EDMONTON — A year ago, the Edmonton Oilers were still mired in a Stanley Cup lost.
As we’ve heard this fall, from everyone from Zach Hyman to Connor McDavid, recovering from a series in which you clawed back to Game 7, then lost by a single goal, is somehow different than getting back to a second Cup Final and losing to a better team.
It may sound weird, but it’s true.
And the evidence was on display Saturday, as the Oilers beat the Vancouver Canucks for 50 of the 60 minutes played, winning 3-1 in a game where they allowed just 15 Canucks shots on goalie Calvin Pickard.
“It could have been six or seven to one,” Pickard said. “Their goalie was great.”
This was a calibre of game, particularly on the defensive side, that we did not see from Edmonton until Game 15 a year ago. After owning the opening 30 minutes against Calgary on opening night, then letting down in the final 30, this was a pedigree of hockey that a team like the Oilers should be able to produce on demand.
It’s amazing what you can accomplish, when your head’s in the present — and not back in Sunrise, trying to win a long-lost game from a spring you’ll never get back.
“We’ve moved on from the previous season and playoffs, whatever happened,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Obviously there’s still disappointment, but guys had done it once before. (There is) no more feeling sorry for ourselves. Let’s get to work. The attitude right from Day 1 has been upbeat, energetic.”
The game the Oilers rolled out on a Saturday night against a division rival would beat most teams in most rinks on most nights.
Edmonton gave the Canucks just two power plays and earned five of its own. Without Thatcher Demko’s heroics this would have been a runaway, but instead of pining over a power play that did everything but score, the depth guys went and scored a couple at even strength — before McDavid and Leon Draisaitl collected their only points on the night from Draisaitl’s empty-netter that made it 3-1.
“We were the better team,” declared Draisaitl, who has started his season with a goal in both games. “We played really well. We had our legs. All four lines were going and there were different guys chipping in.
“We’re going to be a hard team to beat when we consistently find a way to play like that.”
It’s a long season, to be sure, and the Oilers head out on a five-game Eastern swing on Monday, playing just one of their next eight games on home ice. But as immature as they looked when they put their collective feet up against Calgary, squandering a 3-0 lead to lose in a shootout, we’ve seen this team enough to know how it usually turns out.
And if they’ve reached that level in Game 2, winning the Pacific Division becomes more than just a possibility.
“We’ve got to help ourselves out a little bit more compared to the last two years,” said Draisaitl, whose Oilers have chased the Pacific leader all season long in each of their Stanley Cup finalist seasons. “You can build a lot of momentum, a lot of confidence within your group if you get off to a good start. You see it with a lot of teams, they get off to a really good start, then they just kind of carry it the rest of the way. They’re a playoff team.”
In hindsight, winning a game like that — contested to the end when Vancouver pulled its goalie while on a power play — is more valuable than if the power play would have scored two, and there was nothing to sweat over.
This one ended with McDavid and Draisaitl as the two penalty-killing forwards. McDavid deftly got his stick on a Brock Boeser chance that would have tied the game, then he grabbed a loose puck with six Canucks in the zone and still 80 seconds on the clock.
Instead of chopping the puck out of the zone and allowing Vancouver — and the magnificent Quinn Hughes — to reload, McDavid spun, moved the puck over to Darnell Nurse, who found Draisaitl.
It was a snapshot on why Knoblauch has decided this season to ice his two superstars on the PK, and example of how high-level hockey IQ can make the difference between a regulation win and possible overtime.
“Good penalty killers are the ones who can make plays under pressure,” Knoblauch said. “You saw it with Connor, being able to slow things down rather than just shoveling a puck out. He’s able to settle things down and make a heck of a play.”
In the end, 3-1 feels a lot better than 6-1 would have, when you earn a game on Noah Philp’s first NHL goal and an Andrew Mangiapane tuck in the 500th game of his NHL career.
“Pucks weren’t going in for us. Demko was great, he made a lot of big saves,” Pickard said. “But we didn’t stray from the game plan, we didn’t cheat for offence. We earned that win.
“If we play that game over and over again, we’re going to win pretty much every time.”
