EDMONTON — On a night where Nashville head coach Peter Laviolette conducted his post-game interview wearing a bull’s head, after a game where they’d honoured Jordin Tootoo — a bull in a china shop if ever there was one — a 3-0 Edmonton Oilers loss was perhaps the least interesting storyline.
Nashville’s elite defensive corps did a professional job on the Oilers, while backup Juuse Saros shut out the Oilers for the second consecutive time, running Nashville’s winning streak against Edmonton to 13 games. Edmonton hasn’t beaten Nashville since March of 2014.
The Oilers could have used some juice from a guy like Tootoo, who announced his retirement Friday in Brandon, Manitoba, and was honoured at Saturday’s game for his work with Indigenous people.
“I feel I owe my life to this game, and to the Indigenous population,” he said before the game. “I became the first Inuk ever to play in the National Hockey League. For me to give back to our people, my people, is the right thing for me at his point in my life. It feels right.”
Another first? In nearly 30 years covering the game, this reporter had never done a post-game coach’s interview with a man wearing a cow head.
No bull — if his Preds won both ends of their Alberta swing, which they did, Laviolette said he’d wear the bull’s head. The wager had something to do with a Professional Bull Riding bull named Bushwacker, which once bucked off a PBR record 42 consecutive riders.
A king among stock, he was known as “the Michael Jordan of bulls” according to Bushwacker’s Wikipedia page. (That’s right. A bull with a Wikipedia page.)
“It was going to be a tough trip so we threw it out to the players and they got to choose the back end of the challenge,” Laviolette said. “So we’re honoring the deal.”
The Preds are now 7-1, with a D-corps that gave the Oilers absolutely nothing Saturday. Saros was perfect, but you’d have to watch this one in slow motion to find three saves that are worthy of any highlight package.
“People talk about our ability to jump in the rush and generate offence, but we take pride in … trying to make it as easy as we can on our goaltenders,” said P.K. Subban, whose shorthanded goal stood as the winner. “It’s tough to play against us when we’re moving our feet, getting backs to puck.”
Neither Connor McDavid nor head coach Todd McLellan — in his fourth season behind the Oilers bench — have ever beaten Nashville as a member of the Oilers organization. McDavid was held pointless for the first time this season, and went minus-2 with two shots on goal.
“We’ll count our blessings,” Subban said. “When you hear a guy like Sid Crosby call him the best in the world, it says a lot.
“Collectively, as a five-man unit, we did a good job of trying to keep him to the outside. When he did come into the middle? Swarm him, as quickly as you can.”
The feel-good story on this night was Tootoo, a guy who came out of tough circumstances in Nunavut, and defied the odds to play 723 NHL games.
Of Tootoo’s 13 NHL seasons, the first eight were spent in a Predators uniform, after being a fourth-round pick out of the Brandon Wheat Kings in 2001.
His best NHL memory?
It turns out there are two.
“Becoming the first Inuk to ever play in the NHL. Oct 9 2003 against the Anaheim Ducks,” Tootoo said. “And, (Preds GM) David Poile and (then coach) Barry Trotz giving me the best gift in my life, when I entered rehab. I’ve been sober now for eight years, and it’s given me eight more years on my career.”
There are things in the hockey world you can count on. Like, when Tootoo was in a game, you knew it. You could hear it.
“Just a bullet, man,” said Pekka Rinne, who sat out this game with an injury. “A short, stocky guy who was full of muscle. Fun to watch, and one of the favorite players among the fans. I played with him in (AHL) Milwaukee too. It was the same thing there. Great career for a great guy.”
We’ll never forget the train whistles they blew in Nashville for the “Tootoo Train.” That train kept running late into the Nashville night at the country bars, however, a lifestyle that Tootoo just couldn’t keep up. He’s embraced sobriety, and from a community where alcoholism and suicide are problems — Tootoo lost his older brother Terence to suicide when he was a teenager — he’ll be an excellent role model for many years to come, we’d wager.
In the end, he wouldn’t change a thing.
“Absolutely not. I don’t regret anything. Everything I’ve gone through has made me the person I am today,” he said. “Twenty years have flown by. As a kid growing up in Nunavut, it was a far stretch to ever make it to the NHL. Growing up with an older brother who I idolized, was my mentor, gave me the right tools to persevere in life, and do whatever it takes.”
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