The Anaheim Ducks’ current defensive corps is very different than the unit that defeated the Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs last spring.

John Carlsson, Jacob Trouba and Radko Gudas are gone, while Ian Moore and Drew Helleson are injured. The Ducks are 2-0 to start this season while deploying the most inexperienced blueline in the NHL. Jackson Lacombe is suddenly their grizzled veteran with 232 NHL regular season games played. Pavel Mintyukov has played 206, while Tristan Luneau (16), Tyson Hinds (eight), Travis Mitchell (two) and Noah Warren (two) have a combined 28 games of NHL experience.

The Ducks have a great history of drafting and developing defensemen. They know what they like, and they find it regularly. This defensive corps doesn’t have a lot of experience, but the Ducks like size and mobility. Warren is six-foot-five, 233 lbs.; Hinds and Mitchell are six-foot-three, 205 lbs.; Mintyukov and Jackson are six-foot-two, 210 and 212 pounds, while Luneau is six-foot-one and 211 lbs. This group lacks experience, but that doesn’t mean they lack skill.

Luneau just signed a seven-year, $7.2-million AAV contract extension after only playing 14 NHL games. It surprised many, including me, but the Ducks are very high on him, and he’s played in the top pair with Lacombe, averaging 26:47 per game through two games. They can’t play him that much all season, or he will wear down over 84 games, but he has looked really good and not overwhelmed early on, albeit it is only two games.

I don’t doubt the ability of the Ducks’ young blueliners, but they lack experience, and the Oilers have to make the four rookies feel uncomfortable tonight. Force them to make quick second decisions. See how they handle a cycle or a down low switch. Both teams will be rested, as Edmonton last played on Saturday, while the Ducks played Sunday. The core group on each team will be fired up to face each other after their playoff meeting five months ago. The veteran Oilers will want revenge, while the upstart Ducks want to show that series victory wasn’t a fluke. The best part about the playoffs is that usually that leads to a more intense rivalry between teams in the regular season.

The Ducks are 2-0 due to their power play. It went three-for-four in their 3-2 victory over Florida. Anaheim has been outshot 30-20 by Vegas and 31-20 by Florida, but they won both games by a goal. Despite being outshot 61-40 in two games, they aren’t getting crushed on high-danger chances, but the Oilers, who have outshot teams 94-65 in three games, should be able to control the game at five-on-five. In the playoffs, Edmonton outscored Anaheim five-on-five, even with all their injuries to their centres, but got destroyed on the penalty kill. Anaheim was 50 per cent on the man advantage with eight goals on 16 opportunities. The Ducks’ power play is 50 per cent through two games to start this season. Edmonton’s penalty kill is an ugly 57.1 per cent, allowing three goals on seven kills. However, they do have two shorthanded goals, so their net PK% is 85.7 per cent. But they aren’t going to score two shorthanded goals every three games, so they need the kill to improve.

Jason Dickinson returns to the lineup, and that should, in theory, help the penalty kill. He was part of the league’s best PK in Chicago last season, and in the playoffs, when he was on the ice (7:00), the Oilers PK allowed one goal, but in the 14:48 without him on the ice, they allowed seven goals. He is a good penalty killer, and he should be a positive addition to the PK.

At five-on-five, Edmonton has controlled the play this year, outscoring the opposition 11-9 and outshooting them 67-49. The Oilers have started all three games very well. They’ve come out ready to play and have outshot teams 39-12 and outscored them 6-1 in the opening frame. That is a good sign, considering strong starts weren’t their forte last year. However, the second period hasn’t been as good. “Right now, for us, whether it be in between periods we relax too much, we stop taking care of the puck, we forget what we are doing… the second period hasn’t been kind to us,” said Mike Babcock. “In saying that, you’re always going to have the odd, bad shift. They hemmed us in one shift last game where our D was stuck out there for three shifts, so take care of the puck, get the puck in and get them off the ice. We didn’t do a good job of that and we will get better.”

Edmonton has scored the most first-period goals, and only the New York Rangers (zero) have allowed fewer. Look for them to attack the Ducks early and force their young blueline to make a lot of decisions. Edmonton is much better when they are aggressive, and the first-round exit at the hands of the Ducks should give them even more motivation to hand the Ducks their first loss of the season.

SNAPSHOTS…

- The Edmonton Oilers currently have the three fastest player bursts in the NHL, led by Connor McDavid (24.01 m.p.h.), Kasperi Kapanen (23.43), and Isaac Howard (23.38). As a team, Edmonton leads the NHL with 20 bursts of 22+ m.p.h., and Seattle is second with 10. The Oilers are also first with 107 bursts of 20-22 m.p.h., and Seattle is second with 102. McDavid is a big part of the 20-22, as he leads the NHL with 31, while Owen Tippett and Max Sasson are T-2 with 18, and Berkly Catton is fourth with 17.

Player TOI/GP Top speed 22+ 20-22 18-20

McDavid 23:44 24.01 9 31 34

Kapanen 18:10 23.43 3 7 21

Howard 10:09 23.38 4 5 24

Dach 13:23 22.23 1 9 26

Jones 11:14 22.01 1 6 21

Frederic 9:30 21.91 0 5 13

Michaels 11:54 21.63 0 9 23

Draisaitl 21:54 21.33 0 9 29

Formenton 15:09 21.27 0 5 29

Podkolzin 18:55 21.09 0 4 27

Samanski 7:30 20.63 0 3 6

Joseph 15:03 20.54 0 4 21

Player TOI/GP Top speed 22+ 20-22 18-20

Murphy 20:52 22.43 1 0 5

Mukhamadullin 11:32 21.33 0 1 1

Shea 22:26 21.00 0 2 10

Emberson 11:22 20.49 0 1 3

Bouchard 25:41 20.43 0 2 19

Ekholm 21:26 20.25 0 1 18

Walman 14:26 20.25 0 3 10

McDavid has the most 22+ m.p.h. bursts, while Howard is T-4 with four and Kapanen is T-6 with three. Edmonton has good team speed.

- My favourite early-season stat is that Connor Murphy has the third-fastest burst among all NHL D-men at 22.43 m.p.h.. It happened in the second period on opening night after Murphy pinched down low and pushed the puck behind the net. He then had to backcheck from the faceoff dot in the offensive zone and skated the full length of the ice, which he rarely does, as he isn’t often below the dot in the offensive zone. His next fastest burst has been 18.68, as we rarely see Murphy skate a good distance in a straight line, but if he has to, he can find a decent top speed. Even when you watch that play, he doesn’t look that fast, because he has a bit of a lumbering stride, but he was moving pretty well. If I were the Oilers video coach, I’d be showing that in the room for some laughs. Promote his speed, which he isn’t known for. Small things like that get a team closer. Guys love it.

- The stats above will show you why Colton Dach is playing centre ahead of Josh Samanski. Babcock’s system requires a lot of skating for the centres, and Dach is quicker than Samanski. Dach is T-2 on the Oilers in 20-22 m.p.h. bursts with nine. I know he has been on the ice for four goals against five-on-five, but going over the video from the second game in Vancouver, where he was on for three goals against, he didn’t have much to do with the goals. Jake Walman struggled on the dump-in and couldn’t corral it, and Vancouver scored moments later. Max Jones fanned on his dump-out attempt, and three seconds later the Canucks banged home a rebound from the point shot that was created from Jones’ turnover, and the third goal was the deflection goal by Marco Rossi off a soft point shot that hit is shoulder and fluttered up and over Devon Levi. Dach hasn’t made many egregious defensive reads while playing centre. Babcock likes his speed and tenacity, but once Ryan Nugent-Hopkins returns, I could see Dach moving to wing while McDavid, RNH, Jason Dickinson and Owen Michaels play centre. Samanski hasn’t played there thus far, because Babcock wants more speed down the middle. You can disagree with him, but that’s a factor in his decision on who plays centre.

- It is extremely early, but Evan Bouchard is shooting the puck way more this season. He has 28 shot attempts and 12 shots on goal thus far, which prorates to 765 shot attempts and 328 shots on goal. Last year Bouchard had 468 shot attempts and 221 shots. I don’t expect his SA and SOG pace to remain this high, but Bouchard is shooting more. Last year Bouchard had 51 shots between 90-100 m.p.h., 127 between 80-90 m.p.h. and 148 at 70-80 m.p.h.. He had the second most shots of 90+, led the NHL with 80-90 m.p.h. and was 14th in 70-80.

Through three games, he’s yet to reach 90 m.p.h., but he leads the NHL with nine 80-90 m.p.h. shots and is tied for 5th with nine 70-80 m.p.h.. He is shooting more, but hasn’t shot as hard yet. His shot is a weapon, and early on they want him shooting more. The rest of the defensive corps are shooting less, in a very small sample size, but Bouchard is a shooting gallery thus far. I think the extra focus on having forwards around the net is part of it. Two of his goals have come on long-range shots through a screen. It is a nice change to see the Oilers with more net front presence, even without Zach Hyman in the lineup the past two games. It is another area of focus Babcock has been hammering on.

LINEUPS…

Oilers…

Podkolzin-McDavid-Draisaitl

Frederic-Dickinson-Kapanen

Joseph-Michaels-Formenton

Howard-Samanski-Jones

Ekholm-Bouchard

Shea-Murphy

Walman-Emberson

Levi

Jason Dickinson returns to the lineup, and Trent Frederic gets a bump up to the second line. That is a big, heavy line with some speed, and Kasperi Kapanen has been very good to start the season. Jake Walman and Ty Emberson had a very strong game against Seattle. **Edited after initial publication…Colton Dach was added to IR at 2:30 p.m. MT, as the Oilers injuries mount, so that will move Josh Samanski back to centre tonight. Line projections based on Dach injury.

Ducks…

Greer-Carlsson-Gauthier

Killorn-Granlund-Sennecke

Nesterenko-Poehling-Klepov

Malott-Washe-Caufield

Lacombe-Luneau

Mintyukov-Mitchell

Hinds-Warren

Dostal

The Ducks have the youngest blueline in the NHL, but they are mobile. AJ Greer has started on the top line, but I suspect he is just a placeholder until Troy Terry returns in November or December. For now, he is having the time of his life playing with Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier and if he performs well, maybe he can stick there, but I think it is unlikely.

TONIGHT…

Photoshop by Tom Kostiuk GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers use the playoff loss as motivation and defeat the Ducks 4-2.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: McDavid has two points. He has 61 points in 31 career games including 30 in 16 games in Anaheim.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: The Kid Line scores. Samanski (24), Dach (23) and Howard (22) chip in with a timely goal.

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