Can Ducks Beat Oilers? Yes, If They Keep Things Simple

It's no secret that the Ducks love to play run-and-gun hockey. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being "We may win, but I may die," the Ducks are at 11. Their knack for coming back late in games led to them tying their franchise record for most comeback wins in a season on the final day of the 2025-26 season.

"We've found our game to be resilient at times this year when we go down two (goals) and find a way to get back," defenseman Jacob Trouba said. "Obviously, we probably don't want the swings as much as we've had them, but being able to respond to momentum shifts and being able to get momentum back in games and (finding) ways to get points, I think that's what's important. That's what kind of drags you into playoffs."

Speaking of the playoffs, the Ducks are in for the first time in eight years and have the honor of facing the Edmonton Oilers, the Stanley Cup Final runner-up from the past two seasons. Led by Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard, the Oilers are an offensive juggernaut.

The gap in playoff experience between the two teams is quite wide. Though Anaheim does have a handful of players with Stanley Cup Playoffs experience, most of the roster hasn't made their postseason debuts. Even Troy Terry, the longest-tenured player on the team by a country mile, has yet to play in a single playoff game.

"For myself, for a lot of guys, hopefully we've learned from a lot of the mistakes in the last week and we can take those lessons as opposed to learning them next week, which is maybe a positive thing," Terry said. "So I think there's a big part of that. A lot of us haven't been to the playoffs. Some guys have, and we're leaning on those guys and just trying to make sure we're not letting some of these things that have hindered us this last week or so creep back into our game."

"The first time you have the opportunity to play in the playoffs, you're pretty excited and you're ready to go," Trouba, who has 73 playoff games under his belt, said. "Just let guys enjoy it and ride it out. It's a fun experience, happy we get to do it this year."

Could that naïvety be a positive? Plenty of arguments online have cropped up about how the Ducks are 'playing with house money' and can afford to play carefree because they've already met, or even exceeded, expectations by simply making the playoffs. But this team isn't satisfied with just getting into the playoffs.

"A new experience for a lot of guys," Trouba said. "We do have a lot of experience in (this locker room) as well, though, that's played before. I'm excited to get started. It'll be a little bit of learning on the fly for everyone, and we'll see how we go off the start."

"Never playing in the playoffs, not really too sure what to expect," Cutter Gauthier said. "But we've had a ton of great leaders in our locker room and veterans who have won the Stanley Cup and played long series in the playoffs to kind of show us what to expect. I think the young guys have taken a great step this year compared to last to really get a good effort forward and make a serious push in these playoffs."

"We all want to win," goaltender Lukáš Dostál said. "It doesn't matter if you're young or (a) veteran guy, we all want to win. There's basically no time to waste, so we just believe we are all ready."

"We have (the) ability to score goals and make plays, and we don't want to take that away from our team," Quenneville said. "Just make that commitment of predictability in our own end and killing the rush game."

Predictability is something that Quenneville has harped on all season, but especially so in the last couple of months. Many of the players have narrowed it down to 'playing a simple game' or 'playing our game'.

"Offense isn't gonna be a problem with this team. You've got to play good defense," Chris Kreider said. "We've learned that we can generate offense off of playing good defense and, ultimately, winning hockey games is fun.

"We're just going to go out, play our game––what we've done all season––and be consistent for a full 60 and see what happens," Gauthier said."You don't want to play run-and-gun hockey with this team," Trouba said, referring to the Oilers. "They've got a lot of high-talented, offensive players. Defending is going to be a key part for us in this series."

"That's what the playoffs are all about," Quenneville said. "Sometimes, it's who checks better and who's patient. You try to force things in the game, it leads to trouble. That's something we've proven that we're capable of, making plays and scoring goals. But that consistency of shutting teams down and shutting the rush game, shutting our d-zone coverage down, where we've got everybody in the right spots and attention to detail in that area, you get offense off of that. (It) complements the whole game."

The Ducks have proven that they can win games with simplicity. When Terry and Leo Carlsson both went down with injuries in mid-January, the team had to adjust its strategy to account for two of its top playmakers being out of the lineup. A more streamlined approach had to be taken: Make the simple play. Dump, forecheck, recover the puck, drive the net. Shot. Cover for pinching defensemen. Wash, rinse, repeat. It made for a sound strategy, as the Ducks went 9-2-0 during that stretch to close out the pre-Olympics portion of the season.

The question now is whether the Ducks can channel that kind of play again. Those 11 games included some of their best defensive performances of the season. The last 10 games of the regular season were porous defensively, with 41 goals allowed. A similar performance being replicated against the Oilers would result in a very short series.

Anaheim can take a page out of the Oilers' notebook, as the latter buttoned things down in the closing stages of the regular season. While the former may not be able to outgun their opponent in a seven-game series, they can certainly try to keep things as simple as possible.

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