Oilers 4, Bruins 2 post-game Oil Spills: Another rebound win
By Cam Lewis
6 years agoAfter laying in egg in Buffalo, the Oilers came out and played a strong game against the Bruins in Boston. I kind of like the idea of having the team’s top three centres playing on their own line.
Highlights
The Oilers tied the game half-way through the second period off of an excellent play from Zack Kassian and Patrick Maroon. Kassian kept the puck in at the blueline, and rather than just dumping it on net or into the corner, he looked around and spotted Maroon streaking in down the wing and fed him with a perfect pass that he fired over Tuukka Rask’s shoulder. The Bruins certainly weren’t expecting that from Kassian.
A few minutes later, the Oilers grabbed the lead after Adam Larsson fired one on net from the point. It was originally credited to Milan Lucic, who was crashing the net, but it was given back to Larsson as the puck bounced off Boston’s defenceman and into the net.
Ryan Strome must have been reading Twitter, because he looked like a vintage version of Jordan Eberle on this goal. Leon Draisaitl carried the puck down the wing and hit Strome cutting to the middle of the ice while Drake Caggiula dragged two defencemen back with him towards Boston’s net. With the space and time he had, Strome loaded up and sniped one bar down over Rask’s glove for a beautiful goal.
By the numbers
This game was a tale of three periods. The teams played evenly in the first, posting 10 even strength shot attempts a piece. In the second, the Oilers dominated the Bruins with 19 shot attempts to Boston’s nine. But then in the third, Boston pushed back while Edmonton went into a bit of a shell, outshooting the Oilers 21 to 12. All told, Edmonton had 41 shot attempts while Boston had 40. The difference, as simple as it sounds, was Cam Talbot came up big for the Oilers in the third period and Edmonton was able to capitalize on their chances.
Thoughts
- This was the first time all season Todd McLellan spread out all three of his top centres. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each drove their own line and it made the team a hell of a lot deeper. You immediately have three lines that can score when you split these three players up and it’s pretty shocking that it took this long for it to happen.
- Darnell Nurse is quickly emerging into this team’s top defenceman. He’s always had the tools, but this year he’s putting them to action. Rather than skating around and trying to make a big play, whether it’s pinching or trying to make a big hit, Nurse is playing composed, letting the game come to him, and then using his ridiculous physical skillset to beat other players. He played 25 minutes in yesterday’s game largely against Boston’s top line and shut them down to four high danger chances against.
- Big props to Connor McDavid for not shying away from Zdeno Chara at all. McDavid, despite being about three feet shorter and 200 pounds lighter than Chara, battled hard against the Bruins captain in Boston’s zone all game.
- Cam Talbot played a good game and was a key reason the Oilers came out with a win. Boston really put the pedal to the floor in the third but Talbot made some big saves, keeping them alive. This was a common theme last year but hasn’t been the case much this season. The Oilers need Talbot to be as good as he was in 2016-17.
- It perplexes me that the Oilers can play a good game against a solid team like Boston but come out and lay an egg against a terrible team like Buffalo. That’s the thing that’s so frustrating about this team. They show you they can be successful, but it’s never sustained for more than one game at a time. If the Oilers are going to beat the odds and jump over the entire Western Conference and into the playoffs, they’re going to have to string some winning streaks together and obviously they can’t do that if they don’t show up for more than one game at a time.
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