EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers are without their defensive conscience in the injured Mattias Ekholm, don’t have a goalie with a save percentage above .840 and have a penalty kill that’s gurgling along at 41.7 per cent.
Suppose they’re going to succeed in this opening round series against the Los Angeles Kings. In that case, it’s going to have to resemble the kind of fire-wagon hockey they used to play back when the home barns had names like the Northlands Coliseum and the Fabulous Forum down in Inglewood.
In a tantalizing series that has given us 30 goals in three games, the Oilers won a 7-4 thriller in Game 3 Friday to stay alive with their first win of Round 1.
Edmonton was seemingly dead in the water with seven minutes to play, before scoring two goals in 10 seconds to flip the game on its head — all coming after a successfully reviewed goal and an interference challenge that did not go the Kings’ way.
“We’re going to go down swinging, if we go down,” promised Leon Draisaitl, who set up the winner by Evan Bouchard (two goals) on a lovely set play with the man advantage. “We’ve created that approach here and that attitude within this organization.
“We’re not going to back down until we’re out.”
The challenge by the Kings, should the Oilers somehow go on to win this series, will go down in Pacific Division lore.
“We had a good look at (the video), we took plenty of time, and we felt it was goalie interference. So we challenged it,” said Kings head coach Jim Hiller. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose on those. Tonight we lost — and it cost us big-time.”
You want whacky, wild hockey?
With under seven minutes to play and the Oilers trailing 4-3, Evander Kane kicked a puck towards Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, who was lying across his goal line. Had Kuemper’s goal pants not somehow stopped that puck, it would have crossed the line and not counted, as it was a clear kicking motion by Kane.
Instead, the Kuemper save allowed Kane to use his stick to propel the puck into the goal. Good goal.
Then the Kings challenged the play for goalie interference, were denied, and 10 seconds into the ensuing power play, the Oilers had a 5-4 lead. Two empty net goals later, and the Oilers will try to hold serve on home ice Sunday, when we all reconvene for Game 4 of what has been a wickedly entertaining series thus far — likely the best of the first round for entertainment value.
“It’s been crazy,” said Draisaitl. “It feels like the series’ in the past with them have been kind of more low-key. It has always been the same rhythm and the same type of flow within the game.
“These couple of games have been more of an up-and-down roller coaster for both teams. Fortunately, tonight was on our side. We’re just looking to follow it up.”
“I can’t explain it,” added Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch, “especially with two teams that are pretty mature, older, and have seen a lot of games. It’s not like these are young teams with up-and-down emotions. I’m a little bit surprised with the fluctuation in the games, but that’s the way it’s worked out.”
These teams scored 35 goals in five games last year, and 46 in six the year before. Thirty goals in three games brings us back to Gretz and Mess versus the Triple Crown Line, with Bouchard playing the role of Paul Coffey on a marvellous offensive night for the pending RFA.
“We can score. We know we can. We’ve just got to keep pucks out of our net,” said Kane, who felt much better in his second game in 10 months than he had in his debut. “To be honest, I did. I mean, I felt OK last game — you’re never going to feel perfect when it’s your first game back in that long. But tonight, in terms of my legs and feel out there, it was night and day.”
“It’s unbelievable what he’s able to do when the lights are on,” marvelled Connor Brown. “I missed a full season, it took me about 60 games to score. It took him six periods.”
With so many players missing over the final two months of the Oilers’ season, you could make the argument that the longer this series goes, the better it bodes for Edmonton.
“You could see (Trent Frederic) coming a little bit tonight, he had his legs going, and (Kane) getting up to speed. I’ll put myself into that group as well,” said Draisaitl. “This is intense hockey right off the bat. We don’t have much time, but however long we can drag it out is certainly in our favour.”
The atmosphere was electric, and should be even better for Game 4, now that the Oilers have earned some life in this series.
It’s must-watch hockey now, a high-event series with more twists and turns than an F1 track.
