EDMONTON — It was former Edmonton Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish who used to say, “Never critique a win.”
Of course, his Oilers missed the playoffs in five of the eight seasons MacTavish was at the helm, so those precious victories back in the Shawn Horcoff era were never to be sneezed at.
Today, to their credit, nobody in the Oilers dressing room is fooling themselves after a game the zebras wrapped up in a nice package and delivered dutifully to the Oilers. The only thing missing was the Amazon van.
Edmonton wasnâ€t very good on Thursday, outplayed by a fast, hungry and more organized Montreal Canadiens team. The Oilers inexplicably won 6-5, but as the panel argued over who should be the first star — referee Garrett Rank or arbitre Chris Schlenker — there was not a single Oiler who was fooled by what went down Thursday night at Rogers Place.
“Maybe the last 10 minutes of the game, it looked like we were a team,†offered head coach Kris Knoblauch. “But the first 50, it was disorganized, it was a lack of work. It didn’t look very good.
“We’ve got a lot of things to clean up,†he added. “We can only get better right now.â€
The Oilers are a hot mess again this fall, though, as Darnell Nurse points out, “Weâ€re sitting here at 4-3-1. There have been some seasons with a lot tougher trekking from Game 8.â€
As is our wont, letâ€s look at the positives.
Edmontonâ€s power play dug it out of a hole with two third-period goals — the second one coming when Josh Anderson was issued an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the wake of Leon Draisaitlâ€s fifth goal of the season.
The teams went right back to centre ice, dropped the puck, and 58 seconds later, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was tucking home the game-tying goal, an infuriating bit of business for the Habs.
“The referee had the choice to give two (minutes) or 10 minutes,†said Habs head coach Martin St. Louis. “He gave two, and that gave them the game. That’s the only reason they came back.
“Even when they were leading 3-1, they led, but they weren’t beating us.â€
St. Louis is dead right: the refs did overtly affect the outcome of this game by calling that minor on Anderson, and even when the Oilers scored three straight goals to take a 3-1 lead, there was no debate over which was the better team.
“Definitely, weâ€ve got to find it here,†said Nugent-Hopkins. “We play so much hockey coming up, thereâ€s no time to think about it. Itâ€s going to be a mentality, and we need to address it right away. Tonight, again, we were lackluster at the start. We found a way to get it done, but we know thereâ€s a lot more in this room, for sure.â€
We suppose itâ€s good news that a team playing miles below its expected level can be 4-3-1 and right in the thick of it in the Pacific. And as Nurse points out, this is actually a pretty decent start to the season, compared to the last couple of years.
Hey — at least no one is getting fired around here.
So the power play rode in on a white horse, something that weâ€ve not seen yet this season in these parts. And Edmonton scored six goals, in a season where they had yet to score more than three in any one game.
Nugent-Hopkins and Draisaitl both have five goals in eight games, and Connor McDavid — though he still refuses to shoot from Position A in the opponentâ€s slot — had three assists and was dangling in perhaps his most dangerous offensive effort this season.
The goaltending was excellent again, despite the fact that Calvin Pickard allowed five. He played the part of Grant Fuhr on this night, refusing to give up a sixth goal, and his team rewarded him with a late game-winner.
That heroic sixth goal was scored by Vasily Podkolzin, who whipped a turnaround backhander up into the top corner at 18:51 of the third period for his first of the season — and first goal since the passing of his father Alexander during training camp.
He thanked his teammates, the fans, and even the media for all the love and support he received, then laughed when someone suggested heâ€d worked on that goal over and over at practice.
“Iâ€ve never practised getting a pass from the blue line and backhand it in. Iâ€m not a (Evgeni) Malkin, or a guy like him,†Podkolzin said. “I saw how he scored against the Oilers 10 years ago on a spin-o-rama backhand. Iâ€m not like that. But that was a nice goal.â€
If allâ€s well that ends well, then the Oilers will sleep well after winning the final 10 minutes with three goals in front of a raucous crowd, evenly dispersed with Oilers blue-and-orange and the historic uniform of the Canadiens.
But make no mistake — this brand of hockey wonâ€t win on most nights.
And these refs arenâ€t coming on the road with you.
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