The Edmonton Oilers will play the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Final for the second straight season.
Game 1 is in Dallas on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, CBC, TVAS).
The Oilers, who are in the conference final for the third time in the past four seasons, defeated the Stars in six games last season before losing to the Florida Panthers in seven games in the Stanley Cup Final.
The Oilers, who are the No. 3 seed from the Pacific Division, advanced by defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 1-0 in overtime in Game 5 of the second round at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday.
The Stars, the No. 2 seed in the Central Division, set up the rematch by defeating the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 in overtime in Game 6 on Saturday. Dallas is in the conference final for the third straight season.
“It’s huge. We want to beat them this time, we don’t want to lose two in a row against the same team,” Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen said. “We want to beat them and get to the finals for sure.”
Connor McDavid leads the Oilers in the playoffs with 17 points (three goals, 14 assists) and Leon Draisaitl has 16 points (five goals, 11 assists). Evan Bouchard has 12 points (four goals, eight assists).
Calvin Pickard was 6-0 with a 2.84 goals-against average and .888 save percentage and led Edmonton to six straight wins before not playing Games 3, 4 and 5 after sustaining a lower-body injury. Pickard originally took over as the starter for Game 3 of the first round after Stuart Skinner was 0-2 with a 6.11 GAA and .810 save percentage, allowing 11 goals on 58 shots. Skinner is 2-1 with a 1.28 GAA, .944 save percentage and two shutouts straight shutouts in three games since.
The Oilers went 1-2-0 against the Stars. Zach Hyman had four points (three goals, one assist) and McDavid (one goal, two assists) and Bouchard (three assists) each had three points. Five players had two points each. Skinner was 1-2-0 with a 3.99 GAA and .841 save percentage. Pickard made three saves in relief in his only appearance.
“Every year’s different,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “They’re a different team this year. You know, I think a lot like Colorado, they’re a better team this year. They’re a deeper team this year than they were last year. You see they’re getting scoring from a lot of places other than McDavid and Draisaitl, and they still have that element, obviously, every night. So I think it’s a lot like the Colorado series, where we can look back at last year, but I think this is a different, better version that we’re playing. And I believe we’re a better version of ourselves from last year, too It’s gonna be a great test.”
Mikko Rantanen leads the Stars in the playoffs with 19 points (nine goals, 10 assists). Thomas Harley has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) and Roope Hintz (five goals, five assists) has 10 points.
Jake Oettinger is 8-5 with a 2.47 GAA and .919 save percentage. Casey DeSmith came on in relief of Oettinger in Game 4 of the first round against the Colorado Avalanche, allowing one goal on 14 shots.
Jason Robertson (four goals, two assists) and Hintz (one goal, five assists) led the Stars against the Oilers with six points each, including a hat trick by Robertson in a 4-3 win in Edmonton on March 26. Matt Duchene (two goals, one assist), Rantanen (one goal, two assists) and Harley (three assists) each had three points.
Oettinger was 2-1-0 with a 3.04 GAA and .912 save percentage. DeSmith didn’t face the Oilers in the regular season.
“I think we’ve learned a lot the last two years,” Oettinger said. “That’s all we wanted after we lost last year is this opportunity. The fact that we get to play Edmonton again makes it even better. … It’s up to us as a group to take that next step and I think we should feel great about what we’ve done with the adversity we’ve faced. I think our best hockey is yet to come.”
Edmonton and Dallas have played seven times in the playoffs, with the Stars winning five of them. The teams met in the postseason six times in a seven-year span from 1997-2003. The Oilers also faced the Minnesota North Stars twice in the playoffs prior to their relocation to Dallas for the 1993-94 season, each winning once.
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