I’m honestly not sure how this series will go. The Canucks haven’t been able to score much since the All Star break, but they do better against looser teams, and while Skinner has been solid most of the year since a bad start, he’s not without the potential for a weaker series. Meanwhile, the team has been quite stingy since the break as well, but nobody can really stop McDavid, and Draisaitl has historically played well against them too. And while Silovs has had a strong playoffs so far, he’s still not Demko.
I do think Edmonton is the better team, but while this year’s regular season is skewed by when they took place, I also think the Canucks match up decently with them. The previous two years they had a terrible record against the Oilers, but managed to keep things close with the goals being 10-11 last year, and every game a 1 goal game the year before, despite the Canucks being a worse team. I suspect Edmonton will win, but I could see anything happen between an Oilers sweep to a Canucks win in 7.
Realistically I just want to see a good series at this point. Nashville was entertaining from the aspect of the games being so tight, but it wasn’t really great hockey to watch. The argument about this year being “house money” because it’s about experience for the Canucks is flawed because it’s not like the team is super young, and it’ll be hard to keep everyone let alone improve the roster for next year. Still, I think making the second round is more than meeting expectations going into the year.
