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For the second straight year, the Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars will do battle with a berth in the Stanley Cup Final on the line. And although the Oilers have notoriously struggled defensively in the prime of Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid's careers, that hasn't been the case in the 2025 postseason.
Edmonton allowed only 10 goals in a tidy five-game victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Round 2, including back-to-back Stuart Skinner shutouts in Games 4 and 5.
They'll be looking for a similar defensive effort against the Central Division-winning Stars in the Western Conference Final.
“We’ve been a very good defensive team for years now,” Draisaitl said ahead of the series getting underway on Wednesday night, per The Athletic's Daniel Nugent-Bowman. “Are we going to give up a couple more goals than we’d like to every now and then? Yes. Of course. Every team does. The league’s too hard to just shut out every team and just give up one or two goals. But we’re a good, structured, defensive team that can defend really well.”
Edmonton's blue line has been in the spotlight, but it has come through as of late. Even without key D-man Mattias Ekholm, the unit has stepped up in a big way to help the Oilers reach their third West Final in four years.
A key part of that has been the third pairing of John Klingberg and Jake Walman, who have both made a huge impact through two rounds.
“You don’t play defence with one guy. You play defence with five guys,” said Klingberg, who spent nearly a decade with the Stars. “It comes down to that everyone on the ice is buying into that.”
An anonymous former NHL player told The Athletic that the way the team has defended has been a “hallmark” of their postseason success, and that's obvious considering they kept a very good Golden Knights squad off the scoresheet in back-to-back games.
Oilers have been lights out since Game 3 comeback vs. Kings
This has just looked like a different Edmonton team since they went down 0-2 against the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1. The Oilers won four games in a row to knock out the Kings for the fourth consecutive year, and looked potent against the Knights in the second round.
McDavid, Draisaitl and co. have now won eight of their last nine games in these playoffs, and they have their sights firmly set on a second consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
Standing in the way is a Dallas team that is playing in its third straight West Final; the Stars lost to the Knights in 2023 and Oilers in 2024. They'll be looking for some revenge this time around, but it's going to be a tall task against an opponent that is firing on all cylinders.
“We know that we’re going to be a really good offensive team,” Klingberg said, per Nugent-Bowman. “We can score goals, especially with those two top guys that we have. If we just take care of our own zone and the neutral zone and doing the right things there, we know that when we get in the O zone, we have a really good chance to score. That’s been the goal.”
Game 1 between the Oilers and Stars will get underway on Wednesday night; puck is set to drop from American Airlines Center in Texas just past 8:00 p.m. ET.
