EDMONTON — The fact that the Edmonton Oilers’ entire season was suspended in time — players and coaches waiting/praying on a decision from a Situation Room that’s 4,000 km away, on a puck that was a couple of millimeters over the goal line —  should tell us all we need to know.

The Oilers have relinquished control of their season to forces beyond their control. And not just here, in April.

What we’re watching here in the playoffs is a metaphor for the 2025-26 season. For a team coming off of two elongated springs, met with a viciously compressed Olympic schedule that touched everyone, beating up various different teams in various different ways.

It hit Florida hard and early, laid low by injury and fatigue. It struck Edmonton more slowly, methodically, through a season in which they have grabbed hold of their game and delivered consistent content for more than one week maybe three or four times.

The other 20-some weeks have been spent in assorted stages of losing said game, searching for said game, or flushing some horrid effort and heading back to the drawing board.

And now, the injuries that struck the Panthers early have arrived at the same late hour as these young studs from Anaheim, the next great force out West. These eager Ducks would likely be vulnerable to a hard, defensively conscious........

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