The Oilers finally made their home opener last night and extended their winning streak to three games. Last night’s win represented the formula for success for this team in a lot of ways — solid goaltending, excellence from Connor McDavid, a little depth offence, and good special teams.

What happened…

The Bruins opened the scoring half-way through the second period. The fourth line was out on the ice against Boston’s second line and David Krejci managed to slide to the side of the net without being noticed. He took a cross-zone pass and buried the puck past a sliding Cam Talbot. Not much the goalie can do on this one.
Soon after that, Kailer Yamamoto got the Oilers on the board with his first career NHL goal. Adam Larsson makes an insanely nice stretch pass to Yamamoto who beats Charlie McAvoy into the zone before going shelf over Jaroslav Halak’s glove. Look at how quick and shifty Yamamoto is on this play. Burning a defenceman like McAvoy isn’t an easy thing to do.
In the third period, the Leftorium power play put the Oilers in the lead. Connor McDavid got the puck on the half-wall, fired a pass between Milan Lucic’s legs and off the boards behind the net right to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for an easy tap-in goal. This is definitely something they drew up and they completely caught the Bruins off guard.
The Bruins answered back soon after when David Pastrnak took a pass from Brad Marchand from behind the net and sniped one over Talbot’s glove. If you give Pastrnak that much time in that spot, he isn’t going to miss.
Boston damn near took the lead in the final few minutes of the game, but credit to Darnell Nurse for this rock solid stop with the puck sitting in the crease. He just completely outmuscled Boston’s forward to stop the goal.
The Oilers are going to win more three-on-three overtimes than they lose. This is Connor McDavid’s bread and butter. That much time and space for him to get going? Good luck. He picks off an outlet pass, burns past Brad Marchand, and then finds Leon Draisaitl for the game-winner.

By the numbers…

The Bruins came out hard while the Oilers started slow. Cam Talbot stood on his head and stopped Edmonton from falling into an early hole. The Oilers then started to figure things out as time went along, controlling play in the second and early third period. Boston then put their foot on the gas towards the end of the game, but the Oilers managed to hold them off to force overtime. All told, Boston had 51 even strength shot attempts and the Oilers had 42, but the scoring chances were slices down the middle at 24 to 22 for the Bruins.

Thoughts…

  • Cam Talbot was rock solid for the Oilers in this one, stopping 27 of 29 shots. Boston, as I said earlier, really came out firing in the first period. Last season, Talbot would have allowed a couple of early goals and the team would have been dejected and we would have watched them trudge their way to a lopsided loss. This year, though, Talbot has been the Talbot the Oilers need. He kept the team in the game during that early onslaught and kept the game tied in the third period when Boston started to fire again.
  • Boston’s offence largely runs through their top line of Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, and Patrice Bergeron. It’s arguably the best line in the league, but the Oilers managed to shut the trio down to just one goal last night. With Matt Benning getting injured, the defensive pairs were juggled a lot, but when Kris Russell and Darnell Nurse were on the ice against that Boston top line, the three of them combined for only three high danger chances.
  • We were all calling for Jesse Puljujarvi to a get a chance in the top-six with Leon Draisaitl and Todd McLellan finally obliged. Unfortunately, it was a disaster. The trio of Draisaitl, Puljujarvi, and Tobias Rieder got absolutely caved in last night, generating just three shot attempts while allowing 14 against. On the other side of that, the third line of Ryan Strome, Milan Lucic, and Kailer Yamamoto was excellent, posting 12 shot attempts while allowing just five.
  • Lucic, in general, had an excellent game. He was skating around, throwing hits, and making life difficult for the Bruins. I really like Lucic in this spot with Ryan Strome on more of a two-way line. When there isn’t pressure on him to just score goals, he thrives.
  • The Oilers are undefeated when skating out under the Walterdale Bridge to open the game. Coincidence?!