Hockey Notes After The Playoffs

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun, - Ken Holland takes a whole lot of grief for signing Jack Campbell to play goal in Edmonton and paying Darnell Nurse all that money. But the Edmonton Oilers don’t get to the Stanley Cup final and come within a goal of a Game 7 overtime without Zach Hyman on the wing and Mattias Eklholm on defence. Just about every team in the NHL is searching annually for defensive upgrades and Holland came away with the prize of Ekholm a few years back, which not only brought him a solid defence man who plays a heavy game with natural leadership skills but it meant Tyson Barrie, point-man on the power play was sent packing which enabled Evan Bouchard to emerge as an offensive force. All Hyman did this year was score 70 goals in regular season and playoffs. Holland is no longer with the Oilers. Any NHL team would be lucky to have the Hall of Famer in their front office. - Was McDavid’s four playoff rounds the greatest we’ve ever seen? Possibly. When Wayne Gretzky scored 47 points in the 1985 playoffs, the most ever, he did it in 18 games. He did it for an Oilers team that scored 98 goals — 5.44 a game — in the playoffs. McDavid scored 42 points in 23 games. The different era Oilers scored 3.73 goals a game in the playoffs. Doing the math, never my best subject, Gretzky scored 12% more points than McDavid playing for a team that scored 46% more goals. more