Oilers’ drawn penalties, momentum shifts will continue to churn victories
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CALGARY — At this time of year, the Edmonton Oilers have traditionally been about individual milestones. If it’s not Leon Draisaitl scoring 50 goals or 100 points, it’s Connor McDavid poised to notch his 100th assist any day now, and chasing an Art Ross Trophy.
Quietly, however, this is a team building a much more important profile, with the depth forwards finding their niche with the playoffs only six games away.
One night after the third line popped three goals in a 6-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche, the fourth line scored one (Connor Brown) and centre Derek Ryan drew the penalty that produced the game-winning power play goal in a 4-2 Oilers win over Calgary.
“Everyone wants to talk about goal scoring,” said the veteran Ryan, who assisted on the 2-0 goal by Brown, then was set to hammer a one-timer from the slot when he drew a slashing penalty from a desperate Oliver Kylington. “The third and fourth line have to do a good job of a lot of other things that don’t go on the score sheet.
“If the fourth line goes out and draws a penalty, and we score on that power play, it doesn’t go on the score sheet. But that’s a big shift.”
On a team with a fulsome top-6, the issues around Edmonton always surround defensive play and support scoring. Mesh that with one of hockey’s premier cliches, the Stanley Cup champion that speaks of how they had “a new hero every day” on their run to the Cup.
“Whether it’s building momentum in the O-zone, the momentum shifts are massive in the playoffs,” Ryan said. “Yeah, we need to score goals. But it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
In a 4-2 game that could easily have been 6-5 but for some fantastic netminding by both Calvin Pickard and Jacob Markstrom, Calgary dominated the second period and outshot the Oilers 36-27 on the night. Edmonton jumped to a 2-0 lead, but by the time the eight minute mark of the third period rolled around, the teams were tied at two.
With the lines having hit the blender, Ryan’s line jumped over the boards in the third period and created a scoring chance that Kylington just could not bear to see come to fruition. Moments later, Evan Bouchard blasted one past Markstrom on the ensuing power play, in a penalty-filled affair that saw each team go two-for-six on the power play.
Ryan was sure to blow his horn post-game, making sure that everyone knew who drew the call — a fact that did not need repeating as 19,289 fans witnessed the infraction.
But that’s the game. The goal scorers get the glory and the worker bees get covered in gooey pollen — though they are appreciated by their teammates.
“Look at any team that’s won a Stanley Cup,” began Hyman. “Everybody has a moment in a run like that where it’s a big play, a drawn penalty, a huge goal at an opportune time. And the margins are so small that any kind of advantage you can get is huge.
“Everybody always forgets who draws it, right? But not the guys in the locker room.”
Connor McDavid picked up a pair of assists to sit at 99 on the season. Leon Draisaitl opened the scoring with his 40th of the season, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put this one away with an empty-netter.
The other support player whose game was on display Saturday was Pickard, a journeyman backup who outplayed Markstrom on this night, stopping 34 pucks.
“Calvin Pickard was outstanding,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I thought he made some huge saves, especially late in the game with (Markstrom) pulled and the game on the line. So often you win some games with goaltending. Tonight was one of those.”
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Coupled with a 6-3 win by the Los Angles Kings over the Vancouver Canucks, the playoff picture in the Pacific Division took a big left turn, as the Kings jumped past Vegas and Nashville and into third place behind the Oilers.
Edmonton, meanwhile, once again finds itself just three points behind the Canucks for first in the Pacific, with a game in hand and a matchup set for next Saturday night at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
After the hellacious start to the season that the Oilers had, first place in the Pacific is still a reality for Edmonton. If nothing else, it will give them something to play for after comfortably wrapping up second place in the division with back to back wins this weekend.
“That’s a microcosm of our whole season, no?” Ryan said. “We were able to bounce back from that. There’s a lot of people in Edmonton — a lot of people standing around me right now (in this media scrum) — that were writing us off. And look at us now.”
“You want something to play for at this time of year. You want some competitiveness,” Hyman added. “We’ve been chasing (Vancouver) because we were 2-9-1 to start. We were chasing everybody, and it’s been a marathon. Now we’re right there. It’s attainable, which is great.
“It should be a goal of ours. It’s right there.”
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