There have been a lot of Edmonton Oilers games over the years in which they’ve trailed 3-0 in the first period — 102, to be exact.
Those games have rarely gone well for the team in the past, and understandably so. That’s a huge deficit to overcome, so it makes sense that the Oilers had only come back to win in that situation six times before.
But on Thursday night, the Oilers made it seven, climbing over the mountain that is one of the best teams in the league, the Colorado Avalanche, to secure a 4-3 win.
“We were down 3-0, but I didn’t think we were that bad,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. “We didn’t put our chances in, they did.
“The mistakes we made just happened to go into our net. Later on in the game, we still made mistakes, and Stu made some really big saves. We were able to capitalize later in the game.”
It was an ugly start. There’s no other way to cut it. Logan O’Connor got on the board five minutes into the game walking out of the corner and through the Oilers to score, before two back-to-back beauties from Nathan MacKinnon within two minutes gave the Avalanche their big early lead.
With the Oilers playing in the second half of a back-to-back with travel — their eighth game in 13 days that’s included rigorous travel and games in three time zones — it would’ve been understandable if they coasted to the final buzzer. After all, there’s a key division matchup with the lowly Vancouver Canucks coming on Saturday night.
But these Oilers aren’t the ones to do that, instead grabbing their lunchpail, and getting to work.
Viktor Arvidsson would cut Colorado’s lead to two in the final minute of the first, while six and a half into the second, a Brett Kulak shot would find its way in. Then, it was the Connor McDavid show.
With a little over five minutes left in the second with the puck on the stick in the offensive zone, McDavid would get knocked to his knees while holding onto it, sending it across the zone to Leon Draisaitl. A quick shot would rebound right to McDavid, who knocked it down with his hand before roofing it over Mackenzie Blackwood.
He wasn’t done there, though, setting up a bomb from Evan Bouchard for the game-winning goal with seven minutes left.
“They just don’t get rattled,” said Knoblauch. “I think a lot of that has to do with the experience of a lot of these guys (having) been together a long time, but also the last year’s playoff and there’s stressful times.
“I have a lot of confidence in that group if they play their system and don’t cheat the game. I think when they cheat the game, they’re not as effective and you’re probably just giving up more. They stuck with it, which was nice.”
As far as wins go, this was their best of the season, which is saying something considering this road trip alone saw them shutout the Boston Bruins 4-0 10 days ago, and overcame 2-0 and 3-2 deficits against the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday.
Edmonton’s road trip concludes Saturday night when they visit the Canucks, before they close out January and open February with a six-game homestand.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
