EDMONTON — It may get colder than an Arctic substation now and again, but it’s never boring in Edmonton. Not with a streaky hockey team and its new acquisition, the human headline Evander Kane.
With Kane tucked away across the street at the J.W. Marriott, awaiting a Friday morning press conference, the Edmonton Oilers were the much better team in a 3-2 shootout win over the Nashville Predators, snapping a three-game Nashville winning streak while building one for themselves.
Kane will make his first appearance a few hours before boarding a plane for their Eastern road trip, but on Thursday night, the Oilers took another step towards being the respectable team they always believed they were, fairly dominating a good Predators team through the final 40 minutes.
“We’re starting to see some things in our game that we saw at the beginning of the year,” observed Connor McDavid, who opened the Oilers scoring on a solo dash, then sealed it closed with the only goal in the shootout. “I think guys are getting the confidence back and we’re getting the goaltending, Mikko has been a rock back there. When he plays like that it makes our job easier.”
Edmonton outshot the Predators 46-30 and directed 87 shots towards Juuse Saros’ net. Frankly, their precision around the net needs some work. But over the past two months the Oilers have lost more games like this than they’ve won.
“I can’t tell you what it is. I think things are bouncing our way,” guessed Evan Bouchard, who scored his ninth of the season and strung together another fine game. He’s really starting to look like a player. “There were games during that streak where the bounces weren’t going our way and now we are getting some bounces and really playing as a team.”
In the end, this on was decided on McDavid’s lithe hands on his shootout deke, and Koskinen’s three stops on Nashville’s attempts. There was a time when beating the Preds meant besting the great Pekka Rinne, but now Saros has taken over in fine Finnish fashion, becoming one of the league’s best while stepping out of Rinne’s massive shadow.
“It is a little bit extra (nice) for me, I know him pretty well,” said Koskinen, a native of the Helsinki suburb of Vantaa. Less than two hours to the northwest lies Saros’ hometown of Forssa. “He is a really good guy and one of the best goalies in the league, so it is always a great challenge for me.”
Does Koskinen like the shootout?
“Sometimes you like them, sometimes you don’t,” he smiled. “Tonight was our turn.”
It should be said that Koskinen has won three straight starts, helping dig his team out of a hole that many believed was caused by his work between the pipes. It’s a nice story when a good guy gets his due, and Koskinen’s teammates are happy to see him find some success.
“Mikko is a well-liked guy,” said head coach Dave Tippett. “Everybody knows the pressure he has been under and they are happy when things go well for him. Mikko wants to be part of the solution here. When your goaltender makes big saves, it is contagious for your group.”
Edmonton won a game Thursday against a structured Nashville side that held leads of 1-0 and 2-1. And yes, we give you the obligatory “first goal stat,” this time a record-breaker: Edmonton tied a franchise record for allowing the game-opening goal in 11 consecutive games. It is now 26 times in past 30 games that the Oilers have allowed the first goal.
Is it time for a player to put some money on the board, a reward for whomever can open the scoring?
“We’ve tried that,” said McDavid. “It didn’t work.”
That bad stat is the only dent in the armour of a club that is beginning to play like the playoff team most folks thought they would be.
Now they head off for games in Montreal, Ottawa and Washington before the All-Star break, and with a half season to go and Kane sure to suit up shortly, building some belief seems possible again, after losing 13 of 15 games.
“When you believe in the value of the work you put in,” began Darnell Nurse. “We worked for our confidence to be able to come back in these games. It wasn’t like we simply believed we were going to win, we worked our way back.
“It’s a big win, something to build off of.”
