EDMONTON — Two nights before, with less than two seconds left in a 0-0 game, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin were left alone in the Edmonton Oilers‘ slot. It had heartbreak written all over it, a long night spent battling, and not a point to show for it. Had Benn seen Seguin, it was an open-net one-timer.
But instead, Benn shot and Mikko Koskinen gave Edmonton a vital save and the chance to win a game in overtime. Two points, rather than no points.
On Thursday, 3:54 into the third period of a 2-2 game, Koskinen let in his first stinker as an Oiler, deflecting a centering pass/shot into his own cage. But the Oilers were saved when their offside challenge stood up.
Then, late in the third, Alex Iafallo, barely still in his own zone, rifled a puck across the width of the rink and into the seats near the Oilers blue line. It was the kind of delay-of-game penalty you’ll see once every couple of months, but whatever: Edmonton scored on the power play and won a close game 3-2.
Two points, rather than no points.
The breaks, right?
“It feels like it’s been a one-goal game for the last four or five here,” said Drake Caggiula, basically summing up new coach Ken Hitchcock’s five-game tenure (3-1-1). “We have to learn to win these games, and I think we’re slowly starting to do that. We’re playing some pretty tight hockey right now and we’re playing the right way for the most part and we’re getting pretty good results.”
That old cliché about ‘playing the game the right way’? Defined, it boils down to playing an honest game, not cheating for chances, taking your lumps when you have to and avoiding shortcuts.
Do all those things and still the rewards aren’t always points in the standings. But teams that ‘play the right way’ end up getting their fair share of good breaks — usually more. And those breaks, when capitalized on, become more tangible, in the form of goals, wins and points.
For this hockey writer, it’s almost become a barometer that tells you if the team you’re watching is playing any good at all. A bad team will get a good break once in a while, and vice versa. But big picture, over the large sample, the bad teams are the ones leaving the rink complaining, ‘We got screwed,’ while the good ones are walking out with a laugh and a wink.
And the two points, of course.
“Since I’ve been here, we’ve deserved a much better fate in a couple of games, and we didn’t get it,” said Hitchcock, whose team has reaped points in four of five games since his arrival. “We caught a break today. We gave up a breakaway at the end (to Tyler Toffoli). We’ve got to get more comfortable in these games. You’ve got to take points out of close games … and we don’t want to be the first to crack.
“We didn’t give up much in the third period, but the ones they did give up were doozies.”
Look, we get Hitchcock’s reputation as a defensive coach. He’s as much as said it since arriving on the scene: when a player has the puck it’s “me time,” meaning he can be creative. But when the other team has the puck, “It’s non-negotiable. We play my way,” Hitchcock says.
Some would say it’s heavy-handed. We would say it’s how you win — especially with an Oilers roster that gets mighty thin after the top three forwards.
“He’s pushing us to be our best,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, after another two-point night. “It is tough to come in a quarter of the way through the season and try to change things, but he has done a good job of reminding us the things we already know, but also pushing us and keeping us honest.”
Hitchcock has entrusted the second line to Nugent-Hopkins, and the centreman has delivered with 24 points in 25 games. And over the past two games, Hitchcock and assistant coach Trent Yawney have played defenceman Oscar Klefbom 28:30 against Dallas and another 25:14 against the Kings.
Klefbom responded with consecutive game-winning goals. He has five points in his last three games.
“When you play with a calmness, you can play a lot of minutes,” Hitchcock said. “I think 25 (minutes) is the floor. You’ll see him play more than that.”
Klefbom has been on the other end of a lot of these close encounters over his 280 games in an Oilers uniform. But on Thursday against Los Angeles, his club played a little better than OK — and they won.
In a weird hockey way, that’s a good sign.
“These wins can feel better than when you win 5-1 and play really good. It gives us a lot of confidence,” Klefbom said. “We can play way better, but this is still two points and it is really good.”
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