“We’re finding ourselves.”
That quote, from the Edmonton Oilers dressing room after an impressive 7-2 rout in Columbus, is both a good-news and bad-news scenario.
Yes, on a three-game road trip where the Oilers chased two of the game’s best goalies, Carey Price and Sergei Bobrovsky, and dominated the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 1–0 loss, the Oilers looked a lot more like that Western Conference powerhouse they were 12 months ago.
Yet, when the Oilers look at the standings, they “find themselves” so far down the tables that it simply might be too late.
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For now, however, Edmonton is seeing some signs that this might be more than a three-game blip on the radar. Here are some takeaways after a road game, and a road trip, that just might be the Oilers’ finest three-game run all season:
The return of Connor McDavid
Now that Connor McDavid is back at full health and eight cylinders, you get a more fulsome picture of how sick he must have been with that flu bug he carried through most of the first 25 games. Amazingly, he remained a point-per-game player during that span, but now that he’s got some weight back and is feeling stronger, man, McDavid is unstoppable.
The Oilers captain had two assists in a 6-2 win at Montreal, was the best player on the ice in Toronto, and had 1-3-4 at Columbus.
He’s been good all season, but not McDavid good. When McDavid is this dominant, the Oilers win games.
Survival goaltending
When Cam Talbot went down for what’s expected to be at least a couple of weeks, most folks wondered if that would be the death knell on Edmonton’s season. Well, Laurent Brossoit has gone 3-2 in the last five games, and one of those losses was that 1-0 defeat in Toronto.
You can critique some goals that have gone in all you want, but the fact is Brossoit has given his team every chance to win on four of the five nights. Sure, it’s easy to play when your team takes a 5–0 lead. But he’s handled the workload, and under the circumstances that’s all you can ask.
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Here for the good times
Remember Columbus head coach John Tortorella? The guy who changed his act? Who matured in his new gig in Columbus?
He stepped to the microphone after the game just long enough to tell the press corps that he wouldn’t answer any questions after the game. Don’t worry though, folks. He talks after the Blue Jackets win.
Teams that are special… for a change
The Oilers have drawn the least penalties of any team in the NHL with just 80 power-play opportunities, which is strange because the Oilers entered the game with the league’s top Fenwick (54.43) and No. 2 Corsi (53.89). So they have the puck plenty, but haven’t drawn the commensurate amount of penalties. Hmmm…
What’s worse, both the special teams have been brutal. On Tuesday, however, Edmonton got a key power-play goal to go up 2–0, and had two on the day. The penalty kill, meanwhile, killed off both Blue Jackets power plays on a rare night when Edmonton won the special-teams battle.
Developing story
Young players don’t ascend in a straight line, and defenceman Matt Benning was overwhelmed off the start of the season with the extra minutes he was given with Andrej Sekera on IR. Winger Jesse Puljujarvi, meanwhile, went to the farm out of training camp because he simply was not ready for prime time.
Bennett is a 23-year-old in only his second pro season. Puljujarvi is still 19 years old. There are going to be growing pains here.
Well, on Tuesday Brian’s boy had a goal and an assist, and his defensive game has steadied. Puljujarvi has discovered that, at six-foot-four, he can knock some people off some pucks at this level, and he has the skill level to hang on a line with McDavid and Milan Lucic, going 1-1-2 at Columbus.
Sure, it might be too late this season. But Benning will be a steady NHL D-man for years to come, and at the home of a Columbus team that passed on Puljujarvi to draft Pierre-Luc Dubois, the big Finn made them jealous Tuesday.
