ANAHEIM, Calif. — For 57 minutes, this was one of those games that make a hockey team. A game they’re talking about at the reunion 20 years from now.
Down to four defencemen at times, with winger Benoit Pouliot taking shifts on the back end, Edmonton had a 3-0 lead with 3:30 to play on the road…
Hang on. Check that.
That was our lede from the column on Edmonton’s visit to this building for Game 5 of their 2017 second-round playoff series against the Ducks, when Corey Perry won the game in overtime after the Oilers had seemingly locked things up.
Fast forward to Black Friday, 2018, when the Oilers — playing their new version of the staunch defensive hockey demanded by coach Ken Hitchcock — nursed a 1-0 lead into the final minute of the game. Then, just like in 2017, it all fell apart.
“That [expletive] is going to happen. We played a helluva game, I think,” said defenceman Oscar Klefbom. “Especially here on the road against a heavy team. We have to keep our head up, and focus on our next game. If we play a solid game and win in L.A. (Sunday), it’s a good road trip.”
Was this game boring? Does Donald Trump stretch the truth now and again?
But on an afternoon like this, with a desperate team like Edmonton, you’ve got to put yourself down on that bench with the players and coaches. This is a group that has never been very good in tight games like this one, and here they were, executing a game plan that the new coach specializes in.
In a scoreless game through 48:55 of hockey, Edmonton held the line. Rather than panicking, and taking that low-percentage chance that ended up in their own net, they played the way Hitchcock’s teams have always played — grinding, grinding until a power play opened the door for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins‘ sixth of the season.
Soon enough, Anaheim pulled its goalie, and sure enough, Rickard Rakell’s blast hit something and fell right on the stick of the extra Ducks player — Nick Ritchie — at 19:43 of the third. Before the buzz in the building had ceased, Rakell was stuffing home a breakaway goal just 14 ticks into overtime.
Two points turned into one for the Oilers, and Hitchcock’s second straight win as head coach became a 2-1 OT loss.
“All we can take away is how well we did play,” said Nugent-Hopkins, Edmonton’s best player who has really found a role as the No. 2 centre below the Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl line. “Their tying goal, they just had more guys out on the ice and they get a bounce right to the one guy we can’t have a guy on. It’s unfortunate, but everyone was working their butt off and we deserved a better fate.”
So, let’s return to that two-year-old lede. Just for the moment.
This game was that game, considering the recent coaching change and the subsequent ask by Hitchcock for this group of players to play a different way than they had under Todd McLellan.
These are the games the Oilers have never been built to win. They didn’t win this one, but two games into the Hitchcock Era they were one clear, one shot at an empty net away from winning 1-0 at The Pond, the scene of such heartbreak over the many years.
“It was a man’s game out there. Heavy, hard, a lot of board battles. I thought, right until the end, we really played well,” said Hitchcock. “We had chances to stretch (the lead) and we didn’t get it.
“I thought we played much better tonight than we did against San Jose.”
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Mikko Koskinen, who has usurped Cam Talbot as the Oilers’ No. 1, was once again fantastic. He had a tidy, 22-shot shutout going at the 19:40 mark of the third, and let’s face it: When have the Edmonton Oilers ever pitched a 22-shot shutout at anyone?
It just hasn’t been in their DNA…
Until now?
“I like the way we’re playing right now,” observed Klefbom. “The forwards are skating their asses off, we’re working hard for each other… This is the way you want to play. I’d rather win a game 2-1 or 1-0 instead of 6-5 or 5-4.”
Said Kyle Brodziak: “There are going to be games like tonight where there’s no room on the ice, anywhere. Neither team had much room. It was a good sign.”
“We keep playing like that, it’s a really good sign.”
