The Edmonton Oilers didn’t win the Pacific Division, but they may have landed in the perfect spot in the Western Conference playoff picture regardless.
After an up-and-down season, the Oilers finished as the No. 2 seed in the Pacific behind Vegas, meaning they will take on the Anaheim Ducks in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Anaheim, by just about every metric, grades out as the worst team in the 16-team field. And they are about as tailor-made a matchup for the Oilers as you can draw up.
This is the Stanley Cup Playoffs, so anything can happen, but Anaheim could be sitting Ducks in this best-of-7 series.
The oddsmakers believe that to be the case. Edmonton is a chunky -210 favorite to advance to Round 2, even though only one point separated these two teams after the regular season.
How are the odds so lopsided if these teams were neck and neck after 82 games? It’s all about the tale of the tape.
Oilers vs. Ducks Game 1, series odds, prediction
Before getting into the numbers, the first edge that Edmonton owns in this series is experience. Anaheim has a stable of veterans who have been on long playoff runs, but this is the first playoff berth for the franchise since 2018, and none of the players that make up their dynamic young core have played in the postseason.
Their first taste will come against a team that is still largely intact after back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final.
On the ice, the Oilers own edges all over the rink, most notably on defense.
While Edmonton has trended in the right direction defensively down the stretch, the Ducks have been a nightmare in their own zone all season. Only three teams surrendered more goals than Anaheim in 2025-26, and the Ducks also finished 28th in preventing high-danger scoring chances and 25th in expected goals against.
Against weaker teams in the soft Western Conference, the Ducks were able to score their way out of trouble, but that won’t jive against the Oilers, who have really tightened things up lately. Edmonton ranks fifth in the NHL in high-danger scoring chances against in its last 25 games.
Anaheim’s defensive ineptitude also figures to wipe out the one edge they had in the tale of the tape, which was goaltending. Lukas Dostal wasn’t at his best this season, but you’d make him the A-side of this matchup against Connor Ingram and Tristan Jarry. Unfortunately, Dostal’s workload figures to be quite difficult, which should negate any advantage he would carry in this series.
Betting on the NHL?
Special teams will also be a massive concern for the Ducks, as they finished the regular season with the sixth-worst penalty kill and 10th-worst power play. Edmonton, as is tradition, led the league with a power play that clicked at better than 30 percent.
Already this handicap is getting lopsided, and we haven’t even mentioned Connor McDavid yet. After a relatively sluggish first half of the campaign, McDavid lit up the league down the stretch, tallying 42 points in 24 games after the Olympics, easily winning the Art Ross Trophy with 138 points.
McDavid did the majority of that damage without Leon Draisaitl, who has been on the shelf for the last month. The German superstar should be ready to go by Game 2 at the latest.
Without an answer for McDavid, nor the Oilers’ power play, it’s hard to see Anaheim keeping up in this series. And while -210 is a tough price to stomach given Edmonton’s question marks in goal, I do think that there are other ways to find value on this series. One such avenue is backing the Oilers to win the series by at least three games, which is currently priced at +205 at DraftKings.
But my favorite play for this series is to back Evan Bouchard to lead this series in goals at 30/1. An offensive force from the blueline, Bouchard should be champing at the bit to take on Anaheim’s woeful penalty kill, and he should have plenty of space to operate with the Ducks focusing on containing McDavid and Draisaitl.
The Plays: Edmonton -2.5 games (+205) | Evan Bouchard most goals in series (30/1, DraftKings)
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
