IN DEPTH
Each and every Sunday during the season we dig deeper into Oilers storylines with our long-form features. This week's feature looks back on the year that was.
EDMONTON – That Connor McDavid has just a single assist in his past four games is somewhat criminal considering the quality of his play.
But you get what you earn, not what you deserve, which is why the Vegas Golden Knights are a playoff lock these days while the Edmonton Oilers went into their game Thursday with a less than two per cent chance of making the post-season.
McDavid setup his team’s only goal and Edmonton managed to beat the Anaheim Ducks 2-1 in a shootout. There’s not much left in this season – already – for the Oilers but beating an old foe in Anaheim, and a performance like this one from McDavid makes a few things better, if only for a night.
The reigning MVP created all night long, skating 100 miles.
“He skated 100 miles, going 100 miles an hour,” corrected his coach, Todd McLellan. “That’s not an easy team to play against, as we know from the past.
“Connor showed tremendous leadership tonight. He said, ‘Follow me. I’m going to do it right. I’m going to do it fast, and you guys come along.’ And they did.”
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Edmonton’s overall game has been shoddy. Back-to-back 5-0 losses at home are evidence of that, not to mention a penalty kill that is barely over 50 per cent at Rogers Place.
All the negatives this losing club had righted to become a winner a season ago have crept back into their game. Thursday was much cleaner, despite a power-play goal by Anaheim. It had better stay that way.
“It has to,” said defenceman Kris Russell, who buried a McDavid pass for the only Edmonton goal in regulation. “It’s that time of the year that we have to win games. We have to draw everything we can out of this game, get some confidence and take it on the road.”
The Oilers finally hit .500 before Christmas then watched it unravel after the break. Four straight losses before Thursday night, a win against Anaheim still leaves them an impossible eight points back of the wild-card spot.
The good news? They open a five-game road trip Saturday in Dallas and play in Chicago Sunday in back-to-back matinees.
“We are definitely comfortable on the road, I’m not sure what it is,” mused McDavid. “We seem to be able to find a way to put games together on the road. This is a big back-to-back here. Dallas is a team we have had trouble with in their building and Chicago as well. We have to find a way to put together two wins.”
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Out of the blue during the third period the Oilers and Montreal Canadiens announced a trade. The Oilers get veteran backup goalie Al Montoya, and give the Habs a fifth-round draft pick – which becomes a fourth-rounder if Montoya plays seven games this season for Edmonton.
Montoya makes $1.06 million and is signed through next season. While the Oilers are playing this as a chance for current backup Laurent Brossoit to go to the farm and get some games in, the reality is Montoya will be the No. 2 to Cam Talbot for the remainder of this season and next.
It’s unlikely the Oilers will re-sign Brossoit, who is a restricted free agent this summer. And even if they did make him an offer, the two NHL jobs are now taken.
“It was something we thought we needed to provide our group a while ago. It just doesn’t happen over night,” explained McLellan. “We’ve put ourselves in a situation now where Cam is going to play a ton of hockey and a young goaltender isn’t going to get as much as we originally thought he would at the beginning of the year.”
Montoya is said to be ready to come off injured reserve (concussion) as soon as this weekend. Brossoit was unavailable for comment post-game.
Barring injury, we’d wager he’s played his last game as an Oiler.
EDMONTON — It took a shootout for the Edmonton Oilers to bust out of their slump.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored the shootout winner as the Oilers snapped a four-game losing skid with a 2-1 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday.
Kris Russell scored in regulation for the Oilers (18-20-3), who were outscored 10-0 in their previous two games.
"You never want to give away important points in divisional games, but we got the extra one and that’s what matters most," said Oilers goalie Cam Talbot, who made 33 saves. "We leave on a road trip with some confidence against a really good team. The way we played, the way we defended, we can take a lot of positives from this game and carry it forward on the trip."
Oilers captain Connor McDavid picked up an assist, his first point in four games, to end the longest drought of his brief NHL career.
"It’s been a while since we put a performance like that together. It’s a good win for us," he said. "It is so tight in the West, nobody is really out of it. It is easy to say and harder to do, but we’ll find a way here."
Ryan Kesler replied for the Ducks (19-14-9), who saw a three-game winning streak come to an end.
"We didn’t have a very good start, it was like we were skating with our boots on and they were playing with their skates on," said Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle. "We were playing catch-up and if it wasn’t for our goalie, he kept us in the hockey game and gave us a chance.
"We battled back and we got a point in the game and we have to credit our goaltender and our power play and special teams."
Edmonton controlled the bulk of the play in the scoreless first period, outshooting the Ducks 13-2.
After being denied on a breakaway earlier in the middle frame, McDavid set up the game’s first goal with eight minutes remaining in the second period, dropping a puck back to Russell on an odd-man break to allow the Oilers defenceman to beat Ducks goalie John Gibson and score his third goal of the season.
It was Edmonton’s first goal in 153:43 after getting shut out their previous two games.
The Ducks picked up their game in the second, though, putting 15 shots on Talbot.
Anaheim tied the game on the power play just 18 seconds into the third period when Kesler tipped in a Cam Fowler point shot for his first goal of the season.
Edmonton had a pair of power plays in overtime and some great chances, but couldn’t score, sending the game to the shootout.
Both teams are back at it on Saturday night, with Ducks playing the third game of a five-game trip in Calgary, while the Oilers embark on a five-game trip of their own, starting in Dallas.
Notes: It was the first of four meetings between the Oilers and Ducks this season, and first encounter since Anaheim prevailed over Edmonton in Game 7 of the second round of last year’s playoffs… Edmonton came into the game with the worst home penalty-killing record in NHL history of just 55.6 per cent this season… Oilers forward Patrick Maroon served the first portion of a two-game suspension for a hit to the head of L.A.’s Drew Doughty on Tuesday… Among those out for the Ducks were Patrick Eaves (lower body) and Corey Perry (lower body).
This in from TSN’s Darren Dreger talked to TSN1260’s Dustin Nielson: “These two clubs came real close to making a pretty big trade not that long ago and just couldn’t get it done, and that trade was Taylor Hall for, I think they finally got to a place where Ottawa was willing to consider Cody Ceci, so it would have been Hall for Ceci, but it had to be cleared in Ottawa through ownership and before they could get clearance Hall got traded to New Jersey for Larsson.”
Dreger said there would not have been more coming from Ottawa. “There were varying scenarios, I believe, if memory serves, that were discussed between Ottawa and Edmonton but I think that that was the one that was the closest.”
My take
Dreger is a credible source who does a lot of good work, but he doesn’t always get every single detail right. Very few reporters do, even the best reporters. Last July he reported it would be a surprise to see Leon Draisaitl sign with the Oilers for anything less than $9 million per. Draisaitl signed for $8.5 million per. In early June, well before the Jordan Eberle trade, he reported Eberle would definitely get traded. Bingo! In June 2016 he talked about the Winnipeg Jets being willing to move Jacob Trouba for Darnell Nurse, but the Oilers not willing to make that move. At the same time he reported the Oilers were interested in Kevin Shattenkirk, which has now been confirmed. In March 2014 Dreger ripped Nail Yakupov and said it would be unlikely he’d be back with the Oilers for the 2014-15 season. But Yak was back. In June 2015, Dreger had the New York Rangers getting a first round pick for goalie Cam Talbot, who eventually came to Edmonton for a lesser package of picks. As mentioned, Dreger doesn’t always get it right about what’s going to come, but he very often does. He does not make up stuff as his good name and good reputation are on the line. He’s a reliable and credible source in the murky insider world of NHL trade and contract speculation. Does he have all the details and nuance right about this Hall for Ceci proposition? Did his source have an axe to grind, such as maybe, possibly (and I’m just guessing here) trying to make the Ottawa owner look wonky for not jumping on such a trade? Could it be that the Oilers were trying to heat up the market and putting out all kinds of propositions in regards to Hall, trying to gain leverage in the market? In the end, we’re going on Dreger’s word here as he gives us no source, so I’ll put this rumour in the “likely/maybe” category. It comes from a credible source, but is unconfirmed. I put some weight in it, and believe such a deal was discussed, but something about it doesn’t sound right here, essentially the notion that Ottawa would have to be convinced to move Ceci for the high-flying Hall, as that move strikes me as a no-brainer. It sounds a bit off, no? At the time, Cody Ceci was a 4/5 d-man in Ottawa, getting 19:17 in icetime per game. He had 26 points in 75 games and was +9. It’s hard to imagine how he’d be good value for Hall. Larsson had been a top pick and was top-pairing in New Jersey. He was a much better bet than Ceci. The Larsson-for-Hall deal remains controversial. The vasty majority of Edmonton Oilers fans were pleased with it last year when Larsson played strong hockey on a strong Oilers team and Hall was less than stellar, after getting hurt, on a bad New Jersey team. This year it’s Hall who is healthy and playing strong hockey on a strong team, with Larsson banged up and struggling on a struggling team, so those who always hated the Hall trade are in “I told you so” mode, as is to be expected.
GAME DAY 41: Oilers vs Ducks
As for tonight’s game against the hated Anaheim Ducks, well, before this season started, we would all have been looking forward to this game as one of the big matches of the year. Now it’s a major disappointment, as the Oilers with 17 wins and 23 losses are out of the playoff race, given the inability to fix the team’s terrible penalty kill and lame power play.
Lucic-McDavid-Puljujarvi Cammalleri-RNH-Strome Caggiula-Drasaitl-Slepyshev Khaira-Letestu-Kassian Nurse-Larsson Klefbom-Russell Sekera-Benning Talbot
Staples on the city
To avoid another LRT fiasco, we should build BRT to West Edmonton Mall
At the Cult
STAPLES: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for Max Pacioretty? Ray Ferraro speculates
STAPLES: Maroon suspended. What does it mean?
McCURDY: McDavid and Nurse lead way in last ten game segment review
STAPLES: 13 questions for Oilers coach Todd McLellan
