from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

“We just weren’t ready.”

On a three-point night, that point was Connor McDavid‘s most salient.

It started with their head coach, Dave Tippett, who started the wrong netminder, filtered down to McDavid, who was schooled at five-on-five by the great Jonathan Toews, and went right to the vaunted penalty kill, which got stung for three Chicago Blackhawks goals.

The grand total was a 6-4 shellacking, two of the Edmonton Oilers‘ goals coming in garbage time to disguise what a lopsided Qualifying Round opener this truly was.

“Not good enough all around. Pretty easy,” said McDavid, who would not hear of the fifth seed Oilers perhaps thinking the 12th seed Blackhawks would be easy pickings. “We definitely didn’t take them lightly. They’re battle tested. They came out and did exactly what we thought they would do. We just weren’t ready.”

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