word this, but when things go poorly for the Oilers, goals against when Nurse is on the ice tends to be a focal point. It’s not always Nurse’s fault, but the chatter about Nurse’s contract and his play tends to rise when the team isn’t playing well. There’s a correlation there, not necessarily a causation. If Murphy can solidify the second pairing with Nurse, the Oilers should be able to limit the Ducks’ goal count.

Injuries

Ducks: Radko Gudas (lower body) will play in Game 1. Jansen Harkins (hand) is expected to be out for another week.

Oilers: Draisaitl (knee) was activated from LTIR on Monday, meaning that he will play in Game 1. Jason Dickinson (ankle) will also play in Game 1. Mattias Janmark (shoulder) will not play again this season. Max Jones (lower body) is unlikely to be available in round one.

Wrap

On the surface, this should be the Oilers’ series to lose. The analysis points towards the Oilers. They have the two best players in the world, they have the league’s leading scorer among defencemen, and they’re as close to full health as can reasonably be expected in late April. Game 1 will mark the first time this particular group of 19 skaters has played in the same game all season. Of course, the Oilers have made the Stanley Cup Final in each of the last two seasons.

Meanwhile, the Ducks haven’t made the playoffs since 2018. Only six players from their Game 1 lineup have any NHL playoff experience.

Anaheim Ducks projected game 1 lineup vs Edmonton.https://t.co/dI4yra1Fvg

— NHL Rosters (@NHL_Rosters) April 20, 2026

This series won’t be a gimme for the Oilers though. I can’t help but be reminded of the 2016-17 Oilers that made the playoffs for the first time in a decade. They were matched up against the San Jose Sharks, who lost in the Stanley Cup Final the year before (also to a back-to-back champion like the Oilers did last year). The young Oilers won that series in six games before losing to the Ducks in the second round.

The Ducks don’t have a top end game breaker like the Oilers have, but they have plenty of fire power. Their top scorer plays on their third line. The Ducks have the ability to play any way they need to play to win a hockey game. They’re the type of young, fast team that has given the Oilers fits over the years. Let’s not forget that the Oilers have played a ton of hockey over the last few years. If you ask McDavid, he would say that he wants to be playing hockey all the time; but the human body can only take so much over a given amount of time.

This series is likely to be filled with wild momentum swings, much like last year’s series against the Los Angeles Kings; but playing the Ducks won’t be anything like playing the Kings. The Ducks won’t sit back and wait for the Oilers to come to them. They will attack the Oilers all over the ice, and these Ducks can score goals. Their problem is they can’t keep them out of their net, which is the opposite problem the Kings have always had.

This should be the Oilers’ series to lose, but I’m not sleeping on the Ducks here. I don’t know who will prevail here, but I do know that it will be wildly entertaining hockey.

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