The story of the series in my eyes is that the Oilers have the best 5 man unit in the world, and the ice gets tilted when they are on the ice. The Canucks are very well coached, and they needed to keep the lines rolling to keep the checking pace high and their heads above water. The long change in the second period, and the last change at home to get the right matchups, were huge factors in this series, as was the Canucks executing poorly on zone clears and breakouts. Game 5 the Canucks corrected some details on zone clears and breakouts, and as a result they consistently got their line changes, even through the second period, and it is what the series may have looked like had they been able to execute nearly perfectly in any given game. But they couldn't sustain it outside of that one game, and once they missed a zone clear and line change or iced the puck, the ball got rolling downhill for Edmonton and eventually they would just take over long stretches of the game, as the Canucks were gasping for air just to get the line change.
Good first real playoff for this Canucks core, Hughes and Pettersson now know they need to be far better instead of worrying about the team around them. They need to hit the gym to deal with the physicality better, there is no way around it. Miller was great, but I imagine he is going to transition harder into being a shutdown guy. Crazy to think a year and a half ago most doubted him entirely as a center. Lots of offseason decisions all over the roster.
Edmonton will be interesting to watch against Dallas, a very similarly coached team to Tocchet's Vancouver. Edmonton improved over the course of the series against Vancouver, so it may have been a useful stepping stone in knowing what to do to beat Dallas, a much deeper and more polished version of Vancouver. Dallas executes at a much higher rate on the little details that were killing Vancouver all series, so how much McDrai can tilt the ice downhill against them remains to be seen.
