EDMONTON — “I’m tryin’ to get a hat trick!”
Warren Foegele was on his way to the penalty box with 33 seconds left in a 4-2 game. He already had two goals, and the Seattle Kraken had pulled their goalie.
But the darned referee, Steve Kozari, had just whistled him for slashing, dashing any dreams Foegele had of collecting the first hat trick in a 390-game NHL career.
So Foegele thought he’d let Kozari in on the mission that had been thwarted, and the ambient mic caught Foegele’s instructions to the clueless zebra: “I’m tryin’ to get a hat trick!”
“I was thinking, ‘Read the game,’” said Foegele. “The only reason I was out there was to get the hat trick, I am not on the first unit.”
So he detoured past Kozari on his way to the box for a short chit-chat.
“I thought I got cross-checked and slashed, but I guess Steve saw it a different way,” Foegele shrugged. “I kind of said that to him. And then probably some not right things.”
Kozari’s response was humourless, a 10-misconduct that didn’t mean a thing in a game that had already been decided, with the Kraken vanquished to the tune of 4-2.
The Edmonton Oilers, it seems, have forgotten how to lose, winning their team-record 12th straight Thursday night. As they’ve done in eight of the 12 games, the Oilers erased a deficit — this time 2-0 in the first 13:32 of the game — a trend that seems dangerous, but is perhaps becoming something better than that here.
“It’s been a theme of this winning streak. We stay composed,” said big Mattias Ekholm, who snapped late in this one when Yanni Gourde left the ice to deliver a headshot, a hit that earned Gourde a well-deserved charging major. “We just come in and take a breather, catch your breath, and get out there again.
“I feel like it hasn’t really mattered if it’s going in the third, going into the second or going to the last five minutes of the game. We find a way right now to stay in it and end up on the right side of things.”
This was the fifth straight game — all Oilers wins, obviously — where the opponent has scored first. And it was the 10th consecutive game that Edmonton has allowed two goals or less, a stat that is as foreign to Northern Alberta as an elected Liberal.
That ties a team record set all the way back in the spring of 2002.
“Wow, I didn’t even know that,” said Foegele. “I think it is a credit to everyone buying in and taking a lot of pride in playing the right way. This group was down at rock bottom, so it means a lot to climb back and to try and build each day.”
Rock bottom? Oh boy…
On Nov. 9 the Oilers lost in San Jose to fall into a tie for 32nd place. Jay Woodcroft would coach one more game, but the firing/hiring process began that very night.
When the Oilers went to bed on Jan. 18, not only had they climbed into a wildcard position, but they had passed the Los Angeles Kings to sit in third place in the Pacific. This team has gone an incredible 20-3, now resting six points back of second-place Vegas — with four games in hand.
Head coach Kris Knoblauch, in his maiden voyage as an NHL head coach, has presided over eight- and 12-game winning streaks.
And he’s only coached 28 games!
“It’s crazy,” he said. “That I’d be getting an opportunity in mid-season and to come to an organization like this is… unfathomable.”
The 12-game skein ties the longest streak ever by a Canadian team, matching the 1967-68 Montreal Canadiens. And it’s the non-traditional ways the Oilers are winning that is making believers around the league.
In the past, the Oilers have been accused of being powerplay-reliant, but during this 12-game streak the powerplay has provided just six goals.
Edmonton has also been known to ride the coattails of a Connor McDavid four- or five-point night on more than one occasion. But on this run — on which McDavid has a matching 12-game points streak — the captain has chipped in just one point in nine of the 12 games.
Along with goaltending that has been better than super, those aspects are welcome additions to an arsenal that bodes very well for a playoff run. One that folks in these parts hope runs well into June.
“Where we want to go, I think it’s a great thing,” agreed Ekholm. “You don’t want to rely on one or two guys. Come playoff time, the way we’re winning games right now, that’s a style where we can show up every night.
“Look at the goal scorers we’ve had the last couple of games, they’ve all (come from) up and down the lineup, and that’s great.”
It’s off to Calgary now for a Hockey Day in Canada game against a Flames team that would love nothing more than to snap this streak.
The hottest act in hockey rolling south down Highway 2, a rocket ship without any passengers right now.
