The Day After: A sign of things to come?
By Zach Laing
2 years agoIt was a night that really didn’t mean anything for the Edmonton Oilers. With second place and home ice locked up in the North Division, they were a far cry from the Montreal Canadiens who were still looking to secure a playoff spot in the dying days of the season.
And even with that, the pesky Oilers still managed to come out on top with a 4-3 overtime win.
“Some good parts and some parts you’d like to see a little better,” said head coach Dave Tippett after the game. “All in all we played a fairly solid road game. We gave up a couple of chances. We’re just trying to get a bunch of people minutes and play solid, but we were alright.”
One of those players is James Neal — who after a training camp battle with COVID-19 is starting to find some consistent minutes, and his legs.
“It’s hard, there’s no way around it,” said Neal, who scored the Oilers first goal of the game Monday. “You have to put your head down and do the work.
“Being away at the start (of the season), I needed to get my legs under me. I tried to stick with it as much as I could and just be ready at any time. It’s worked out good. I feel like I’m getting better each game.”
While his individual numbers are nothing special — two goals and an assist in the last nine games since he became a regular in the lineup once again — and his underlying numbers are even less impressive, he and his linemates have seemed to find some chemistry.
Up the middle is the speedy, but smart rookie Ryan McLeod with Neal flanking one wing, and another vet — Alex Chiasson — flanking the other wing.
According to NaturalStatTrick, the trio have now played 25:01 TOI together at 5v5 and have posted strong possession numbers to the tune of a 61.36 percent shot attempt share and 53.52 percent of the expected goals.
Last night? The trio combined to score the Oilers first goal of the game giving @Ryan McLeod his first NHL point, an assist.
“That line was pretty good tonight,” said Tippett. “McLeod gives them some speed and can hold onto pucks. Chiass and Nealer (Chiasson and Neal) are big heavy guys around the net, and it’s good to see them get rewarded for their work tonight.”
They’re one of those lines that could click at the right time and help give the Oilers something they’ll surely need in the playoffs: some depth scoring. It’s hard to rely on a few guys who’ve had more downs than ups alongside a rookie, but those two vets have done the dance before.
Neal has played in 108 playoff games including some deep, 20+ game runs in Nashville and Vegas, where he scored just under half a point per game. Chiasson, too, is no stranger to the playoffs. While his role and contributions were small, he got a chance to see what it was like to make a cup winning run.
Chiasson now is a much more offensively involved player than he was in Washington, so the Oilers will be hoping this trio can help catch lightning in a bottle when it matters most.
Backhanders…
- Connor McDavid now has 69 assists on the year. Nice.
- Mike Smith fully got the game off last night with Alex Stalock backing up Mikko Koskinen. If I was the Oilers coaching staff, I would start Stalock Wednesday with Koskinen backing him up, then give Mike Smith the season finale start Saturday afternoon against the Canucks.
What they’re saying…
It wasn’t about what happened in the fourth period as much as it was what happened in the third, with the Montreal Canadiens trailing by a goal and the chance to finally clinch the NHL’s last playoff berth hanging in the balance.Because it doesn’t matter all that much that the world’s best player, Connor McDavid, took advantage of a turnover at three-on-three to win the game in overtime for the Edmonton Oilers, and it matters a lot that the Canadiens found what they needed to get them far enough into the game to make McDavid’s goal less consequential. In doing so, they’ve achieved the end they’ve been working towards throughout a regular season most everyone on their team has referred to as the biggest grind of their careers.Canadiens coach Dominique Ducharme called it a relief.“Yeah it is. You know, what we’ve been through is something really special,” he said. “We’re going to be playing our 25th game in (44 days on Wednesday) — it’s never been done before. I know it looks easy, and you say, ‘Night after night, they’re going to come back and they’re just playing hockey, it’s not that complicated,’ but to win in that league, the margins between winning and losing is so thin that you need to be mentally challenging yourself to be on top every night. And that’s something special.“Guys showed a lot. I know it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t great to see every night, but guys never gave up. The challenges we had in losing guys — we could’ve been in big trouble, and we stuck with it and at times got some big wins… I think we deserve to be where we’re at and going into the playoffs and having a chance to compete for the Cup.” – Eric Engels, Sportsnet
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.
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