Two springs ago, Jesse Puljujarvi scored the icebreaker in the Edmonton Oilers' first playoff game, whirling in the slot to net a rebound off of Tyson Barrie's point shot. The Winnipeg Jets blanked the Oilers for the next 102 minutes. Defenders subdued Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl while shackling their supporting cast to initiate a Jets sweep.
The Oilers have changed since that meek loss. They traded Puljujarvi, whose Carolina Hurricanes are in the Eastern Conference Final. They swapped Barrie for Mattias Ekholm, grasping that Evan Bouchard could replace his power-play productivity.
Meanwhile, McDavid and Draisaitl flipped a switch. No opponent since Winnipeg has contained them in the postseason. That includes the Vegas Golden Knights, who eliminated the Oilers in six games even though the superstars padded their stats.
Draisaitl's four-goal eruption in the opener against Vegas helped raise his playoff total to 13 in a dozen games. McDavid's 20 points top the league through Sunday's action. Draisaitl is right behind him on the leaderboard, as was the case when both players recorded two points per contest in last year's postseason.
Since the 2022 playoffs started, McDavid paces the NHL with 53 points in 28 postseason appearances. Draisaitl racked up 50 points in this span. The next-closest scorer, Mikko Rantanen of the Colorado Avalanche, collected 35 points in 27 games. Rantanen's numbers are merely great, not stupendous.
McDavid and Draisaitl have competed in nine career playoff series. Certain legends of their era - think Stanley Cup winners like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, and Nikita Kucherov - are considerably more experienced and boast shinier resumes. But on a per-game basis, the Oilers duo's colossal output is unparalleled.
Wayne Gretzky scored 1.84 points per game in 208 playoff outings. Mario Lemieux averaged 1.61 points in 107 games. History supplies no other comparison for what's happening in Edmonton.
Offense has risen NHL-wide - scoring soared to a 29-year high this season - but McDavid and Draisaitl deserve more credit than anyone for driving that boom. Most star players have off-nights or go cold intermittently. These guys rarely slump, though Vegas held Draisaitl pointless in three of six games. At their playoff peak, Edmonton's top dogs toy with elite opposition, resembling ringers who descended from some imaginary better league.
The salary-cap era record for points in a postseason - Malkin tallied 36 in 2009 - might have fallen if the Oilers reached the Cup Final. The Golden Knights nixed that possibility. Stealing the spotlight on Sunday, Jonathan Marchessault's natural hat trick sparked Vegas to a gutsy 5-2 win in Game 6.
Draisaitl was on track to smash the cap-era high for goals (15), set by Crosby in 2009 and matched by Ovechkin in 2018 when their squads hoisted the Cup. He could have become the first player this century to sniff the all-time record.
Moving at half-speed, Draisaitl torched the Calgary Flames for 17 points in five games on a sprained right ankle last postseason. He was the best playmaker in the sport in that window. This spring, he finished lethally throughout the offensive zone.
By blasting one-timers, foraging for garbage goals, and banking in one wrister off of Laurent Brossoit's nameplate, Draisaitl boosted his shooting percentage in these playoffs to 28.9% (his career average is 18.1%). He exits as the league leader in even-strength goals (seven), power-play goals (six), opening goals (three), and hit posts (three). That said, his giveaway behind the Oilers' net Sunday led directly to Marchessault's winner.
McDavid couldn't buy a whistle when the Jets threw sticks and bodies at him in 2021. He drew eight penalties in this postseason and elevated both Oilers special-teams units. Motoring to the net, McDavid poked the puck through Brossoit's legs on a shorthanded breakaway in Game 2 and tapped his own rebound past Adin Hill on the power play in Game 5. McDavid's snipe in the opening minute of Game 6 was his first goal against Vegas at even strength.
He dazzled at times, but his team's inconsistency was vexing.
Poor defensive reads and careless or untimely penalties, like Ekholm's boarding minor Sunday, burned the Oilers in various Vegas wins. Never solid in back-to-back games, Stuart Skinner allowed five, one, four, one, four, and four goals, in that order, and was yanked from the net on three occasions. Vegas responded to four Edmonton tallies throughout the round by beating Skinner within the next couple of minutes, instantly reversing the momentum.
The Golden Knights iced the best line in the series. They outscored Edmonton 15-9 at five-on-five, including by a 7-1 margin when Marchessault skated with Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev, per Natural Stat Trick. Eichel and Marchessault led the matchup in points at even strength with seven apiece.
Edmonton's power play remained laughably good in defeat (39.1% success rate in the round, 46.2% in the playoffs). Bouchard's 15 power-play points in 12 games constitute a new high for defensemen in the cap era. He pulverized the puck and benefited from dishing it to McDavid and Draisaitl on the flanks. Bouchard would have needed nine more points with the extra man to equal Gretzky's record for one postseason (24 in 1988).
This bombardment didn't crush the Golden Knights. They won Game 5, the swing contest in the series, despite conceding three power-play goals. McDavid's scoring rate at five-on-five dipped from 2.71 points per 60 minutes in the regular season to 2.06 against Vegas. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman, Evander Kane, and Kailer Yamamoto - four of Edmonton's top six forwards - combined to score once in that phase.
The Oilers went 18-2-1 to end the regular season after Ekholm arrived at the trade deadline. The NHL's hottest team over the final quarter of the schedule was too leaky in May to fulfill its potential.
The four goals Skinner let in Sunday came on 17 shots, lowering his save percentage in the round to .875. Hill - a .934 goalie in the series as Brossoit's injury replacement - whiffed on two shots to open Game 6 before he stoned 38 in a row. Hill's third career playoff start was his greatest to date.
Draisaitl, who turns 28 in October, is signed for two more years at the bargain rate of $8.5 million. McDavid is 26, and his megadeal runs through 2026. Neither player will get worse anytime soon, not after they combined to notch 281 points in the regular season. But several big-ticket teammates - Nugent-Hopkins, Hyman, Kane, Ekholm, and Jack Campbell, to name five - are in their 30s, reducing general manager Ken Holland's runway to build a winner.
This could have been Edmonton's year. The playoff run didn't last long enough to be transcendent. The Oilers have changed, but their story ended the same way.
Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.
