EDMONTON — They absolutely detested Zack Kassian in Edmonton, once upon a time, when he broke then-Oiler Sam Gagner’s jaw with a cheap high stick in pre-season, then mocked Gagner when he returned in December wearing a face shield.
But on a sudsy Friday night in April — after a shorthanded goal, four shots on net, six hits and perhaps the finest performance of his NHL career — those same fans chanted his name.
“KA-SEE-AN! KA-SEE-AN!”
Kassian wasn’t just Good Friday, he was great, stealing the show in a 2-0 Oilers win.
“That’s funny isn’t it?” said the Windsor-born winger. “If you’d have told me that (they’d chant my name) a couple of years ago, I’d have bet every dollar that I had… But I expect nothing less than that from the fans here. They’re so passionate.”
Passion used to be an issue for Kassian, who took a shorthanded breakaway pass from Mark Letestu and rifled a puck past San Jose goalie Martin Jones just 42 seconds into the second period for the 1-0 goal. Connor McDavid added a shorty in the third period to ice the victory, tying the series at a game apiece as we shift south to Northern California for Game 3 on Easter Sunday.
Kassian’s passion used to be for good times, not hockey, and he rolled through three organizations as an ever-diminishing asset before Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli acquired him for a song (goalie Ben Scrivens) from Montreal. There, he’d signed his exit papers with a late-night car wreck involving two girls, a truck, and who knows what type of fuel.
“Oct. 5, 2015. It’s been 17 months,” Kassian said of his sobriety, in a conversation back in February. “When you’re sober you have sobriety birthdays. My actual birthday (Jan. 24, ’91) doesn’t mean so much now.”
On Friday night Kassian’s goal stood up as Edmonton’s first playoff game-winner since Fernando Pisani scored in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final on June 17, 2006.
The last time the Oilers got two shorties in the same game? The Steve Smith series back in 1986 — Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri.
Kassian was everything you want of a power forward in Game 2, laying Sharks players out left and right, winning board battles, killing penalties…
You know, all the things the Buffalo Sabres thought he might do when they drafted him 13th overall in 2009.
“You could say that,” he said. “Hey, there have been a lot of ups and downs through my career. The coaching staff has done a great job with me, and I’m still young. I’m 26.”
It was this organization’s original builder, Glen Sather, who began an Edmonton tradition of taking a chance on a player in need of a second or third chance. He signed a 25-year-old Craig MacTavish out of a Massachusetts prison three months before his sentence was up for vehicular homicide, and MacTavish turned into a pillar of the Oilers dynasty years.
Chiarelli picked Kassian fresh out of rehab, and his turnaround has become inspirational inside this Oilers room.
“I don’t know if I’m as strong a man as he is,” said Letestu. “What he’s gone through… He’s resurrected his career. It’s really a nice story.
“He was awesome tonight. That’s the player he can be,” Letestu marveled. “There’s probably another level he can get to.”
Kassian is that first-round draft pick that has been horribly miscast because of the level of investment the Sabres made back in 2009. He was a loose cannon in junior, where he won a Memorial Cup for Windsor alongside Taylor Hall and Cam Fowler in 2010, and perhaps now we know why his teammates never really knew what to expect from him as 19- and 20-year-old.
Booze, likely drugs. Good times and women.
That was what Kassian was all about as he wound his way from Buffalo to Vancouver, in a stunning trade for another failing first-rounder in Cody Hodgson. The Canucks tried to help him, but Kassian wasn’t ready. It was still coming easily — until the Canucks quit on him too, dealing the ever-depreciating asset to Montreal for Brandon Prust.
Then to Edmonton, ironically the Last Chance Saloon for a guy who had a choice to make: Hockey or addiction.
Asked to make a comparison, Oilers coach Todd McLellan went back to his days as an assistant coach in Detroit:
“The guy that comes to mind … (is) Darren McCarty when I was in Detroit. He became a folk hero there. He had a tough go away from the rink, but found a way to come back and play and won a Cup with us there.”
“I came here — last chance,” Kassian said. “I just wanted to earn the respect of my teammates. We have a great team in here and I’m just a small piece of the puzzle.
“I came here with an open mind. That I would do whatever I had to do, to help the team.”
He’s helping — a lot. The Oilers are alive in this Round 1 matchup.
Next stop, the Shark Tank.
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