PITTSBURGH — They talked about how the Edmonton Oilers had owned the Pittsburgh Penguins throughout this decade. Oh, how they talked — on Edmonton radio, at the morning skate, on all the Pittsburgh pre-game shows.
Seven straight Oilers wins. Outscored them 37-9. Out-saved them .959 to .876.
Out this, out that. Blah, blah, blah…
Then, after a 5-3 Penguins win, the script flipped.
“They outworked us, outskated us,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. “We weren’t ready.”
Out this, out that. The Penguins jumped ahead of Edmonton in Period 1 and walked out with the two points.
“They had a better start than us,” said defenceman Brett Kulak. “They were faster, they were putting pucks in and forechecking hard and coming hard to the net. It was as simple as that.”
After shutting out the Boston Bruins 4-0 on Tuesday, pitching a near-perfect game in Beantown, Edmonton surrendered four goals in the first period to Pittsburgh. That’s as many goals as they’d allowed in their previous nine periods of hockey, as the Oilers’ four-game winning streak was laid to rest.
“I’ve been in this league long enough to know that a ton of things don’t make sense in this league,” began Mattias Ekholm, who played under the watchful eye of Swedish Four Nations coach Sam Hallam, who was in the press box. After the game, the two conversed in the hallway outside the Edmonton dressing room.
“We had a good effort in Boston,” Ekholm said, “a good effort in Seattle (to open the road trip), and followed that up with not-so-good effort tonight.”
On Star Wars Night in Pittsburgh, we got Edmonton’s dark side. The Oilers' defensive game was a remnant from a team from long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
“Ahhh,” spat Zach Hyman on a wasteful night in Sid’s building, “we just didn't play defence for three-quarters of a period, and then it was 3-0. And then we woke up.”
Hey, if this happened every second or third game, the way it does in some towns, we’d be asking some hard questions. When it happens once every 20 games — Edmonton is 15-4-1 in its last 20 — it’s less a problem and more an outlier.
“We want to play perfect every game. It's not realistic, right?” Hyman said. “But it is realistic to play hard and be conscious defensively. So these are games that you can avoid.
“You're not going to play a perfect game. But you can avoid a disastrous 15 minutes or whatever it was.”
Pittsburgh scored goals at the 3:19, 7:22 and 9:46 mark of the first period, none of them egregious goals on netminder Stuart Skinner. Edmonton closed it to 3-1 at the 12:33 mark, but Pittsburgh took a three-goal lead right back at 13:41.
From there, Edmonton spent 40 minutes on the hunt for a comeback. A break here or there and they may have found a point in Pittsburgh, but not one they would have deserved.
“A couple of goal lines — that last one (with the goalie pulled) was right on the goal line,” Hyman said. “But it’s tough to score six goals in a game. You score six goals every game you’re probably going to have 70 wins, maybe.”
Leon Draisaitl had two more even-strength goals to increase his lead atop the National Hockey League goal-scoring race at 31. He’s on pace for 60-plus goals and 120-plus points, and will take a good run at his second Hart Trophy this season.
Connor McDavid had three assists, and then hopped in a vehicle with team President Jeff Jackson, his old junior GM Sherry Bassin, Mom and Dad McDavid to make the drive to Erie, PA. There, his old junior team will retire his No. 97 in a ceremony before the Otters’ game Friday night.
At the halfway point of their season, the Oilers are second in the Pacific with a record of 25-15-3. That’s a 106-point pace, plenty good for a playoff spot, though perhaps not enough to catch the smokin’ hot Vegas Golden Knights.
McDavid’s totals through a half a season — 16-42-58 in just 38 games played — are as superior as you’d expect, good for fifth in the scoring race with a half-season to make up Nathan MacKinnon’s 10-point lead atop the Art Ross race.
And for those keeping track, the McDavid-Crosby head-to-head now stands at eight wins to seven for McDavid, who has 9-21-30 (plus-17) against Sid’s 4-6-10 (minus-12).
There’s a lot of pride left in these Penguins and their captain. When all that domination talk makes its way into their dressing room, it’s just a matter of time before they do something about it.
“Everyone is always aware of stats like that,” Kulak admitted. “When a team has your number for a while, you always have a little extra bite in your game. It was probably a bit of that that led to their good start.”
On to Chicago.
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.