Game Notes: Oilers @ Jets, Game 3

After getting shut down in the first two games of the series in Edmonton, the Oilers are now in Winnipeg facing an uphill battle with back-to-back games on Sunday and Monday. Tonight is a must-win.

1. Teams that go up 2-0 in a best-of-seven series have ultimately gone on to win said series 330 times and only 51 times has the other team come back to win. Oilers teams of recent-ish memory make up two different sides of that statistic.

Back in 2006, the Oilers dropped the first two games of their second-round series to the San Jose Sharks and ended up winning four in a row to take the series in six games. Game 3 featured a nail-biting triple-overtime that was eventually won by Shawn Horcoff.

Back in 2017, the Oilers earned a 2-0 lead after winning back-to-back games on the road in their second-round series with the Ducks. Anaheim came into Edmonton and won back-to-back games to even the series and then ultimately won in seven games.

2. The Oilers need to do to the Jets exactly what the Ducks did to them a few years back. They need to go into Winnipeg and win a couple of games to even this series up.

I remember that Game 3 in Edmonton against the Ducks vividly. The Ducks came out flying. Rickard Rakell scored 25 seconds into the game and Jakob Silfverberg scored five minutes later. The Ducks would eventually win the game by a score of 6-3.

This is the type of start the Oilers need. They have to kick the door down, play like their lives are on the line, and dictate the game. They need to put pressure on the Jets right off the hop and not allow them to get in any sort of rhythm.

3. Tonight is obviously a must-win game. Everyone knows that teams who go down 3-0 in a series almost never come back to win. It’s happened only four times in NHL history: The Leafs in 1945, the Islanders in 1975, the Flyers in 2010, and the Kings in 2014.

There are 29 instances in which an NHL team has come back from being 3-1 down in a series. The 1990 Oilers did so against the Jets en route to their fifth and most recent Stanley Cup victory and they did so in 1998 in their first-round upset over the Colorado Avalanche.

4. One reason for optimism that the Oilers can come back and win four of five is how well the team has performed on the road this year. Edmonton went 19-7-2 on the road this season including a 4-1 record in Winnipeg against the Jets.

If times were normal, the Oilers would be going into Winnipeg down 2-0 and facing a Jets team fired up by a packed stadium. Times aren’t normal and the Jets won’t get that home-crowd boost, so coming back after dropping back-to-back games at home isn’t quite as daunting as it would be normally.

It’s difficult to say why the Oilers have done so well on the road this year but let’s hope the trend continues and we’re knotted up a 2-2 by the end of the night on Monday.

5. After the Oilers scored just one goal in Game 1, Dave Tippett quickly went to his emergency plan. He united Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the team’s top line hoping for the two of them to make some magic and give the team a spark. That didn’t happen.

The McDavid-Draisaitl drove offence (34-to-21 in even-strength shot attempts) but, of course, they weren’t able to get anything past Connor Hellebuyck. The real issue here is that it left the second line completely dry. The Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Kailer Yamamoto, Dominik Kahun trio were largely invisible, going 11-10 in terms of shot attempts while generating just one high-danger scoring chance.

6. I don’t like putting the Dynamic Duo together because it makes the Oilers easier to shut down. If McDavid and Draisaitl are on the ice together, that pretty much leaves the Oilers devoid of offence when they’re on the bench. The Jets can then focus all of their energy on shutting down one line because the rest of the team more than likely isn’t going to be a threat offensively.

7. Also, Draisaitl was more effective in Game 1 as a centre than he was in Game 2 as a winger. On Wednesday, the Oilers dominated the Jets when Draisaitl was on the ice at even strength. Edmonton had 31 shot attempts and six high-danger chances in Draisaitl’ss 22 minutes while the Jets had a paltry 12 shot attempts and two high-danger chances.

If the Jets focus their energy on shutting down McDavid, Draisaitl’s line will inevitably have more opportunities to break through. Nugent-Hopkins hasn’t proved to be able to capitalize as the driving force on the team’s second line.

8. Ultimately, the Oilers need to find a way to score some goals. They aren’t going to win games 0-0. That’s extremely obvious.

Only once this season did Connor McDavid get shut down in back-to-back games. That came during Edmonton’s three-game sweep at the hands of the Maple Leafs back in early March. Toronto held McDavid off the score sheet in all three of those games. Otherwise, there wasn’t a single other situation in which McDavid went back-to-back games without registering a point.

It felt as though McDavid was finally pushing through Winnipeg’s defence about half-way through Game 2. Let’s hope he finally kicks the door down tonight.