The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2024-25 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.
In this edition, Paul MacLean, former coach of the Ottawa Senators and assistant with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs, looks at the Western Conference Second Round series between the Vegas Golden Knights and Edmonton Oilers.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Vegas handles the Oilers pair of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Every time we talk about Edmonton, we talk of how they score to win, and it did that in the first round.
If L.A. scored four goals, they would score five, if L.A. scored three, they would score four. They always found a way to score more goals than L.A., and L.A. was one of the top three defensive teams over the course of the regular season.
Edmonton has some depth in its scoring now. Getting Evander Kane back gives them more depth on their second line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman. That third line with Trent Frederic and even the fourth line with Viktor Arvidsson and Mattias Janmark, they can put the pressure on you.
Evan Bouchard on the back end really gives them a lot, especially on the power play. So, can Vegas defend well enough to keep Edmonton off the scoreboard? That’s the biggest question I’m looking at.
The Golden Knights have a pretty good defensive team, they play pretty well, and I think their defense is pretty good. They’re a little bigger than maybe the Oilers defense is, and they still have some offense from their defense with guys like Shea Theodore, Alex Pietrangelo and Noah Hanifin, and even Brayden McNabb is chipping in.
I think the biggest thing for me to look at is, can Vegas defend well enough to not have the Oilers outscore them?
Edmonton is also getting healthy.
When you’re healthy and you have all your guys, you can start to find out what you really have. The playoffs is a great time to get together and play together and figure it out, and they obviously did that after the first two games against L.A.
They’re still missing a huge piece in defenseman Mattias Ekholm. I find that Ekholm would really give their defense a much more solid look than they are right now. They do struggle to defend, and he’s known as a defender, so that’s big piece for me.
At the end of the day, that’s got to hurt them at some point as this goes on deeper into the second round for sure, but Vegas has its own issue with forward Pavel Dorofeyev out. He’s a pretty important player for them, he really changes the second line with Brandon Saad in there instead of him. That’s a big difference. That guy scores a lot of goals for them.
Losing to Vegas in the playoffs two years ago and getting to play them again is a huge motivator for the guys that were there the last time.
The Oilers coaching staff wasn’t there, but I’m sure they can find notes and talk to the players about how they did things and question who was there and what could be done differently to play that team.
I think the team they played two years ago is similar in Vegas. They’re a team that likes to play with a lot of speed, they’re big on the back end, they have a lot of size in their defensive core, they protect the front of their net, that’s kind of their bread and butter, and they have the puck a lot.
They play with the puck and don’t play particularly well without the puck, but when they have it, they can be really effective.
I think Vegas is a really good passing team and that’s where they get their speed from is how accurately they pass the puck and they don’t have come back and get it again.
Their passing is a big part of their game as well as puck possession.
Special teams will be important. The biggest part about penalty killing and power play is discipline. Don’t take any penalties.
The playoffs are a time where they allow a few more liberties but they’re still calling penalties.
You don’t want to be giving either team five or six opportunities on the power play. So, who can be the most discipline team, is going to be a big factor and who can kill off is a big part of that. If you can’t kill them off, you better not be taking them.
The penalty killing can make such a difference in the series and can really elevate your goaltender to another status. If you’re penalty kill is playing well and forcing the other team to struggle on their power play, it can give your team a whole lot of confidence.
I think the goaltending battle is pretty even between Calvin Pickard and Adin Hill.
Good for Pickard. He’s a guy that’s been around for a while, is a great teammate, and he ended up being in a backup role and had an opportunity and took it and showed that he can play.
Can he keep it up? That’s a lot to ask of him to keep it up and I’m sure they’re going to need Stuart Skinner at some point to play, because he got them to Game 7 of the Final last year. He still needs to find his game and if the team finds their game, it’s amazing how quickly a goalie can find theirs.
Hill has good size, is a big guy in the net and he has to contend with those two guys, McDavid and Draisaitl. They seem to score on anybody, it doesn’t matter who you put in the net. They always seem to be able to find the back of it.
It’s play by play and goal by goal, you have to have a really short memory and get ready for the next shot is what the Vegas goalies have to do with the type of offense the Oilers are going to bring to them.
Where I give Vegas a bit of an edge is the size of their defense and the experience of their defense. Defense I think is where the difference in the teams is and where it will be decided.
