Oilers are in the best position to win the Stanley Cup in McDavid, Draisaitl era 

With the Edmonton Oilers knocking off the Vegas Golden Knights and advancing to the Western Conference Final for a second straight year, the Oilers look more positioned to win the Stanley Cup than ever before in the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl era.

On today’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchunk shared their thoughts on how the Oilers look ahead of the third round:

Frank Seravalli: “The Oilers really cleaned things up in a significant way, so I think there are multiple things to point to. You just mentioned the unlikely heroes. I think there’s the depth scoring to talk about, at this point in time, last year, through two rounds, Leon Draisaitl had 24 points, and Connor McDavid had 21. This year, they’re at 16 and 17. They’re getting more contributions from other pieces and parts of their lineup.

“Stan Bowman deserves a ton of credit for really saving this team season. There is no chance that the Oilers are in round three going up against the Winnipeg Jets or Dallas Stars. If the Oilers don’t have Jake Walman and John Klingberg, I’m sorry, I just don’t think that they’re able to withstand the loss of Matthias Ekholm, who, by the way, could be back for round three. Then we go to Kris Knoblauch, pushing seemingly every right button, you mentioned Kasperi Kapanen, they didn’t have a choice but to go back to Skinner, that was due to injury.

“But what about the other guys that came in and joined this lineup, and the way that they’ve found chemistry and assimilated themselves? Vasily Podkolzin has played a big role in the last couple of games, playing with Draisaitl. Trent Frederic has continued to grow. Evander Kane, you could make the argument that Evander Kane might be the best player in round two for the whole entire Stanley Cup playoffs. He was that impactful. So I just think there’s been lots of different facets for this Edmonton team that I think you could make the argument that they’re in the best position that they’ve been in in the McDavid/Draisaitl era.”

Tyler Yaremchuk: “Especially with the possibility of Ekholm coming back, that’s massive. You mentioned Walman and Klingberg, who dealt with a lot of the workload going up against Jack Eichel, and Eichel didn’t get a lot done in this series.”