Breaking down an eventful night for McDavid in Oilers’ Game 1 win

Breaking down an eventful night for McDavid in Oilers’ Game 1 win

well stry talk about an eventful night for Captain Conor McDavid in game one of the Western Conference Final and he he said you know had it not been him that got that goal had the ERS not won this game it would have been a pretty sleepless night and and understandable right that four-minute penalty to start overtime then the game on his stick and he gets robbed and at the end of the day he ends up scoring the game-winning goal that was kind of the cherry on top of a kind of a bizarre night for the captain yeah he was heavily involved a high event night for him in many ways and what I liked though about it was it was response so the four-minute penalty that’s a tough one early to start overtime basically and you could see challenged the ref and then there was acceptance he like okay I’m gonna go on the box and obviously you’re not loving it but there’s really nothing you can do they reviewed it they decided that was the case uh he has an incredible chance to Andre and Andre makes a good save you know Connor usually that’s automatic wasn’t able to get it that by that time again he didn’t throw head back and and slam the boards or anything just calm this and I think that helps his team makes them feel better okay well didn’t go the way he wants but he’s not losing it so we don’t need to lose it and then they go out for that second overtime uh a great for check by NJ NJ and Hopkins and buard makes a great pass to McDavid and he’s there to bury it and again he’s happy but he points that the guy who made the pass to me this the guy was just single focused on getting it done for his team and winning the games doesn’t matter who gets it done but he he was able to do it tonight but it was just about the win I think they’re a focused group and it shows and it comes from their Captain can you imagine how it must have felt sitting in the Penalty Box for four minutes knowing you’d made a m so you’re angry you don’t love the call and he didn’t but you gotta just sit there struds it had to be a horrendous feeling in fact here’s McDavid on how that felt sitting there for 4 minutes long really long really really long um miserable um I hated every second of it but I bet he hated every second of it and I don’t know if the broadcast showed it or not struds but after that penalty was killed McDavid came out of the box and then there was a whistle and he went down the bench and kind of fist bumped everybody on the bench in particular the penalty kill guys he was so appreciative that they were able to come through for him and that gave him a chance to come through for his team he had only scored two goals to this point in the playoffs he’d been piling up the assists like crazy struds but there were a lot of raised eyebrows at that TW goal total and I think that’s fair goal scoring matters a tremendous amount in the playoffs it wasn’t a high impact night the rest of the night for McDavid but he picked his spots and he found his moments how do you think he’s playing struds I mean there’s a lot of attention on him as as as the most offensively Dy Dynamic player you know in the in in the playoffs still now um he gets a lot of attention and you know when you see other series specifically Vancouver I thought they were really trying to be physical on him and take his space Away by using some really big dmen um and now in this series he’s facing other guys maybe not quite as big but you know quite mobile or experienced in defending with guys like tanev and Lindell so you know he’s going to figure out how to find some open ice and find Opportunities to do what he wants to do I think most often the he’s getting a lot of assists because so many people are drawn towards him that that opens up or frees up someone his linemates to find space or find opportunity to score endell and Chris tanv the two he was on the ice the most against 16 minutes and 16 seconds at 5 on five against Lindell had 50% of the shot share 60% of the shot attempt share I should say when he was out there against Chris tanov we have to talk about the penalty kill struds they were phenomenal in the first round perfect excellent in the second round perfect for the last uh few games of that series and then once again perfect tonight but that kill in overtime I mean we always think of the Oilers and it’s the power play that’s the sharpest weapon that they have right that’s not the case anymore their penalty kill is a sharper weapon now than their power play if that’s possible when Matias eom joined the Oilers you know a couple years ago he talked about the need of this team being comfortable winning one nothing games or going into a third period being up 2-1 um and part of that is knowing that you can kill a penalty when needed um you you can’t just say okay we’ll let them score on the penalty kill then we to score on the power play it doesn’t work like that and and they’ve taken a great deal of Pride the group that kills penales the the group of forwards and the group of D Tak a lot of Pride to say this is ours they’ve taken ownership of it and the way that they’re moving together the way that their sticks are in the lanes um you can see a real effort to try to push the puck to the outside of the ice rather than let them get the inside of the ice and you saw it tonight quite a few shots from the outside and you’re you know outside the dots you’re like okay well they’re gonna get shots from somewhere we’d rather them shoot from the outside the wings than rather right down Main Street so they’ve done a really good job on credit you know the coaching staff including Mark Stewart former NHL defenseman and creating this type of um kind of bravado and confidence in in a group that is really become very important as you mentioned for the ERS it was a priority for Chris BL too to to give guys defined roles when he arrived here I think he felt like things were a little topheavy and so he you know he came up with you know set pairs up front guys that were going to penalty kill together every single game they’ve taken ownership of it they’ve been one of the best in the league they’re the best in the playoffs they’re making a difference every single night now for the Edmonton ERS struds coming into this series there was supposed to be this discrepancy depthwise right the Dallas Stars generally considered the deepest team in the league lines one through four they’re blue line their goal tender the whole bit I have to say that at even strength tonight I thought the orders did a heck of a good job against Dallas I didn’t notice this discrepancy in depth I didn’t notice wave after wave line after line coming at the orders at even strength that they were having a hard time managing um are the orders maybe a little deeper than a lot are giving credit to them for heading into the series or what did you sense in terms of their ability to absorb anything Dallas had to throw out of it strength tonight I don’t think that there’s some of the name recognition in the ERS bottom six that you’ll see with Dallas or other teams right there’s some some some bigger names there I think the fact that Dylan Holloway who was in the minors most most of the second half of the year are injured is now in a top six role so that that kind of pushes guys down as well and not guys down but just puts guys on the third line that are a little stronger than fourth line um and you got to keep in mind Adam Henrik is still out or looks good by the way he’s been looking good in practice I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back for game two so that’ll even help more yeah so if he comes back and that really helps the Boost I’d anticipate he’d play on the third line he maybe Center uh there to help kind of just get a little bit more you know some some some good smart hockey and a guy that can continue to win faceoffs so on the other side though Dallas rupe hints he’s a huge part of their team big Center can score can skate um that is so you bring him back that pushes a lot of people down you’re not pushing some from the third line to the fourth line you’re pushing from line one down all the way down so I think that’ll help reinforce it but again the name recognition for the olders in their bottom six wouldn’t be what other teams are having and I think for teams don’t or players or fans who don’t watch the orders that often are UNF familiar with their group they might not recognize what this bottom six has been doing recently in the roles defined by their new coach got to talk about the goal tending coming into this series steuart Skinner and Jake ainger clear Advantage all the pundits and understandably so when you look at the two resumees but on night number one Stuart Skinner went save for Save and outd him for the win struds I can’t stress enough how important I think this was for Stuart Skinner because while he was able to grab the net back in the last series I wouldn’t say that he put an exclamation point on having it back in either game six or game seven he was good he did his job he absolutely went in there and he locked it down and he helped his team win no question confidence building for him but this is next level this is next round this is pressure like he hasn’t faced so to me this was a big step and we saw it immediately after the puck drop we saw signs of it yeah he did there was a breakway early and danov was able to score he makes a great save on that then Ben gets a second chance and he he’s able to to to stop that one too I think maybe maybe that helps him get going we always hear about goenda and and we saw that in the previous one where you know at times uh you know there was a game where maybe uh steuart Skinner would have four shots in the first 30 minutes like that’s not very much so I think he’s gonna get more or he did get more shots against Dallas he will continue to get more shots than you’ve seen in previous ones I think that helps him stay engaged in the game ready and then your mind doesn’t drift and I’m not suggesting he’s not intense but when you’re not getting shots you’re like okay when am I get it my next shot I don’t want to let this one you know fumble this one so I think that’s important for him as well so um he played well tonight the team’s gonna feel good about what he’s done and more importantly he may have put a little bit of Doubt into Dallas’s mind thinking sure this is gonna be harder than we thought to score on steuart Skinner for sure I thought he did a great job handling the puck too made things a little easier for his defenseman he’s not necessarily known as is a fantastic Puck handling goal tender but he thought he did a good job of that he looked calm in there right from the get-go and strudy that was a good sign for the ERS man because if they’re GNA beat the Dallas Stars they’re going to need steuart Skinner to be not just steady not just okay I think they’re going to need him to be excellent and I think when you’re at this stage of the playoffs I think that’s a reasonable expectation of your goal tending is for it to be excellent and he certainly was in uh in game number one thanks buddy this was fun we’ll check back in after game two Oilers and Dallas Stars set to go again on Saturday night

From a four-minute penalty in overtime to the game-winning goal in the second extra period, it was an eventful night for Connor McDavid