SAN JOSE — This was supposed to be hockey’s premier offensive showcase.
Connor McDavid, the Art Ross Trophy winner and the only 100-point player in the NHL this season, against Brent Burns, whose 76 points made him the highest scoring defenceman.
Eight measly goals later, we’ve got the lowest scoring series of them all. The Oilers, who finished eighth in league scoring this season, and San Jose (19th) have turned a 3-2 league into a 2-1 league, and it’s heading south with back-to-back Cam Talbot shutouts.
And you know what’s really weird? That the Edmonton Oilers have figured out how to win Games 2 and 3 on the strength of three goals in total is as exciting to their players as it is disconcerting for the rest of the NHL.
“If we’d have mapped out the first three games,” began Sharks coach Pete DeBoer, “and said we’d control McDavid and they would take five or six penalties in two of the first three games, I’d have taken that and liked our chances. We didn’t take advantage of that — or we haven’t to date.”
Through three games McDavid has a goal (short-handed) and an assist (power play) and six shots on net. Five-on-five he’s been virtually shut down by the Sharks.
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That means the “McDavid Moment” — when he grabs a puck at the bottom of the defensive circles, turns it up ice and hits warp speed as he flies over the blue-line and bears down on a panic-stricken defenceman — has been virtually eliminated by San Jose’s game plan.
That is to say, ticket prices in Edmonton go up about 40 per cent for playoffs. But now that the post-season has started, the precise elements of the game that justify the already outrageous regular season pricing disappear.
I would argue there is no single play in hockey today that edges a fan to the front of their chair like the “McDavid Moment.” That it has all but disappeared is an anomaly that McDavid both accepts and endorses.
As long as his Oilers are winning, of course.
“That’s how you want to win. That’s how you’re going to win games. That’s how you’re going to win the championship. Everyone has to buy in,” he said Monday on the off day in Northern California. “Sure, it would be better if these games were ending 7-6. The fans would love it, but those are coaches’ nightmares. Ultimately, this is how it’s going to played, and we’re fine with that.”
He wouldn’t prefer it if offence was the key to winning, instead of defence?
“You do anything to win the game,” McDavid said. “It doesn’t matter if you get three points, no points… It doesn’t matter. It’s just all about getting the win.”
The irony is, long before McDavid arrived in Edmonton his teammates were bucking the trend of which we speak. Players like Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the departed Taylor Hall played flawed games that good teams preyed upon.
Edmonton was always the team to take the unnecessary chance in a 1-1 game. To cheat offensively for that go-ahead goal, then watch it end up in their own net instead.
“Nuge and I have been here the longest, and we’ve seen the worst. We’ve had to tailor our games around playing the right way,” said Eberle, whose point production fell a bit this season, though his overall game improved by miles. “This year, Nuge and I are playing against the best lines every night. And we’re playing well, doing it the right way. I think (head coach Todd McLellan) finally trusts us. That in itself is progress, that we’re thinking like that.”
Game 3 of this series stretched into the 50th minute, tied 0-0. Edmonton can play that way now, and win. We’ve always said, it’s only the fans of the losing team that complain about a 1-0 playoff game.
“Look around the league,” DeBoer said. “You’re seeing Kane and Toews in Chicago going through the same thing. This time of year, you’ve got to be comfortable playing in tight, 1-0 games. The teams that win, are.”
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We’re still just three games into this thing, and as long as the Oilers run out a top six with players like McDavid, Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins, Milan Lucic and Leon Draisaitl, goals will come.
Just as the 2006 Oilers defeated Detroit in Round 1 by employing a strict trap, should Edmonton advance we might see a more liberated brand of hockey as the playoffs progress.
Or not…
“It’s like chess out there,” said Eberle. “You’re not going to make the big, dramatic move all the time. You move a pawn here, a pawn there… You make the play when you see it, and you make the right one.”
We would pose this question: Have you ever paid admission to watch chess?
Exactly.
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