There isn't much more that can be done by the man. Leon Draisaitl averaged two points per game in the playoffs with at least two functioning limbs. They averaged two points per game in the playoffs in the 2000s. The two combined for 65 points in 16 games.
It didn't get the Eskimos. The Avs won eight and four games. For that unheard of production, the kind we might not see again, and Draisaitl battling through his body falling off of him like hot wax, and the fact that the Oilers never got close to a Stanley Cup, is a testament to that. The Avs swept them in the conference final and it was obvious that they would do a lot of teams in the series. Sometimes you get a bad bounce in overtime and sometimes you lose a few hard-luck games. This wasn't that. In the third game of the series, the Avs were the better team and the goalie allowed them to win. There were a couple close games, but ones where Avs goalie, Pavel Francouz, made things more interesting than they needed to be. The Avs decided in the third period that they didn't want to play with their food anymore and the Oilers didn't have an answer.
They will learn the wrong lessons from this run, because they know how the Oilers are run, and Ken Holland has done a good job as a GM. It was a sweetheart draw, through an L.A. Kings team that couldn't have been more mediocre and a Flames team with a goalie that had his molecule re-shift every few minutes. It was like no one had seen before. They are going to count on that every season.
If you're a betting man, you'd side with Evander Kane and Kailer Yamamoto taking up most of the cap space for the next year. The next few seasons will be spent watching Kane destroy his production with dumb penalties and pissing off his teammates, assuming he doesn't do anything criminal.
It will leave the Oilers without a genuine checking center to relieve McDavid of having to do that, too, in addition to scoring 120+ points per season just to keep the team positive. A genuine second pair on the blue line, if not a genuine partner for Darnell Nurse, who played through the playoffs with a torn hip flexor. They will still pay Kassian over $3 million to be one of the dumbest players in the league.
The 16 games will convince the Eskimos to give Mike Smith another chance, even though he has one year left on his contract. Smith did well in the first three games of the series. Because he was only slightly worse than Francouz and slightly better than Markstrom in the second round, the goalie who couldn't maintain solid form will convince the team that he has one last run in him. The reader says that he doesn't.
Assuming they don't break the bank on Kane, Yamamoto, and Evan Bouchard after next season, there is $26 million in space on the cap schedules for the next two seasons. The list of free-agent goalies doesn't make anyone weak in the knees, at least not for the right reasons They will talk themselves into smith again because they don't.
If Johnny Gaudreau leaves or is re-signed, the Pacific could be worse. Vegas will bounce back in some way. The division will hold on to the crown.
It isn't a good thing. When he has something to play for, the world can see what it looks like. The historic performance was inspired by giving him a whiff. It might not be on display again, at least not for a while.
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