Vancouver Canucks vs. Edmonton Oilers: 2024 Stanley Cup playoff series preview and pick

Credit: Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

Vancouver Canucks: 1^st in Pacific Division, 109 points, def. NSH in Round 1 (4-2)
Edmonton Oilers: 2^nd in Pacific Division, 104 points, def. LAK in Round 1 (4-1)

Schedule (ET)

To be announced

Date	Game	Time
Wednesday, May 8	1. Edmonton at Vancouver	10 p.m. ET
Friday, May 10	2. Edmonton at Vancouver	10 p.m. ET
Sunday, May 12	3. Vancouver at Edmonton	9:30 p.m. ET
Tuesday, May 14	4. Vancouver at Edmonton	TBD
Thursday, May 16	5. Edmonton at Vancouver*	TBD
Saturday, May 18	6. Vancouver at Edmonton*	TBD
Monday, May 20	7. Edmonton at Vancouver*	TBD

TV: ESPN, ESPN2, Sportsnet, CBC, TVA Sports. * if necessary

The Skinny

Well, here’s a pretty new matchup. The Oilers and Canucks have somehow only faced off against each other in the playoffs twice before in NHL history, with the last meeting coming all the way back in 1992. Considering how often the Canucks have matched up against, say, the Calgary Flames, it’s kind of wild that this will be just the third Edmonton/Vancouver playoff series we’ve ever seen. It should be a good one!

The Canucks are coming off a series against the Nashville Predators that probably would’ve ended quicker if they were fully healthy. Much has been made about Vancouver’s unusual goaltending situation — more on that later — but there were points during that series at which Elias Pettersson also just didn’t look like himself. Even so, the Canucks managed to make the most of the slog with a six-game victory over the Western Conference’s No. 7 seed.

On the other side, the Oilers faced off against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round for the third consecutive season and had their way with them once again. After needing seven games to beat the Kings in 2022 and six games last year, the Oilers vanquished their division rivals in just five games this time around. Connor McDavid only needed to score one goal in the series for the Oilers to win with ease.

Head to Head

Vancouver: 4-0-0
Edmonton: 0-4-0

The odds are pretty good that the Canucks won’t win this series in a sweep, but they did exactly that against the Oilers during the regular season. Of course, three of those four games came at the start of the year when the Oilers were mired in a brutal funk — one that cost head coach Jay Woodcroft his job — but wins are wins, no matter the context.

The Canucks beat the Oilers one final time at Rogers Place in Edmonton on April 13, with Pius Suter scoring the winning goal in a 3-1 victory for the visitors. Suter went on to score the series-clinching goal (and, for that matter, the only goal) in the Canucks’ decisive Game 6 win against the Predators on Friday.

Top Five Scorers

Vancouver

Brock Boeser, 6 points
J.T. Miller, 6 points
Quinn Hughes, 5 points
Dakota Joshua, 4 points
Elias Lindholm, 3 points

Edmonton

Connor McDavid, 12 points
Leon Draisaitl, 10 points
Evan Bouchard, 9 points
Zach Hyman, 8 points
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 6 points

X-Factor

It’s tempting to say the X-Factor in this series is McDavid — after all, he was our pick in this category in our Oilers/Kings series preview — but instead, let’s go with Quinn Hughes, who is most likely going to win the Norris Trophy this year as the league’s top defenseman.

During the first round, Hughes came within one assist of becoming the first-ever Canucks defenseman to record six of them in a single playoff series. As strange as it seems to anoint a 24-year-old the best defenseman in the history of a franchise that was established nearly three full decades before he was born, it’s probably appropriate with Hughes. After all, he’s the first player in Canucks history to even be a finalist for the Norris, let alone to (possibly) win it.

When he’s at the top of his game, Hughes is nearly unbeatable. The gap between him and Cale Makar is currently much smaller than a lot of folks in the hockey world would readily admit. That may change in future seasons, but Hughes is currently on the best run of his young career. He’s by far the best member of a Canucks defensive group that is otherwise rife with vulnerabilities.

Offense

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the list of the Oilers’ top-five scorers in the first round looked identical to their leaderboard from the regular season. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. That’s just how the cookie crumbles up in Edmonton, from the top down.

McDavid is the most skilled offensive player in the league today. Yes, he only scored one goal against the Kings, but there’s every possibility that he goes off for eight against the Canucks. He’s an explosive skater who can handle the puck with ridiculous precision at even his top speeds, which makes him uniquely challenging to defend in any rush scenario. He’s also creative, intelligent, and increasingly competent in his own end of the ice. Any conversation about the Oilers’ offensive capabilities has to begin with No. 97.

Meanwhile, Draisaitl scored five goals and added five assists over five games against the Kings in the first round. The Kings really haven’t had an answer for the big German over their last three playoff matchups, constantly letting him torch them for goal after goal — particularly on the power play. Between Draisaitl and Hyman, the Oilers have two other forwards who are more than capable of fully taking over a playoff series with their finishing talent.

Where the Oilers will need more against the Canucks is from their depth. Corey Perry and Ryan McLeod didn’t manage a single point against the Kings; Adam Henrique, Warren Foegele, and Sam Carrick combined for just two goals in the series. Against a more balanced team like the Canucks, those guys will need to turn up the dial a little bit.

Vancouver certainly didn’t blow the doors off the Predators in their series, scoring just 13 goals over six games. Brock Boeser scored four of those goals himself, including three in the Canucks’ dramatic come-from-behind Game 4 victory that moved them within one game of the second round. Four other Canucks players scored twice each in the series: Dakota Joshua, Elias Lindholm, and Pius Suter.

Aside from that, only one other Canucks player scored a single goal against Nashville: J.T. Miller, who lit the lamp in the first period of Game 3. That means Elias Pettersson didn’t score a single goal, nor did Quinn Hughes, Conor Garland, Nils Höglander, Filip Hronek, and a whole host of others.

While Hughes still very much lived up to his billing as one of the top defensemen in the league, Pettersson struggled to make a consistent impact against the Predators. The 25-year-old forward managed just three points (all assists) in six games while taking just eight shots on goal and averaging 18:38 of ice time per night. If the Canucks want to stand a chance against the Oilers, they’ll need EP40 to round back into form.

Defense

We’ve already talked at length about Hughes, who scored 17 goals and 92 points in 82 games during the regular season while logging a ton of minutes on the Canucks’ blue line. But apart from Hughes, the Canucks’ defensive group is a bit of a hodgepodge mix of veteran standbys, recent free agent signings, and mid-season trade acquisitions, none of whom is necessarily an ideal top-pairing type — but they all have their uses.

One of the most surprising Canucks down the stretch was Nikita Zadorov, whom the team acquired from the Calgary Flames back in November for the relatively paltry price of a 2026 third-round pick and a 2024 fifth-round pick (the latter of which the Flames subsequently flipped for Nikita Okhotiuk). Zadorov has long been a bit of a divisive figure among onlookers around the league, but he appeared to settle into a strong rhythm later on in his tenure with the Flames and has built upon that over the past couple of months. The 29-year-old defenseman scored twice, added an assist, and averaged 20:20 of ice time per game in the Nashville series.

The rest of Vancouver’s defensive group includes Filip Hronek, Tyler Myers, Ian Cole, and Carson Soucy, which probably represents a slight upgrade over Edmonton’s bottom-four group of Darnell Nurse, Cody Ceci, Brett Kulak, and Vincent Desharnais. (The questions we raised about the Nurse-Ceci pairing before Round 1 still exist heading into Round 2).

But Edmonton will always have a chance to make some serious noise in this series as long as their top pairing of Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm is on the ice. They’ve fit together as seamlessly as any other defensive duo has in the last decade, with Ekholm’s rock-steady defensive conscience perfectly offsetting Bouchard’s free-wheeling offensive tendencies. Every true top pairing has to be able to make an impact at both ends of the ice, but few do it to the extent Edmonton’s does.

Goaltending

Hah, where do we start?

The Canucks won their series against the Predators with their third-string goalie between the pipes after both Thatcher Demko and Casey DeSmith went down with various injuries in earlier games. Not too many people — save perhaps for CanucksArmy managing editor David Quadrelli — had Arturs Silovs on their radar screens before Game 4 between the Canucks and Predators, but he quickly changed that. The 23-year-old backstopper first made the hockey world take notice with his performance playing for Team Latvia at the 2023 IIHF World Championship, but he made himself a household name in Vancouver with his performance in the Canucks’ final three games against the Predators.

Silovs posted a .938 save percentage over Games 4 to 6 and capped the series off with a 28-save shutout in the decisive Game 6 win. To put it more succinctly: Canucks owner Francesco Aqulini tweeted on Friday that he owes Silovs a nice dinner. It remains to be seen if and when Demko will be able to return to the fold for the Canucks during these playoffs — recent reports indicated it might be near the end of Round 2 — but it’s difficult to imagine Rick Tocchet willingly switching away from Silovs right now, even if DeSmith is available. The hot hand holds all the power over a small sample of games.

On the Edmonton side, it appears Stuart Skinner will keep the reins to start the series against the Canucks after playing each and every minute against the Kings in the first round. Skinner went 4-1 with a .910 save percentage in the Western Conference quarterfinal series, with his most memorable performance coming in Game 4 (in which the Oilers were outshot 33 to 13 but won 1-0). Even with Jack Campbell now back on the roster and Calvin Pickard still waiting in the wings, it’s hard to conceptualize the Oilers switching away from their de facto starting goaltender anytime soon unless he completely falls apart in the early stages of their series against the Canucks.

Injuries

As mentioned, Demko remains out of commission for the time being as he continues to recover from an injury he suffered late in the Canucks’ Game 1 win against the Predators. The Canucks have been understandably protective over any specifics related to the injury, but most reports suggest that Demko is dealing with a knee issue and could be able to return in the later stages of this series against the Oilers after missing the final five games of Round 1. Demko took part in the Canucks’ optional morning skate ahead of Game 6 on Friday. As of now, he’s expected out through at least Game 4.

Conversely, Adam Henrique (lower-body) is doubtful for Edmonton in Game 1.

Intangibles

One of the most tried-and-true recurring storylines in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is that of the unheralded rookie goalie who carries his team all the way. Is it crazy to think Silovs could be that guy for the Canucks? Granted, the Oilers are going to be a much more difficult test for him than the Predators were, but this is a guy who rose to the occasion under immense pressure at the Worlds last year and did a fine job behind a spotty AHL defense in Abbotsford during the regular season. He has ‘2010 Jaroslav Halak’ written all over him.

If Silovs is going to lift the Canucks past the Oilers, he’s going to need to shut down Zach Hyman, who absolutely torched the Kings with seven goals in five games during the first round. Hyman became one of the unlikeliest 50-goal scorers in recent NHL history during the regular season and is no stranger to going nuclear during the playoffs, memorably taking the Flames to the woodshed in their series in 2022. This is probably going to go down as Hyman’s career year, but he’s just got that ‘it’ factor right now.

Series Prediction

This is going to be a firecracker of a series. The Oilers are a bit more battle-tested, but while they’re the only Western Conference team to make it out of the first round of the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, they also have yet to win a single game in the Western Conference Final or beyond during the Connor McDavid/Leon Draisaitl era. They’re also the lower seed against a Canucks team that had their number in the regular season.

The Canucks have a chance to put their stamp on this series with strong performances in Games 1 and 2 at home. If they can remain disciplined and get a bit more production from the likes of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Quinn Hughes, they could quickly emerge as the favorites. It’s tough to bet against a team with star power like the Oilers’, and there’s a very good chance they do end up pulling this off, but I’ll say the Canucks take this one with a dramatic Game 7 overtime win on home ice — with Pius Suter scoring the clinching goal yet again.

Canucks in seven games.

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