TORONTO – Desperate and depleted, the Edmonton Oilers dug themselves another early hole in Toronto when goalie Mike Smith appeared to help guide a wide William Nylander shot into his own cage.
After surrendering the game’s first goal for the 21st time over their past 25 games – this time against one of the healthiest and best clubs in the East – and serving up more juicy Grade-As than an Albertan cattle rancher, one might be tempted to etch another mark in the W column for the Maple Leafs before the affair was 10 minutes old.
So, it was refreshing to watch the COVID-ravaged Oilers — skating without Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Tyson Barrie and Derek Ryan — push back, seize the lead, and make things interesting deep into the final frame.
Ultimately, the Leafs won 4-2, thanks to their superior depth, and piled on to the Oilers’ woes.
Quick, one-timed, first-period strikes by Brendan Perlini (uncontested by a sluggish Nick Ritchie backcheck) and Leon Draisaitl (utterly unchecked in the blue paint) provided a nice response for the visitors and allowed the veteran Smith time to settle into just his sixth appearance of the season.
“To me, they’ve been playing better hockey than the results that they’ve gotten, and I know they’re going to be a hungry team coming in here,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said before the game. “It’s our job here to continue to make things difficult.”
The Leafs’ second goal also resulted off a wide shot, a T.J. Brodie point blast that benefitted from a friendly bounce through a maze of skates.
The game remained tied until midway through the third period, when Ilya Mikheyev buried the game-winner on the power play.
Mikheyev beat Smith clean high-glove from distance, further stoking Oilers fans’ wish for better goaltending.
Alexander Kerfoot tacked on an empty-netter.
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• Shame that Zach Hyman — returning to Scotiabank Arena in enemy orange and with an “A” sewn to his chest — was robbed of a standing ovation from 19,000-plus.
“Toronto is always going to be home for me,” says Hyman, who plans to train here in the summer. “It’s reality, right? People have been disappointed for the past couple years now, so I think everybody is used to it.
“I think [my return]will be more meaningful when there are fans in the building.”
• Auston Matthews is clearly bummed to be skating in an empty home arena, describing the scene as “one step forward, three steps back.” Yet he’s hopeful Leafs Nation turns out loud during their upcoming four-game roadie.
“We travel pretty well. So hopefully maybe some of these away games feel like home games and we can kind of get that buzz back,” Matthews said before the game. “Hopefully it’s not too long that we’re going without fans here because they honestly make a huge difference — and it’s not the same without them.”
• William Nylander is on a seven-game point streak (five goals, seven assists) and now leads all Maple Leafs in scoring (35 points).
• Trusty ol’ stay-at-home Brodie (3-3–6) is riding his first four-game point streak in nearly four years (February 2018).
• Rumours of a hot seat no longer faze Oilers coach Dave Tippett the way they did in the early-2000s, when he was running the Dallas Stars bench.
“At my age, that stuff doesn’t bother me a bit. I’ve been around too long. And I’m with [GM] Ken Holland, who’s a good man. I don’t listen to any outside noise. The house is burning for you guys. Inside the coaches’ office, in here, we’re trying to put fires out,” says Tippett, 60.
“I don’t like the adversity, but things were coming too easy at the start of the season. We were scoring in bunches and outscoring our problems. And now we’re the other way.”
