The Oilers fall in the second round

After a great regular season, the Oilers finished second in the Pacific division just behind the Calgary Flames. They had a very promising end to the season with seven wins in their final ten games and they ended the season with one hundred and four points.

The Oilers entered the first round of the playoffs facing the Flames and lost the first game six to nine. They would then go on to win the next four games and win the series. Game two was a five to three win, game three was a four to one win, game four was another five to one win, and the final game of their first round was a five to four win.

The Oilers entered the second round with high hopes after winning their last four games against the leader of the Pacific division. Seeing as the Avalanche had lost two games against a worse team than the Flames it was really looking like the Oilers had a good chance to win the series and move on to the finals. 

But the Avalanche weren’t going to be an easy team to beat. They had proven in the regular season that they were a very good team being first in the western conference and second in the NHL just three points behind the Panthers who had the best record in the NHL this year.

The first game of the series was very high scoring with the final score being eight to six in favor of the Avalanche. During that game, the Oilers and Avalanche both started scoring early with the Oiler's Evander Kane starting off the scoring just five minutes into the first period. That would then be followed by two goals by the Avalanche scored by J.T. Compher just forty seconds later and the second goal for the Avalanche coming from Nathan MacKinnon. 

The Oilers would respond with another goal but the Avalanche would get the final goal of the first period. In the second period, the Avalanche would score four goals three of them being consecutive. The Oilers would only score two goals in the second period. The Oilers would start to make a comeback with two goals in the third period but the Avalanche would shut that down with a goal of their own. 

Game two would be bad for the Oilers who weren’t able to score a single goal. But the first period for both teams would be very uneventful with zero goals being scored until the second period. The Avalanche would come out of seemingly nowhere and score three goals in the second period and shut down any attempts the Oilers made at scoring. There would be only one goal in the third period and It would be by the Avalanche. The Oilers lost game two in a crushing four to zero shutout by the Avalanche.

After an impressive stint in the regular season the Oilers failed to capitalize on their young rosters strengths. We will have to wait till next season to see if they can improve over this next off-season and take the Stanley Cup home after over thirty years of championship droughts.