Friday Four: Oilers end long playoff drought

Each Friday throughout the season Kevin Weekes will be bringing you his Friday Four. He will be blogging about four players, teams, plays, or trends that have caught his eye.

The Oilers have had a collection of high draft picks but weren't a team in terms of how they were built. Who was a checking center, who was a shutdown guy, who was a physical winger, who was a penalty killer, etc. Guys like Andrew Cogliano and Jarret Stoll are role players they had and never kept over the years; players like that are the ones you go deep with.
Now they have Pat Maroon adding size and goals. Mark Letestu brings more of a faceoff/penalty-killing mentality. Getting goaltender Cam Talbot from the New York Rangers during the 2015 NHL Draft was huge; he's right up there in the Vezina Trophy conversation. Then, of course, there's second-year center Connor McDavid, who's leading the NHL in scoring.
Put all those things together and you get to where the Oilers are today.

Montreal Canadiens

The coaching change, firing Michel Therrien and hiring Claude Julien, provided a spark for them earlier this season. Montreal also became a more complete and a more physical team. Signing Alexander Radulov before this season was a low-risk, high-reward move; he has 51 points (16 goals, 35 assists) and is second on the team in scoring. Paul Byron, a speedy role player, has 22 goals.
Shea Weber, acquired for P.K. Subban on June 29 in a trade of star defensemen, has been a constant presence offensively and defensively. Goaltender Carey Price seems like he's finally recovered from last season's injury. Overall, Montreal has more sandpaper; the Canadiens aren't as soft. They have guys who are willing to skate into traffic, through traffic, and will engage in those battles more. The Canadiens play harder in front of their own net and the opposing net, and they finally have some edge. Those are some key reasons they qualified for the playoffs after missing out last season.

Carolina Hurricanes

It's impressive to watch their game. They are 9-0-4 in their past 13 games
to pull within four points
of the Boston Bruins for the second wild card into the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. I've been saying this for a while now. They are ahead of schedule. There's a consistency to their game that you don't often see from young teams. Very seldom do they beat themselves. They play with good structure and play within their group. As the season has gone by, their young guys have gotten better quickly.
Carolina has one of the youngest groups of defensemen in the League. Noah Hanifin scored in overtime on Thursday to keep them rolling. The fact that they are in the thick of the playoff race this quickly has been impressive to watch. Also, Jeff Skinner is up to 32 goals. The 24-year-old has become a leader of the team.

Unheralded players stepping up

There have been a lot of under-the-radar players having good seasons offensively. As an example, Viktor Arvidsson of the Nashville Predators has 29 goals. To put that into context, he had 16 points in 56 games last season, so this was unexpected. Byron, as we talked about earlier, has 22 goals after having 11 last season. Patrick Eaves of the Anaheim Ducks is another. He has 28 goals, including seven this month. His previous career high was 21, set last season.
Michael Frolik, playing on the "3M Line" for the Calgary Flames with Matthew Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund, has 43 points (16 goals, 27 assists). Those three have really clicked.
That's not to say young stars such as Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner, and Mark Scheifele haven't been producing, because they have. It's just that they were expected to do so. Nikolaj Ehlers and Sebastian Aho are also in that class of emerging stars.