NHL
NHL Playoffs
LAS VEGAS — There’s no such thing as a team of destiny in hockey. The game’s too hard, too fluky, too random to be preordained. A quirky bounce off the end boards here, a splintered stick on an open look there, an uncalled penalty here, a miraculous save there, and an entire series can be altered, an entire season derailed in an instant.
Advertisement
Especially this early in the postseason, with eight very good teams still very much alive. Everyone has reason to believe this is their year. Dallas has a superstar going thermonuclear in Mikko Rantanen, and the Jets have the juice that only the Winnipeg Whiteout can provide. Toronto has a 2-0 series lead on the defending champs, and the defending champs are, well, the defending champs. Washington was the best team in the East in the regular season and has the game’s greatest goal-scorer, while Rod Brind’Amour’s machine keeps chugging along in Carolina.
But there’s something different about these Edmonton Oilers. Something special.
Lose the first two games of the playoffs? They still win the series. Fall behind early? They still win the game. Blow a two-goal lead in the third period? They win in overtime. Fail to score on a five-minute power play in overtime? Just score a little bit later. Whatever you throw at this team right now, they can handle. They can overcome. They can beat.
So while “team of destiny” might be a little melodramatic, they’re certainly a team of tenacity. The moment never seems too big, not after taking the Florida Panthers all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final a year ago.
“We’ve come from behind lots,” Connor McDavid said after he teed up Leon Draisaitl’s overtime winner in a 5-4 Game 2 victory over Vegas at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday night. “We’ve obviously given up a lead today. We’ve won overtime games. We’ve won different ways. You’ve got to do that this time of year.”
Game 2 checked all sorts of boxes for the postseason’s hottest team. It extended the Oilers’ NHL-record streak of comeback wins to six after they gave up the first goal of the game in the first period. It was a gut-check for career backup and AHL tweener Calvin Pickard, who responded to a squandered 4-2 lead by shutting the door from there, making a pair of spectacular stops barely a minute into overtime on Tomas Hertl and Victor Olofsson. It was a showcase for Edmonton’s depth — two fourth-line goals — and a reminder of just how scary Draisaitl and McDavid can be. It was “not pretty at all,” in McDavid’s words, but it was another “W” on the board, another puck in the cardboard Stanley Cup.
Advertisement
The Oilers have scored 29 goals during this six-game win streak, and McDavid only has one of them. Imagine what they’ll look like when the dam bursts. McDavid was stymied all evening by the Golden Knights, but took a Corey Perry pass off the boards in the neutral zone and pulled the ludicrous-speed switch before slipping the puck cross-slot to Draisaitl for the easy winner.
“Just an amazing play by Corey to get it off the yellow,” Draisaitl said. “That’s not a great situation to be in when you have 97 coming at you at full steam. Just an all-world play.”
That’s all it takes for these Oilers. One bounce, one savvy play by a crafty veteran, one opening.
“The group’s obviously feeling confident, but I feel like our best is still coming,” McDavid said, in what the rest of the league can only read as a threat. “We’re just building and building our game. I feel like our best is still coming and I hope to see it at home here.”
For a moment there, even the Oilers were starting to wonder if they could pull this one out. They had taken leads of 3-1 in the second period and 4-2 in the third, but the Golden Knights wouldn’t go away. Olofsson scored his second power-play goal shortly after Evander Kane had scored early in the third, and Alex Pietrangelo’s shot from the point found its way past Pickard for the equalizer at 11:58 of the third. And suddenly Vegas goaltender Adin Hill, who looked so lost in the second period, found his game again. He made a huge stop on Perry with less than two minutes left in regulation, then turned aside all eight Oilers shots during a five-minute major after Nicolas Roy cross-checked Trent Frederic in the face in overtime (an inexplicable cheap shot that surely is worthy of a suspension).
By the time Zach Hyman pinged the crossbar on a close-range shot — at least two of the Oilers on the ice thought he had scored — Edmonton was wondering just what it was going to take. How many chances can one team waste?
Advertisement
“That’s what you always think, right?” Draisaitl said. “They did a good job on the kill. We didn’t create overly much. And then human-nature brain goes to, ‘They’re gonna throw one on net and it’s gonna go in and it’s over.’ But (Pickard) was obviously incredible, we made some great plays, and we’ll take it.”
It was an ugly, harrowing win, exactly the kind Cup contenders compile. And make no mistake, these Oilers are Cup contenders. Entering the playoffs, McDavid was miffed that the hockey world seemed to be writing them off after a middling season that saw them finish third in the Pacific.
“I just don’t like the theory that people are counting us out,” he said. “We’re a great team in here. We’re a dangerous team when we’re rolling and we’re healthy. And we are healthy. I think you’ll see that over the next little while, and we’re looking forward to showing it.”
That’s exactly what they’ve done in these last six games.
There are still concerns, of course. As good as Pickard was when it mattered most, he wasn’t at his sharpest in this one, finishing with 28 saves on 32 shots. Edmonton’s special teams were helpless against Vegas, which killed off all nine minutes of Oilers power plays and scored a pair of power-play goals. Vegas’ best players have come to play this series, with Jack Eichel and Mark Stone threatening on nearly every shift. And Mattias Ekholm, Edmonton’s best defender, is still hurt, out for at least the rest of this round and possibly more.
And, really, is this style of success truly sustainable? You can’t win 16 games by the skin of your teeth, can you? Can’t the Oilers just cruise to an easy 4-1 win one of these nights?
“I don’t think those exist in the playoffs,” Draisaitl deadpanned. “I’ve been part of very few of those, put it that way.”
Well, if any Western Conference team is equipped to handle this kind of grind, this kind of nightly test of mettle, it’s these Oilers. Having arguably the two best players on the planet — the ultimate security blanket — on the bench sure helps. But in the past 13 months, Edmonton has won a seven-game series, it’s beaten the indomitable Dallas Stars, it’s rallied from a 3-0 series deficit to force Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final, and it’s rattled off six consecutive comeback victories against two very good teams in the Kings and Golden Knights, putting the Oilers two wins from their third conference final in four years.
Advertisement
Yes, this team has McDavid and Draisaitl. But it has so much more than that. It has confidence. Arrogance, even. An unerring self-belief that, no matter what the situation, no matter who the opponent, they’re still in it. And they can still win it.
That’s not destiny. That’s just determination — the kind that can only be earned the hard way, which is the only way the Oilers seem to know.
(Photo: Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
Mark Lazerus is a senior NHL writer for The Athletic based out of Chicago. He has covered the Blackhawks for 13 seasons for The Athletic and the Chicago Sun-Times after covering Notre Dame’s run to the BCS championship game in 2012-13. Before that, he was the sports editor of the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkLazerus
