The Day After: Top ranked Oilers offence comes to play
By Zach Laing
3 years agoIf there were ever a good time for the Edmonton Oilers to get hot, it would be right now.
And with last night’s 7-3 victory over the Calgary Flames, it could be just the start of that. Edmonton came out strong to start the game and only took them 4:39 to get on the scoreboard scoring the first goal of the game in what feels like forever.
From there, it only got better for the Oilers who kept pouring it on all night. Tyson Barrie returned in a big way after missing the second and third periods of Monday’s game tying his career high in assists with four.
But for the Oilers, the game didn’t truly separate until the third period. The Flames’ two penalties in the first four minutes of the frame allowed the Oilers to score on both, before two more goals only exacerbated the lead.
“I thought we were pretty solid through most of the game,” said head coach Dave Tippett after the game. “First period I thought we started real well. Second period we knew they were going to push pretty hard and we defended fairly well, kept them outside. Third period we got a couple powerplay goals and capitalized.
“It was a pretty solid game from our group. I thought we competed hard, did a lot of things well structurally and we didn’t make the mistakes me made the other night.”
For the Oilers that’s what the big difference between Monday and last night — they play about as mistake free hockey as they could’ve. Sure, the Flames put a few on the Oilers and the less goals against the better, but in the ebbs and flows of a game where you’re scoring seven goals, you lose a bit of concern over those. Two of the Flames’ goals came in the final five minutes, both when the game was clearly out of reach.
Edmonton has as potent of an offence as there is in the NHL. So much so that after last night’s game the Oilers sat atop the league in goal scoring putting 110 pucks in the back of the net. That’s eight up on the next closest team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
And that wasn’t lost on Flames bench boss Darryl Sutter, either.
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing next, this team, this group of players, it has to learn that they don’t have the firepower to not put themselves in a position to be good defenders or to check or play well in their zone, that’s not going to happen,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to score eight goals and win 8-7.”
If there ever were a time for this Oilers team to keep scoring goals it would be now. Edmonton will have a hot incoming team with the Winnipeg Jets, who visit the Oilers at home tonight, and on Saturday.
Backhanders…
- Mike Smith had one heck of a game last night. Despite allowing three goals, he was rock solid and helped quell some big pushes from the Flames. Mikko Koskinen will more likely than not get the start tonight as I don’t see Smith starting back-to-backs, but he’ll be back Saturday.
- Winnipeg is coming off an intense, back and forth game last night that saw them snag a 4-3 OT win against the Montreal Canadiens. They’ll be as tired, if not slightly more, than the Oilers, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see a sloppy game tonight.
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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