The Oilers are a two-man team, their goaltending can’t take them far, the injuries have been too much.
The vast majority of the hockey world as the Edmonton Oilers rolled into playoffs on “two wheels” and built a team up from of their bottom six, not top.
And that’s way at the bottom.
Like, way down.
Starting with a Vasily Podkolzin goal and assist, two Victor Arvdisson assists, a John Klingberg assist, and a Jake Walman goal.
As we scroll down the list a little further, we coincidently move up the lineup.
A goal from Darnell Nurse, one from Evander Kane, two assists by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and an extra assists by Zach Hyman.
“Everybody talks since I’ve been here, that the team heavily relies on Connor (McDavid) and Leon (Draisaitl),” added Hyman to reporters post game. “They’re special players, but if you want to win a Stanley Cup, you need everybody.”
A different star of the game, every game.
Tonight it was Calvin Pickard.
On Tuesday it was Connor Brown.
Your guess is as good as mine on Saturday’s number one.
But I’ll tell you who hasn’t been seen on these rankings as of late, the same guys who supposedly never miss at all — McDavid and Draisaitl.
But hey Oilers, isn’t depth scoring meant to be accompanied by your 60 plus goal scorers?
The ones who come in clutch to tie a game, take a lead, or pile on goal after goal after goal.
Or maybe the guys who go classic McDavid to Draisaitl in an overtime period that the Las Vegas Golden Knights absolutely owned before a missed penalty on Victor Arvidsson.
Yah, something like that.
The Oilers’ depth might have started with a poised Calvin Pickard, continued through an offensive blue and overdue fourth, but it ended the same way it always does — a McDavid feed to Draisaitl in front of a scared goaltender already thinking about home.
“That’s what we get paid to do. Score goals in big moments,” eluded McDavid.
“It’s obviously all Davo, I’m not really apart of it until the end there,” relayed Draisaitl to Gene “the knife” Principe. “Tough to celebrate this one, but we’ll take it.”
I imagine tying a game, then leading a game, only for it to be tied again is not on Draisaitl’s list of games to feel good about. Nor to is wasting a five minute power play in overtime, after Trent Frederic takes a cross check to the face while Nicolas Roy get’s ejected.
“If you’ve been in these situations, you know you just got to get over it,” according to Hyman.
Easier said than done when the Oilers’ road power play record is now 0-for-12 and they’ve narrowly missed taking penalties themselves. About a Brayden McNabb sized missed call to be exact.
Ok, it wasn’t nearly as obvious as the Frederic cross check, but it was still pretty clear and the Oilers should count themselves lucky moving forward.
That trip gets called, and Draisaitl probably doesn’t score.
“Should say, they did get fortunate,” agreed Elliot Friedman on the Sportsnet panel. “That was a penalty on Arvidsson on McNabb.”
So fortunate that both Draisaitl and McDavid vow to perform better moving forward.
“Obviously they were much better tonight. Had us on our heels for a little bit, especially in the third. They’re a really good team, they’re gonna push,” according to Draisaitl. “Their best is coming and we got to bring our best.”
And.
“We’ve won different ways, you gotta do that this time of year,” relayed McDavid to reporters post win. “The groups feeling confident but I feel like our best is still coming. We’re just building and building our game.”
“Building and building our game.” Kind of like the top lines efforts right into overtime.
Hot takes moving forward:
- Frederic, Adam Henrique, and Connor Brown will not stay quite for long.
- Vegas will get better, but Kris Knoblauch will line match better.
- Vegas will steal a game in Edmonton if the Oilers cannot improve their power play.
