EDMONTON — Leon Draisaitl hopped out of the penalty box after another selfish, ill-timed penalty, finished the shift, and then languished for five minutes as head coach Kris Knoblauch benched one of the game’s true superstars.
The moment spoke well of Knoblauch, who wasn’t gloating post-game about being the first Oilers coach with the courage to sit a Draisaitl or McDavid down, even just for a couple of shifts.
“Tonight, as a group, we took some penalties that we didn’t need to take,” the humble Knoblauch responded when asked.
Draisaitl, who admitted that “some of the penalties, like mine, are unnecessary,” used his time in the corner to turn his season around.
“Our best players really came up clutch,” Knoblauch said, as Draisaitl and McDavid created the last two goals, rescuing two points in a 4-3 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday.
Draisaitl’s penalty, a cross-check the referees simply had to call, was no more or less, er, unnecessary than the one he took in a close game against Calgary two nights before. On a team that was 0-3 and trailing the Flyers 3-2 in the third period at the time of Draisaitl’s benching, the best players had — to that moment — been among their worst players.
Draisaitl had but a single power-play goal and zero assists in his first 11-and-a-half periods of hockey this season. McDavid had just two assists. Evan Bouchard didn’t have a point to his name. Zach Hyman still doesn’t.
But Draisaitl made his way out of Knoblauch’s doghouse to win a board battle and feed McDavid on Bouchard’s game-tying goal. Then, in overtime, he buried the game-winner after a mad dash by McDavid, and the Oilers finally broke their maiden on the 2024-25 season with a 1-3 homestand.
“We are obviously scratching for some points here early on,” Draisaitl said. “Any point we can get is big. It was nice to come back and win the game.”
So, positives.
The depth players kept the flame flickering until the big boys caught fire. The score sheet may look like Draisaitl and McDavid carried Edmonton to a win Tuesday, but that could not be further from the truth.
A couple of well-timed scraps by Troy Stecher and Corey Perry lit the third-period fire for Edmonton, while goals by third-liners Adam Henrique and Connor Brown kept Edmonton within striking distance.
Gleaning momentum from a fight or two may seem cliché, but an 0-3 team needed something, from somewhere, and took what it could get when handed a little bit of energy.
“When you see teammates standing in there and going shot for shot with guys, the lengths that guys are willing to go to get an edge and win hockey games,” said Brown. “It was a huge momentum builder for us in the third.”
An Oilers team that had two goals eliminated by the Situation Room on Sunday had another called off versus Philly, while losing a goaltender interference review on the Flyers’ first goal. They’ve been as unlucky as they have been disjointed through the first four games, so finding two points out of a game Edmonton never led for even a single second may just be a sign of a turnaround for the NHL’s slowest starting contender.
“We’re confident in the character of our group, we’re confident in the abilities here,” Brown said. “We just needed to get the ball rolling in the right direction so gritting one out like that is a huge step.”
They’ll take a 1-3 mark into games at Nashville and Dallas on Edmonton’s first road trip of the season. But likely of greater import is the confidence that comes from a come-from-behind win, and the many areas of this team that sprung to life Tuesday.
Draisaitl and McDavid have reason to feel better about their games. Stuart Skinner made several key saves to give his team a fighting chance, stopping 27 in all.
The third- and fourth-line each delivered exactly what you want from your depth forwards, and Stecher absolutely secured his spot next to Darnell Nurse — for at least one more game. Nurse himself was good versus Philly, and if he and Stecher can figure out some chemistry it would be massive for a fluid corps of defencemen that haven’t iced the same six guys very often yet this season.
Slowly, and we mean slooooowly, it’s coming together for the Edmonton Oilers.
And all it was took was a few shifts on the bench.
