2024 NHL playoff preview: Stars vs. Oilers

By Sean Gentille, Shayna Goldman and Dom Luszczyszyn

It’s nice that we’re getting a Western Conference final between teams this good. The Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers have that in common. It’s their differences, though, that make this series fascinating.

On one side, there’s a remarkable cluster of talent at the top of the lineup, featuring the sport’s preeminent superstar, the best No. 2 of his generation, a 54-goal winger and an emerging stud defenseman. On the other is, perhaps, the deepest forward group in the league, a defense to match and an advantage at goaltender.

This isn’t just a matchup between the West’s elite; it’s a style clash. Time to see which approach to roster-building comes out on top.

The odds

This is the first series of the postseason where the model is really out on a limb relative to the market. We have the Oilers at 53 percent favorites, while oddsmakers view the Stars as 56 percent favorites. That’s a big difference.

While the model has a strong hit rate in these playoffs when there’s a discrepancy against the market, it does feel like it’s on the “wrong” side here. Conventional wisdom suggests the Stars should be the favorites. They’re the significantly deeper team at every position, with stronger goaltending and a much better defensive cachet, and they’ve proved their mettle against two tougher opponents.

Edmonton’s only real advantage is a massive one: Its star power. No team shines brighter in that regard. Will that be enough against an elite team that’s built to destroy it and proved as much against the Colorado Avalanche?

The numbers

The first number with the Oilers tends to involve their power play. Edmonton is operating at a league-high 37.5 percent through two rounds, scoring 15.8 goals per 60. The Stars may be great on the power play, but the Oilers are outright dominant, which gives them a big offensive edge.

As much as the Stars’ penalty killers have limited quality looks from their opponents, they’ve allowed more back than expected — a difference of 3.86 goals, which is the most of any playoff team.

The Oilers are surprisingly the opposite, with more goals saved while short-handed. So as good as Dallas may be on special teams, Edmonton has the advantage on both ends of the ice, which plays into the odds.

Five-on-five play is where the series is a lot closer. In the regular season, the Oilers were the better offensive team but the Stars did a better job converting on their chances. Dallas was the better defensive team as well. In the playoffs, the Stars have been stronger than Edmonton in terms of offensive creation and limitation — even against a team that thrives off the rush like Colorado. That bodes well for them, considering the pace the Oilers pace with and their dangerous puck movement. Edmonton, on the other hand, has had to go through two strong defensive teams to get here, which may explain the lower pace from the regular season.

But the results tell a slightly different story. Edmonton is cashing in on more chances, while the Stars’ five-on-five scoring of 1.84 goals per 60 is a lot lower than it should be. Maybe that changes this series, considering some instabilities in goal for the Oilers. For Dallas, Jake Oettinger, who hasn’t given up much even strength scoring, is going to be tested by a team with a ton of finishing talent.

The big question

Will Chris Tanev be the difference?

A few Western Conference teams loaded up at the deadline with help on defense. The Golden Knights acquired Noah Hanifin, the Avalanche added Sean Walker and Dallas landed Tanev. The Oilers opted against making any changes whatsoever.

The Stars went from solid to stout with Tanev in the fold down the stretch. To end the regular season, the Stars allowed about seven attempts fewer per 60 in Tanev’s minutes relative to his teammates, and their expected goal suppression improved by about 0.37. A small sample can skew things, but it’s clear that he quickly became the right-handed defenseman the Stars needed to round out their blue line.

And that’s carried into the playoffs so far. With Tanev in the fold, Dallas has another defenseman capable of playing shutdown minutes. That means Miro Heiskanen, a two-way star on the back end, doesn’t have to be buried against top competition.

In Round 1, that meant a hefty dose of Jack Eichel for Tanev. In over 46 head-to-head minutes at five-on-five, Vegas had a slight edge in shot volume with 54 attempts to the Stars’ 51. But Dallas had a significant edge in quality. The Stars generated 3.15 expected goals in that time while limiting Vegas to just 1.2 for a 72.5 percent expected goals rate. That paid off on the scoresheet with the Stars outscoring their opponents 3-0 in that time.

The reward for getting past Eichel and the Golden Knights? Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche. Dallas only had 40 percent of the shot share in the almost 59 minutes Tanev and MacKinnon were on the ice together. But Tanev helped contain Colorado’s best and slow them down. The Avalanche earned about 55 percent of the expected goals share, but only got on the board once when MacKinnon shared the ice with Tanev; the Stars did three times.

Through two rounds, Tanev has earned a plus-3.5 Defensive Rating that leads the postseason. His plus-3.1 Net Rating is fourth among defensemen. And now the Stars are going to count on him to be a big difference-maker in Round 3.

With Edmonton ahead of the Stars, that likely means Tanev will be served a steady diet of Connor McDavid — and possibly Leon Draisaitl if the two get stacked together on the same line at even strength, as they have through parts of this postseason. It’s a tall task, but if anyone is up for the challenge, Tanev seems to be the guy. And that could be what separates the Stars from Edmonton in the Western Conference final.

Trotting out Tanev against the opponents’ best is a big difference from say, Cody Ceci, who the Oilers have leaned on in their top four. Through two rounds, his Net Rating has sunk to second to last among all skaters this postseason at a minus-2.1. That’s led to some adjustments on the back end for the Oilers, like separating Ceci and Darnell Nurse, who have been a disaster together.

The Stars upgraded on defense when their blue line was fine to begin with. The Oilers had a fundamentally flawed defense and maintained the status quo. That now carries a two-fold effect on their Stanley Cup chances, closing the gap considerably between the Oilers and the last team in the West standing in their way. Not acquiring Tanev is essentially a 10-goal swing in this series.

If Tanev can keep up his excellence, that gap may grow even larger and the Oilers will have a longer summer than Dallas to think about that deadline decision.

The X-factor

Will Roope Hintz be ready for Game 1?

It’s hard to imagine Hintz not being ready for Game 1; he’s played through plenty of injuries in his career, and he skated ahead of the Stars’ Monday practice. If nothing else, the arrow is certainly pointing up for a guy who left Game 4 against the Avs after a blocked shot/cross-check combination.

If, for whatever reason, he can’t go, the Stars’ chances would drop 0.7 percentage points for each game he misses. Dallas doesn’t just need him to be in the lineup, either. They need him to be good. Having offensive ability throughout your top nine is great — but against the Oilers, you need high-end, down-the-middle talent. At his best, Hintz is a playmaker and a play-driver, typically between Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelski. Before his injury, Dallas had outscored Colorado 2-0 in his minutes and controlled more than 55 percent of the expected goals — a better showing than Hintz put up against Vegas.

Against Edmonton, his presence would also guarantee that either Wyatt Johnston or Matt Duchene would get third-line minutes against the Oilers’ iffy bottom six. That’s crucial; if the Stars take this series, they’ll need to handle business down the lineup in a big way.

The rosters

For the Oilers, it’s a new round and the same story; they’re here because of their best players, they have an advantage because of their best players and their hopes of advancement rely on their best players. Evan Bouchard, McDavid, Draisaitl and Zach Hyman — as was the case heading into the Canucks series — are the postseason’s top four players in Net Rating. Bouchard has taken the top spot from McDavid after a monster performance against Vancouver that put him at a 6.5 overall.

Combined, Edmonton’s Big Four is at 20.6 overall, with more than 10 goals of value added against Vancouver alone. That becomes an even bigger deal when you consider that the Oilers outscored the Canucks by just four in that seven-game series. Part of the reason for those gaudy totals — great as those players are on their own merits — is that Kris Knoblauch is playing them a ton. That’s all well and good; the Oilers clearly dominate with their big guns, and heavy usage is part of what makes them such heavy favorites. The model doesn’t account for fatigue, though, and in Game 5 against Vancouver, the top guys all looked gassed. If this is indeed a long series, Dallas’ depth could become an even bigger problem.

At forward, Edmonton is getting quality play from a few support pieces. Dylan Holloway and Evander Kane have both outpaced their pre-playoff projections, and the latter was particularly helpful against Vancouver, putting together a four-game point streak and six positive Game Scores after Game 1. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a pair of strong closeout games, including a three-point Game 7 that was second in Game Score only to Hyman.

Those kinds of contributions are even more crucial, given how the rest of the forward group has performed. There, only Adam Henrique has provided positive value — and that value is minimal, given that he played in just one game against the Canucks because of injury. Either way, at certain points in any series, someone other than McDavid, Draisaitl and Hyman is going to have to step up. The big guys can do plenty of work, but not all of it; that’s where players like Kane, Nugent-Hopkins and Holloway have helped bridge the gap.

On defense, Bouchard and Ekholm have continued their fantastic play. No pair remaining in the playoffs has a better expected goals percentage than their 63.0, and both have delivered tremendous surplus value on offense and defense. The Oilers outscored Vancouver 9-3 with them on the ice and controlled 71 percent of the high-danger chances.

The Nurse-Ceci pairing, though, was again a catastrophe; while they were on the ice, Edmonton was outscored (5-1), out-chanced (26-13) and controlled about a quarter of the expected goals. Knoblauch moved away from the duo as the series progressed, and it paid off a bit; Nurse and Vincent Desharnais played together well enough, with Edmonton controlling attempts, shots and expected goals while they were on the ice together. If nothing else, it was a step in the right direction, but Dallas’ depth is going to greatly test whatever combination Knoblauch settles on for his second and third pairs.

GO DEEPER

Inside a key Oilers problem: The struggles of Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci

In net, Stuart Skinner got his act together in time to close out the Canucks. After getting pulled in Game 3 and benched through Game 5, Skinner came back with a pair of good-enough performances, although things got a little hairy late in Game 7. If he struggles again, Calvin Pickard (.915 save percentage, 1.67 GSAx in three appearances) has shown that he’s a viable option.

Whatever the Stars’ primary lines end up being — Pete DeBoer gave 11 different combos at least 10 minutes together against Colorado and none more than 40 —  they’re going to have to get more (to varying degrees) from Hintz, Robertson and Pavelski at five-on-five. Good as they’ve been as a unit for the last few years, all three have struggled to hit their top gears so far in the postseason. Against Colorado, Robertson was the biggest issue, managing just a pair of secondary assists at five-on-five and posting some rough on-ice numbers. These are still elite players we’re talking about — their counterparts, though, are as elite as it gets. The gap between the top of the rosters is significant.

Dallas’ trump card, of course, is superior depth and productivity throughout the lineup. Johnston, no doubt, wants to revert to the all-situations menace he showed in Round 1; he had just one five-on-five goal against Colorado, four points overall and four negative Game Scores. Evgenii Dadonov, Logan Stankoven and Duchene all had three five-on-five points against the Avs, tied with Pavelski for the team lead. A repeat performance there would go a long way toward helping Dallas get the job done.

The biggest reason the Stars are in this position, of course, is due to the play of their top five defensemen — particularly Heiskanen and Tanev. Heiskanen has the highest Net Rating among remaining players (outside of the Oilers), and the Oilers dramatically control goals share (actual and expected) whether he’s on the ice with Thomas Harley or Ryan Suter.

Tanev, meanwhile, has been even better than advertised. Against the Avs, he helped the Stars basically break even against MacKinnon; in about 70 minutes with those two on the ice together at five-on-five, Dallas outscored Colorado 3-1. One of this series’ biggest questions is whether it’s him or Heiskanen who gets matched up against the McDavid line. On one hand, Heiskanen’s skating matches up a little better. On the other, Tanev largely shut down MacKinnon. The best possible news for Dallas: whatever happens, one of them will be left over to face Draisaitl.

Oettinger’s up-and-down postseason continued against the Avs; he was really good in three games and really mediocre in the other three. Still, given Skinner’s struggles, this is an edge for Dallas.

The key matchup

Jake Oettinger vs. Stuart Skinner

The Penguins comparisons have been hard to ignore ever since McDavid was drafted. McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman and Bouchard are to Edmonton what Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz and Kris Letang were to the Penguins — almost to a tee.

Unfortunately for the Oilers, Skinner has been doing his best Marc-Andre Fleury impression on top of that.

From 2010 to 2013, Fleury appeared in 31 playoff games and was projected to save 1.5 goals above expected based on his regular season ability. He instead allowed 30. That’s one goal every game that Fleury allowed in the playoffs that he would otherwise stop during the season. Over the last two seasons, Skinner has walked a similar path, projected to stop 2.8 goals above expected, but allowing 14.4 instead. That’s 17.2 goals worse than his usual effort over 22 games.

It’s extremely difficult to win under those circumstances and it’s exactly why many believe this series is Dallas’ to lose. Skinner being projected higher than Oettinger makes some degree of sense given he’s saved eight more goals above expected over the last two seasons. But it’s obviously a laughable assertion given his current lack of big-game ability. That’s an area where Oettinger has a much stronger track record, even with his own Skinner-like performance in the playoffs last year.

That’s something the model doesn’t account for here. That’s usually the safer bet given the small sample that comes with the playoffs. In extreme cases such as this one, though, it’s a cause for concern. Until Skinner proves otherwise when it matters, he’s Edmonton’s Achilles’ heel.

The bottom line

Dallas showed that its balanced attack could outlast Colorado’s star power. That’s once again going to get put to the test, now against Edmonton with two of the NHL’s best.

Whoever comes out of this series will be the true star of the Western Conference, with a trip to the Stanley Cup Final as the reward.

References

How these projections work
Understanding projection uncertainty 

Resources

Evolving Hockey
Natural Stat Trick
Hockey Reference
NHL
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder

(Photo of Miro Heiskanen, Jake Oettinger and Connor McDavid: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)