ANAHEIM – Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid took to Friday’s morning skate, showing no ill effects from rolling his right ankle two days ago at Rogers Place.
“Even if he has something, it still looks like he’s flying around,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “He is able to play and yes, he is good.
The best-of-seven, first-round playoff series between the Oilers and Anaheim Ducks was tied 1-1 in Game 3 Friday night at the Honda Center.
McDavid, the NHL’s leading point scorer in the regular season, was uncomfortable in the second period of Wednesday’s 6-4 Game 2 loss after colliding with teammate Mattias Ekholm.
McDavid finished the game and said afterward that he was going to “finish it up a little bit.” The captain was shut out in the first two games of the series in Edmonton.
Knoblauch said third-line center Jason Dickinson, who did not skate Friday morning, was a game-time decision.
Dickinson, 30, of Georgetown, Ont., scored twice in Edmonton’s 4-3 Game 1 win but grimaced in pain after going down after a tackle. He did not play in Game 2.
Similar videos
Fourth-line center and penalty kill specialist Adam Henrique did not travel with the team to Anaheim.
Get the latest national news
Get the latest Canadian news in your inbox as it happens, so you never miss a trending story.
He was injured in the first half of Game 1 when he collided with teammate Kasperi Kapanen.
Josh Samanski, who scored his first NHL playoff goal, and Curtiz Lazar tied Game 2 for the injured forwards. The two skated Friday morning.
—
The Edmonton Oilers were set to play their first playoff game at the Honda Center in nine years in Friday’s Game 3 of their first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks.
Current Oilers forwards Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and defenseman Darnell Nurse were members of the 2017 edition that lost 2-1 to the Ducks in Game 7 on May 10 and were eliminated in the second round.
All four men, all under the age of 23, made their NHL playoff debuts that year.
“What I remember most was the loss, unfortunately, but it was intense, it was a great atmosphere,” Nugent-Hopkins said Friday.
“They had some really high-level players that were big guys that really made you pay. We had an uphill battle against that team that year and unfortunately we didn’t find ourselves on the winning end of it.”
No Ducks remain from their 2017 roster that reached the Western Conference Finals before falling to the Nashville Predators in six games.
Anaheim was set to host its first playoff game on Friday since April 14, 2018. The Ducks were swept in the first round by the San Jose Sharks that year, despite having home-ice advantage, and missed the postseason after the next seven years.
–
The start of the Oilers-Ducks series was called soft in part because of a combined 22 penalty minutes — Oilers 10 and Ducks 12 — over the first two games.
The next closest teams, the Vegas Golden Knights and Utah Mammoths, had 22 penalty minutes each in the first two games of that series.
“Our message is to play hard during the whistles,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said.
“We can’t take penalties. They took the last four games and maybe all of them could have been prevented, and that’s a lot.”
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch added: “I know a lot of teams, it’s part of their identity to mix it up and maybe more to distract the other team. This series has been more ‘let’s play our game,’ and I don’t think any team feels like they’re a sore loser that has to disrupt the other teams’ tempo.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on April 24, 2026.
&copies 2026 The Canadian Press
