EDMONTON — The Detroit Red Wings were more than just a game underdog. They were kicking the Edmonton Oilers‘ collective rear end, in a second period where Edmonton blew their 3-1 lead to this young, up-and-coming team that was threatening to blow Edmonton out of its own rink.
“We were just standing and watching,” head coach Kris Knoclauch said. “We had ill-advised pinching, the forwards weren’t reloading, and the amount of odd-man rushes we gave up… It was the month of January all combined in one period.”
We recall a time when the skate was on the other foot. When the Oilers were always playing the part of the young, hard-charging rebuild, while the great Nicklas Lidstrom and his veteran Red Wings would allow the Oilers to hang around a while, then hit the gas and pull away whenever they needed to.
Today, the Oilers are the Stanley Cup contender, while Detroit has missed the post-season for seven straight seasons.
And when the Oilers floored it in the third period — paced by four of Connor McDavid’s six assists on the night — the Red Wings could only stand back, smell the exhaust fumes, and fish the puck out of their net.
A game that stood at 3-3 after 40 minutes ended in an 8-4 Oilers win, after four straight Edmonton goals to open the third period.
“The second period was just not what we want to do,” said McDavid, whose team went 19 games without giving up four goals and has now done so twice in a row. “We gave up numerous chances, numerous odd-man rushes. The forwards not doing a good job coming back, d-men pinching at strange times…
“I think we’ve done a great job of playing solid defensive hockey for a large stretch here. I thought it got away on us big-time tonight and Stu (Skinner) bailed us out.”
A career high, McDavid’s six assists are one off the NHL single-game record of seven held by Wayne Gretzky and Billy Taylor Sr.
He also became the 4th fastest player to reach 600 assists — in 616 games played — behind Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Bobby Orr.
The performance also overshadowed poor Cody Ceci, whose first-period goal snapped a 126-game goalless drought that stretched 486 days. In the same game, the stay-at-home Ceci notched career points No. 200 and 201— a fact almost nobody left the rink talking about.
“I’m fine with that,” Ceci said of McDavid stealing his show. “He won us the game. He played unbelievable. I think he was a little mad that he got shut out last game (a 4-0 loss at Los Angeles), and he showed it tonight. He came out with some fire and played unbelievable. I’ve never seen that before.”
Dylan Holloway scored the 4-3 goal just 44 seconds into the third period, a big goal at the time. By the time this one was over however, Holloway’s third of the season was more well known as McDavid’s third assist of the night.
McDavid now has a 19-game home points streak intact, in which he’s scored an incredible 46 points. He ties Blair McDonald for the eighth-longest such streak in Oilers history, and moves to within 13 points of Nikita Kucherov in the race for No. 97’s fourth consecutive Art Ross Trophy.
“From the moment the puck drops to the moment the final buzzer rings he’s pretty dialled in,” said Holloway, who was bumped up to the captain’s wing after a second intermission line shuffle. “It comes from his preparation, he’s like that every day at practice. Every workout he’s dialled in. It was only a matter of time before he popped off like that.”
One thing that bodes well for the Oilers is their strength late in games. They are now 8-2-1 when tied after two periods, a scenario that will play out frequently in the spring.
“It’s going to be a frustrating game to watch back,” said Wings coach Derek Lalonde, “because we did a lot of good things to get a game like that to 3-3 to let it slip away.”
The thing about Edmonton is, there are so many weapons for McDavid when he gets to skating the way he did Tuesday. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins buried two goals, while six other players had one each.
“Today he got the better of us, which is really frustrating,” said Detroit’s superb young defenceman, Moritz Seider. “Because up to that point, I thought we did a pretty solid job of containing him.
“I just have to be honest with myself, we have to be better. I have to be better and we’ll go from there.”
Ah, quotes we’ve heard in this town before, many times.
They’re just being spoken by the opposite team now.
