EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers had collected seven of eight possible points since their last loss, and trucked through January playing .750 hockey. But truth be told, they hadn’t loved their game of late, and we all know where that road leads to.
On Saturday, they hit the Woll.
Joseph Woll, to be exact, the Toronto Maple Leaf who was the best goalie on the ice by a large margin in a 4-3 Toronto win that careened frenetically to the final buzzer, with Woll making a diving glove save on Corey Perry on a shot that that may or may not have crossed the line in time.
In the end, the Oilers made one too many mistakes, gave up one too many juicy rebounds, and stepped offside one too many times to pull out a point that they likely deserved. In a game where they outshot the Maple Leafs 48-28 — ripping more shots on Woll’s net than the Leafs’ total of shots on goal and shots that missed or were blocked — the Oilers simply ran out of clock.
“If we make less mistakes then we are probably going to win the game, that’s what it comes down to,” said Leon Draisaitl, who was denied his league-leading 37th goal on an offside review late in the third. “Obviously the shots will tell you the same and chances (25-16 for Edmonton) probably will as well. Not a bad game, (but) it is tough to go down three goals twice.”
Falling behind 3-0 by the 12:50 mark of the game, Edmonton hung around. The difference was, in the end, that the Leafs cashed in during their more brief periods of dominance — Toronto had two power-play goals, Edmonton zero — while the Oilers carried the play for long stretches with nothing to show for it.
It’s hard to hate a team’s effort on a 48-shot night, and though Oilers fans are used to seeing Connor McDavid’s name on the score sheet on a Saturday night, it wasn’t as if he was a no-show. McDavid had nine shots on net but just couldn’t break through the Woll.
“A couple turnovers led to penalties against and then their power play went to work,” said Perry. “If we eliminate those turnovers, I think we would have had a better start. We played with the puck quite a bit tonight.”
Perry played on a line with McDavid and Draisaitl. Although Sportsnet Stats could not verify line combinations, it was only the third team in hockey history to put three Hart Trophy winners on the ice together.
The others were the 2003-04 New York Rangers, with Jaromir Jagr, Eric Lindros and Mark Messier, and the 1947-48 Montreal Canadiens, who iced Toe Blake, Maurice Richard and Elmer Lach.
Alas, the Oilers' top line fashioned the game-tying goal on a Draisaitl one-timer with 2:04 to play. But John Klingberg had entered the zone an eyelash too soon some 17 seconds before, taking the goal off the board.
We can argue if the spirit of the rule was ever to call off goals after a team spends 17 seconds in the offensive zone, but Perry wasn’t having any of that. “That’s something you learn at five years old. It doesn’t matter if there’s a challenge or not, it’s offside.”
The night began with the news that illness would keep Mattias Ekholm — Edmonton’s top defenceman — out of the lineup. That changes everything for the Oilers, and his absence was obvious.
As a group, the Oilers defence corps proceeded to roll out perhaps its most clumsy period in two months. Behind them, two generous rebounds allowed by Stuart Skinner ended up behind him as power-play goals for Toronto.
It was one of those periods: when the defence is suspect, the goalie can sometimes bail you out. And when the goalie is spitting out rebounds, a calm and efficient D-corps can pick up the slack.
Edmonton got the combo you can’t have — two rough rebounds and some worse coverage — and never found a lead on this night.
“Once we started keeping it simple and getting on them, playing five-on-five, we were good. We were all over them,” said Evan Bouchard whose offensive game was awesome, with a goal, an assist and a late goal-post that could have tied the game.
“But when you dig yourself a hole like that, it’s tough to come out of.”
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