BOSTON — From up in the press box at the TD Garden, where the second period closed with a light chorus of boos that graduated into a “Fi-re Swee-ney!” chant as the game clock ran down, this appeared to be as close to a perfect game as can be played in January.
So we asked Mattias Ekholm what he thought, after a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers win over the Boston Bruins, as dominant a road game as you’re going to see this team play.
“I don’t know if there is a perfect game,” Ekholm began, “but I thought we played a really solid team effort.”
Then he thought for a moment.
He went on to talk about the open sightlines his team gave goalie Stuart Skinner all night long, and the fact they held the Bruins to just a dozen shots on goal through the opening 40 minutes. The defence consistently cleared up any garbage laying around Skinner’s crease, and, Ekholm admitted, “We had some looks offensively as well. We cashed in when we had the chances.”
“Yeah,” he finally decided. “In January? Probably pretty close to it.”
Sure, these Bruins aren’t the Big Bad Bruins that our mind’s eye still pictures. A dominant franchise for two decades, Boston is now on the downslope of success, with a first line-centre named Lindholm, not Bergeron anymore, and a towering D-man named Zadorov (not Chara), who resembles big Zdeno is size, but not stature.
Their best players today aren’t what their best players of yore were, and although they still like size here in Beantown, that roster construction was schooled in the game Tuesday by a more skilled team that moved the puck faster, defended better, had superior depth and got better goaltending.
“We were solid. Start to finish, top to bottom,” said two-goal man Adam Henrique, the embodiment of what has become a Top 9 in Edmonton that just may hold the key to winning one more game come springtime.
Henrique snapped home two nearly identical feeds, both from behind the Boston net on passes by Corey Perry and Jeff Skinner.
“(Oilers pro scout) Warren Rychel says, ‘Always shoot a rolling puck,’” laughed Henrique.
Two third-line goals, a Connor McDavid breakaway, a Viktor Arvidsson empty-netter, and a defensive blanket. That’s how the Oilers jammed a stick in the ol’ Spoked B on Tuesday night.
It was a masterpiece, or as close to one as a team can paint in Game 40.
“The details of our game,” Henrique said. “Areas that we talk a lot about, like the middle of the ice, and not giving those up. That takes everybody. And then when there are breakdowns, Stu and Picks (Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard) are there to make a big save. It’s a complete team thing.”
This game turned on an Oilers power play in the second period, when Pavel Zacha grabbed a puck and walked in on a short-handed breakaway, looking to tie the score at 1-1.
Skinner made the save, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins quickly sizzled a breakaway pass to McDavid, and he beat Jeremy Swayman on the chance that Zacha had failed on.
It was the (Other Network) Turning Point, no doubt about it.
“He doesn’t make that save, it’s probably a completely different game,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “But he makes that save, we score, and we’re able to kind of cruise through that game.”
“Such a momentum swing, right?” marvelled Ekholm. “They get a goal there, it’s a wide-open game. Those are the little moments in games where you look back and you’re like, ‘That was big play.’”
It was the biggest save of Skinner’s night, an evening that was interrupted by the concussion spotter when big Nikita Zadorov blasted the goalie with a crease-crasher in Period 1. Skinner missed the final 5:25 of the period — backup Pickard never faced a shot — and returned to start the second period.
Let the record show, Zadorov ran the Oilers goalie with impunity. There was no response from Edmonton whatsoever — neither at the moment or later in a game where it became increasingly unwise to awake the sleeping Bruins.
“(Zadorov) apologized at the start of the second period, which was really nice of him to do. It’s an NHL play. It happens,” Skinner shrugged. “I wasn’t too worried about (the lack of a response). He’s also eight feet tall, so I wasn’t expecting anybody to go fists with him.”
He said he’s sorry. In 2025, that’s enough, we guess.
On the bright side, the Oilers’ speed-and-skill approach to handling a bigger, harder Bruins team worked to perfection. The stats said Boston had 43 hits to Edmonton’s 18, but the fact was that the Oilers had the puck most of the night, and there wasn’t a hit levelled that changed the momentum in any discernable way.
By the time the Bruins arrived to throw a hit, the puck was gone, the moment lost.
Eliminate the physical advantage, eliminate the Bruins, it turns out.
“We’re not the biggest team, but we’re pretty good at protecting the puck,” said Ekholm. “We don’t necessarily use power and size to do it. It’s more speed and cutbacks. It’s more about the speed and the finesse, and some of the lines … they find those little plays into the middle, kicking it out to us D.
“I don’t know the exact answer, but somewhere in there the truth lies.”
A pointless night by Leon Draisaitl — and the demise of his career-high 14-game points streak — was the only blemish for an Oilers team that has gone 15-3-1 in its last 19 games, won four in a row, and rolls into Pittsburgh and Chicago as confident as possible.
As we approach the halfway points of the season, this is likely the best team in the National Hockey League. And they may have just played their best game.
Right, Adam Henrique? Even the coaches can’t complain about 4-0 at the Garden, can they?
“They’ll find something,” he smiled. “Coaches always find something.”
