There was a time when you didn’t expect anything from the Edmonton Oilers. When they could find a way to lose on any given night under any given set of circumstances, and the league just shrugged its collective shoulders.
Maybe, we are finding out, that time isn’t as far in the rear-view mirror as many here in Edmonton would have hoped.
Playing their second game in two nights, a Dallas Stars team missing six of its top nine forwards walked into Rogers Place and won 3-2. To be fair, even the old Gretzky-led Oilers often dropped this game, the first game back at home after an extended Eastern road swing of five games in eight days.
Right, Todd McLellan?
“Yeah, we just came back from a trip, but that is always used as an excuse when you lose,” spat the Oilers head coach. “We come out and play a great game and nobody talks about us just getting back from the road. It’s the NHL — you’ve got to do it.
“Get over the excuses, show up to the rink ready to play and execute.”
Of all the teams that have kicked the Oilers fannies down the block since the Glory Years here in Edmonton, the Oilers have suffered the most at the cowboy boots of the Stars. Since the Minnesota North Stars moved to The Big D, the Oilers have amassed a 19-53-4-9 mark against Dallas. That’s about .300 hockey, and doesn’t include the annual spring playoff lickin’ administered by Dallas back in the 1990s.
And goalie Kari Lehtonen? How about a career mark of 14-4-1 vs. Edmonton?
“I haven’t played back-to-backs in a long time,” said Lehtonen, who stopped 40 of 42 shots. “That was a nice challenge and it was fun to get lots of action too. It kept me in the game easily the whole time.”
Dallas is 7-1-1 in their past nine visits to Edmonton, and after one visit to the new Rogers Place the Stars can say they own it the way they did Rexall Place over the many years.
“This was an opportunity,” surmised Oilers defenceman Eric Gryba. “This was two points we could have had. And we need to have.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who had seven shots on net in search of his first five-on-five goal of the season. “Every game now, we know that can win. A game like tonight, we should be able to take advantage of.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get the job done.”
This one began as so many Oilers games have this year — with a goal against on the first shift of the night. It began on opening night, when Calgary’s Alex Chiasson scored at 1:46 of the first, and happened again on Friday when Lauri Korpikoski turned sloppy plays by Pat Maroon and Darnell Nurse into a goal just 28 seconds into the evening.
“I don’t know what exactly it is, if you can put a finger on exactly what’s going on,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We do a good job of not letting that kill us, but at the same time if they don’t score that we’re ahead of the game. We need to find a better way.”
The Stars, who have $10.4 million invested in goalies Antti Niemi and Lehtonen, still don’t have a guy anyone trusts come playoff time. But for now head coach Lindy Ruff has to find one of them that can drag this team through an extraordinary run of injuries and into the playoffs.
Or at least to the trade deadline, where the Stars may be able to scratch their itch for a new No. 1 with the expansion draft looming.
“We need a goaltender to get on a roll and I think sometimes the more they play, the more comfortable they feel,” said Ruff, who watched Lehtonen look sharp in a 4-2 win at Calgary the night before. “We had a discussion on which guy and it was sort of mixed. Tonight I just decided he had only played half a game in Winnipeg and to give him the back to back.”
Lehtonen was pulled after allowing four goals on 11 shots in Winnipeg on Thursday, and now has two strong showings in a row. That’s been his M.O. since he was drafted: He can give you two or three solid starts, but the playoffs require a lot more consistency than that.
But he was better than Edmonton, on this night. As most Dallas goalies seem to be.
