TORONTO — Who are these Edmonton Oilers, and what has Mike Babcock done with the old ones?
On Grey Cup weekend the Oilers won by a rouge, a 1-0 nail-biter over Toronto. Isn’t it supposed to be more like 7-5 when the Leafs and Oilers tangle?
“Everybody kind of expects us to score five, six goals a game, having Connor, Leo and Bouchy,” said Kasperi Kapanen. “But that just goes to show that we can defend well too. And then (Devon Levi) is playing phenomenal right now, so it's hard to score.”
And here’s the crazy part.
The guys who have been around here a while? They’re loving this new shutdown hockey the Oilers have played on and off this season.
Shift after shift of win-a-battle, work-it-out, dump-it-in hockey — including a stretch of 7:54 between whistles that ate up nearly half the third period — the kind of hockey that isn’t any fun to watch, but winning teams love to play.
“These are the competitive, fun games that mean the most at the end of the season,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, whose sublime defensive game is perfectly suited to what Edmonton is doing these days. “If you can start working on the little habits right now it goes a long way.
“We want to be the team that teams go, ‘It's going to be a hard night,’ and have that consistency every time.”
You’re not going to win 1-0 every night. Not since they allowed the forward pass in hockey.
But against a desperate Toronto club that was staring a franchise record 0-6-0 homestand square in the eye, Edmonton simply won all its battles, quietly and efficiently cleared all its pucks, and — cue Levi — deftly made all its saves.
After the final faceoff, with 11.2 seconds left on the clock, the Leafs cooked up what looked like a great chance. But like everything else Toronto thought they had Saturday, Edmonton defended that chance into a puck battle. Then they won that battle.
Rinse and repeat.
“I saw Matthews in the slot with the puck. I was like, ‘Bring it on!’” said Levi, the little gamer who is quickly becoming the Oilers’ goalie of the present and future. “You've got to love it. You always, as a goalie, want an opportunity to make a big save at a key moment. That's why I'm there.”
We’ve seen a lot of goalies come through Edmonton’s crease over the past 25 years.
Big ones like Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen, smaller quick ones like Tommy Salo and Viktor Fasth, battlers like Dwayne Roloson.
In Levi, Edmonton has an in-crease meditator, and a guy who craves ‘The Moment.’
On one hand, he wants the chance to show you how good he can be. On the other, his game is so clean — nothing lying around the crease after a save, no rebounds pumped right back into the slot for a second shot — that he is seldom forced to make a save that ends up on the 11 p.m. highlight show.
On a Saturday night in Toronto, this kid from the Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux earned his first NHL shutout over the Maple Leafs, televised coast to coast.
“Super special,” he beamed. “Since I was a kid, I've been thinking about getting a shutout in the NHL. So just soaking it in.”
Edmonton went out and got Frederik Anderson over the summer. They already had Tristan Jarry, the assumed No. 1, but general manager Stan Bowman snapped up Levi as a project/insurance policy.
He’s only 24, and over his last nine starts he’s 8-1-0 with a 1.98 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage. Today, Levi looks like the answer to a goaltending question that has hung over these Oilers for the entirety of the McDavid era.
“He's a hell of a goalie,” said Nugent-Hopkins, who has played in front of about 100 of them since turning pro with Edmonton. “We saw that the second he came to camp. You’d try to shoot on him and you can't beat him. He reads everything so well.
“He wants to be in these tight games, and he wants to give us a chance every night. For him to have that talent and also that competitiveness is impressive.”
Evan Bouchard hammered home his 12th for the game’s only goal. Connor McDavid fed him the pass, and with that assist he both extended his points streak to a career-high 21 games (tied for the 24th longest all-time) and became only the fifth player in NHL history to notch 50 points in the season’s first 21 games.
Edmonton has won four straight for the second time this season and holds a record of 15-3-3.
They wore Elks jerseys into Scotiabank Arena Saturday, a homage to Sunday’s Grey Cup game.
If the football team defends as well as the hockey team does these days, it’s going to be an epic weekend in The Big E.
