After winning series, Oilers are keen to keep on going

EDMONTON The Oilers aren’t settling for the second round.

Edmonton advanced in the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 2-0 victory over the L.A. Kings in Game 7 on Saturday night, but Leon Draisaitl said the group’s work remains unfinished.

“It feels good, but we’re not done. This isn’t the end. We haven’t reached anything,” he said. “It feels good to do it with this group.”

After starting the season on a hot streak, the Oilers struggled through December and early January before firing head coach Dave Tippett on Feb. 10 and replacing him with Jay Woodcroft, then head coach of the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors.

The Oilers finished second in the Pacific Division and earned a home ice advantage. But L.A. came into the post-season strong and took a 4-3 win in Game 1. The Oilers roared back with two lopsided victories before the Kings blanked Edmonton in Game 4 and pushed the club to the brink of elimination with a 5-4 overtime win in Game 5. Game 6 in L.A. saw the Oilers stay alive with a tightly contested 4-2 victory.

It’s the first time the Oilers have advanced in the playoffs since 2017, when they beat the San Jose Sharks before falling to the Anaheim Ducks in the second round.

Since then, the post-season has been full of heartache for hockey fans in Edmonton.

The Oilers didn’t make the playoffs in 2018 or 2019, then lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in a play-in series on home ice in the bubble during the COVID-condensed 2020 campaign. Last year, the Winnipeg Jets swept Edmonton in a fourgame first-round series.

The team took those experiences to heart, said captain Connor McDavid.

“It’s just using lessons from previous mistakes,” he said. “We have made those mistakes in the past and we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot tonight, which was obviously positive.”