Edmonton Oilers flex third-period muscle to make it 14 straight

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The Edmonton Oilers and their franchise-record, Canadian-record winning streak should have come crashing down on the rocks Tuesday night against one of the worst teams in the NHL.

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Seriously. As far as lacklustre starts go, this one ranks right up there with an airplane door blowing out a few minutes after take off.

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The Oilers were a sluggish mess for most of the game and would have richly deserved the inexplicable debacle that was shaping up through two periods against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

But goaltender Stuart Skinner’s heroics and yet another third-period outburst helped Edmonton extend its jaw-dropping run to 14-straight victories with a 4-1 win.

“We got away with one,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch, knowing his side dodged a bullet.

“We can’t rely on (goaltending and third-period dominance). We have to check better, we have to manage the puck. We only had 14 shots in the first two periods. It wasn’t good enough. We weren’t very good in the first two periods and (Skinner) came up with a lot of big saves.”

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This one should have been over by the second intermission. It was that bad.

The 29th place Blue Jackets, with four wins in their previous 14 games, the second worst goals against average in the NHL and the 22nd ranked offence, looked like the team on an epic heater. The shots were 22-11 Columbus late in the second period, with the Oilers posting an astonishing 23 giveaways through 40 minutes.

If it wasn’t for Skinner, who stood on his head while the rest of the team was chasing their tails, the script takes a very different turn. It was as untidy a night as we’ve seen from the Oilers in a long time but their goaltending masked the mistakes.

“It starts off with Stu keeping us in that game,” said winger Warren Foegele. “That honestly could have been a 5-0 deficit after two periods. He was rock solid. He’s been playing unbelievable..”

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No kidding. One of Edmonton’s greatest weaknesses when the season began is now one of their greatest assets. He’s 18-2 in this last 20 starts and his 11 wins in a row break Hall of Fame Grant Fuhr’s record for the most consecutive wins by an Oilers goalie.

“It means a lot,” the Edmonton-born goaltender said of breaking one of his idol’s records. “I was feeling a lot of emotions, especially when I went out on the ice for the first star. It’s pretty cool to be able to break a record from one of the best goalies to ever live.

“He’s obviously a guy I look up to and have talked to. He is just one of the best. I am very fortunate to be able to break it.”

Skinner got swarmed in the opening 40 minutes, but says that’s the best part about being a goalie — standing up to the attack and giving his guys a chance to get their feet under them.

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“I think that’s why us goalies love to play the game, moments like that where you’re able to come up with a couple of big saves and keep your team in it,” he said.

“A big part of our job is just being able to give our team a chance to win. I think I did that for a couple of periods and then in the third period we took it home. It was a really good push-back by our group.”

Once again, Edmonton relied on its third-period prowess to save the day, breaking open a 1-1 tie on goals from Evander Kane and Connor McDavid at 4:53 and 5:48 and a late one from Dylan Holloway.

It was harder than anyone expected it to be given the opponent, but Knoblauch says the Oilers should get used to it. They have a target on their back now. That, coupled with the letdown after huge wins over Toronto and Calgary all played into Tuesday’s near miss.

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“We played a couple of emotional games, coming home from a road trip and playing Toronto and Calgary and here we were playing a team below us in the standings, we just weren’t ready and the first two periods showed that,” he said.
 

“The other teams are getting really excited to play us. We’re on a win streak, they know we’re playing well. They’re excited to end that streak. I think a lot of credit should be given to the other team. We’re getting the other team’s best now.”

The second-longest winning streak in the NHL is five games.

The third-longest streak is three games.

So that should help put into perspective what the Edmonton Oilers are doing right now. But while closing in on the longest winning streak in NHL history, 17 games, is cool, they’re more focused on continuing their ascent up the Western Conference leaderboard.

“We want to finish off this home stand in a good, positive way heading into a week-long break,” said Kane. “We need to keep collecting points because there’s a lot of teams that are ahead of us that are winning as well. So, it’s great to have the streak, but points are important right now.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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