The Day After: You get a powerplay goal, and you get a powerplay goal and —
By Zach Laing
2 years agoWe knew the Oilers weren’t going to win them all, and last Wednesday against Philadelphia saw the Edmonton squad suffer their first loss.
What was most important was how the club would respond last night against the Vancouver Canucks. Would they come out flat and frustrated after a tough loss, or would they come out strong with a big push and handle the Canucks the way they knew they could?
Well last night we saw the latter with the Edmonton Oilers posting a dominant 2-1 win over the home Canucks. They controlled the pace of play, the majority of the scoring chances and a solid 61.12 percent of the expected goals at 5×5 all night.
It wasn’t just a big win for the club in the sense of just that game, but a big win due to what’s happening south on the QE2. The Calgary Flames have surged out to a strong start to their season on the back of goaltender Jacob Markstrom. The Oilers’ win last night keeps them within one points of the Flames for top spot in the Pacific Division.
For the Oilers, however, the powerplay once again was huge going 2/2. The second unit got it done on the first goal as with Warren Foegele banging the puck home into a yawning cage after a deflected Darnell Nurse shot.
“It’s been good the last few games. I thought today we played really fast,” said Foegele after the game. “When you’re playing fast, you’re not really hanging out in your own zone too much. We’re playing more in the o-zone. The D have been great. I thought Mikko played unbelievable. It’s crappy that we didn’t help him there at the end, but it was a good road win. We take the two points and move on.”
In the second, it was Leon Draisaitl doing Leon Draisaitl things. Connor McDavid walked in firing a shot that was blocked, as the quick man on the spot Ryan Nugent-Hopkins fed the rebound to Draisaitl who ripped one home.
The Oilers’ shutout bid ended in the final seven seconds of the game, but it was one that goaltender Mikko Koskinen earned. Despite looking shaky against the Flyers, he was rock solid last night against the Canucks.
“It came up with a big goal tonight for us, that’s for sure. A real big goal,” said head coach Dave Tippett on the Oilers’ second powerplay unit. “It got us going. Our power play got us a big one at the send of the second, and it was enough to get us the win.”
“We have a lot of good chances in the game. Demko played really well, but I liked the way we played. The first period we played really well, and then in the second period we turned some pucks over and chased a little bit. But even in the third period, we were pretty strong. It got a bit scrambly at the end killing a penalty, but for the most part, we did some things well and it was well enough to win.”
Now, the true test comes for the Oilers. They have a three-game homestand this week facing the Seattle Kraken, Nashville Predators and New York Rangers. Then, they embark on a five-game road trip visiting the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabers and St. Louis Blues. This is when we’ll get a good look at what these Oilers are made of.
What they’re saying…
Scoring goals this season wasn’t supposed to be a problem for the Vancouver Canucks.But nine games into the 2021-22 NHL regular season, it’s proving to be.The Canucks lost their third straight game Saturday night at Rogers Arena, dropping a mostly dreary affair to the Edmonton Oilers 2-1.They’ve scored just four times in those losses.At least on Saturday it wasn’t for lack of trying. The Canucks did generate some chances and probably should have scored at least once more given their efforts.But, again, it wasn’t exactly an avalanche of opportunities. The Oilers outshot the home team 34-30, a fair reflection of the balance of play in the end.And while the Lotto Line of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser did show some signs of life, they still struggled to defend against Connor McDavid.That said, who doesn’t struggle to keep up with the world’s best player? That he does everything at pace is well-known, but his power when attacking defenders sometimes goes unnoticed.It didn’t go unnoticed in the first period when Luke Schenn, a big, strong player, tried to stand him up at the blue line. McDavid was stopped for a moment, but Schenn still came off second best in the collision.Canucks head coach Travis Green said he thought his team played better on Saturday than they had in the previous two games, but still didn’t want to seem like he was sugar-coating things, given that fans pay good money to see the team not just perform better but also win.“We want to win. We want our fans to see wins. We know that. When I say it’s a step in the right direction, that’s… I’m not trying to alleviate wins or losses, but I’m also trying to be honest with our group. But we want to win for our fans. We want to win for our team,” he said.“It sucks losing, everyone knows that. Our guys will be frustrated but it was a hard-fought hockey game tonight,” he said. “There’s no goals 5-on-5. We came up on the wrong side of it, but I don’t like losing. Our team doesn’t like losing.” – Patrik Johnson, The Province
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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