EDMONTON — They’re not the Pittsburgh Penguins, a savvy, playoff-hardened group of proven winners. A team that you can count on for the same proficient, professional level every night, right through ‘til June.
These are the Edmonton Oilers, folks. A wild-card pick that was in contention for the Pacific Division until Game 82, and jumped to a rather fortunate 2-0 lead in this Western Conference semifinal.
They can be awful, then great—all within 40 minutes of hockey—then watch their comeback go down the drain in the final 20 minutes of a 6-3 Game 3 loss.
"We (got scored on) 25 seconds in," began head coach Todd McLellan. "By the first (TV) timeout we were down by two. By the second timeout we were down by three."
How bad was Edmonton’s start?
"You couldn’t even shorten the bench—there were that many that were erring on a consistent basis."
But don’t look away.
By the 8:40 mark of Period 2 the game was tied on Connor McDavid’s first goal these playoffs that literally brought a country off its feet. McDavid changed direction by 180 degrees so fast Ducks defenceman Sami Vatanen needed a St. Bernard to dig him out of the ice.
It was a goal that erased the 3-0 deficit and showed everyone who had the best player in the ice, unquestionably. That had to be the point of propulsion for Edmonton, right?
An hour later, the final buzzer sounds and it’s a 6-3 loss. Welcome to Edmonton.
"We did a good job battling back to tie it up, but ultimately we definitely didn’t deserve to win that one," the Oilers captain said. "Whatever luck we may have had in Game 2 definitely wasn’t there tonight."
Get used to it. These kids are here, still ahead 2-1 in this Western showdown, but no one has a clue what we’ll get in Game 4 Wednesday night, right Mark Letestu?
"To be a 100-point team, most of the time you’re playing pretty damned well," said the veteran centre, looking you square in the eye with his answer. "We’ve always bounced back from these situations. We know exactly what we’re going to get on Wednesday."
McDavid was wheeling again, to be sure. But the number that stands out ahead of his one goal is his minus-2 on the night.
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The pucks that goalie Cam Talbot had miraculously found in stealing Game 2 snuck past him in Game 3 by the half-dozen, for which he shouldered the blame. The luck that saw Adam Larsson’s Game 1 winner bounce off of Josh Manson’s shin pad and into the goal turned as well, with a crucial third-period offside review going against the Oilers when—as series supervisor Don Van Massenhoven later confirmed—the Situation Room never got a good enough view to overturn the on-ice call.
"You’re eyes are telling you it’s offside, but if you’re the linesman you’re saying, ‘I don’t know for sure,’ and the call on the ice stands," said McLellan. "I think they even likely know it’s offside, but they can’t confirm it.
"But let’s not kid ourselves—that’s not the back breaker. The back breaker came 25 seconds in."
Off a lovely set play, Rickard Rakell took a home-run pass from Ryan Getzlaf and opened the scoring 25 seconds into the game. It was actually the second unexpected jolt of the evening, after the sell out crowd had rescued country star anthem singer Brett Kissel when his microphone malfunctioned pre-game.
Kissel tried to sing but could not. So an Edmonton crowd sang the Star Spangled Banner for him, en masse.
It was truly chilling—something unseen by this writer in 30 years watching the game. In the end though, that moment had more magic than the Oilers did, and now Anaheim is right back into this series.
"We’ve been in this position before," said Ducks goalie John Gibson. "We’re not proud of it, but it’s a position that we’ve been in before and we have the belief in each other that we can come in here and win some games."
Said McLellan, whose hair grows more grey with every "learning experience" from his team: "We’re now experiencing what it’s like to play against a very desperate, hard, hungry team. We know we can be better than that."
Jordan Eberle’s perimeter game has taken on a particular odor, having accrued him just two assists in the first nine playoff games of his career. Asked what he’s getting from Eberle this spring, McLellan scowled: "Not enough."
The Ducks, meanwhile, will adjourn to Kelowna now, where they’ll practice on Monday and Tuesday. The Oilers will have a day off from practice Monday, and try to right the roller coaster on Tuesday in time for Game 4 Wednesday night.
"We are still in a really good situation, still up 2-1," said Oilers winger Pat Maroon. "We knew they were going to come, that we weren’t going to win all of them."