‘The best of Evander Kane in Game 4’: Rishaug on exceptional performance

‘The best of Evander Kane in Game 4’: Rishaug on exceptional performance

For more reaction, I’m now joined by our Edmonton bureau chief from the arena. Here he is, Ryan Rashard, or should I say Rashad. Ryan Rashad, our Edmonton bureau chief. Good to see you, buddy. Looking good. Listen, hey, Stu Skinner, you know, he he’s he’s acknowledging your questions. That’s the important thing. That’s what I feel like. It’s all we can ask for. I mean, really, that’s all we can ask for. Okay. Evander Kane, I want to talk about him, buddy. 91 a factor on all three goals. Not just that, though. doing Evander Kane like things throughout the entire game to help his team win. What did you think of his performance in game four? Yeah, very much the best of Evander Kane in this game, Jay. I mean, all the different things that Evander Kane can bring to the table, he brought in spades, right? Basically in on all three goals as you said and kind of in different ways. The first thing he did in this game was he skated straight to the net, got into the blue paint, annoyed the opposition, had a few words with Zack Whitecloud. Well, then you look ahead to that first goal that they scored. It’s Evander Kane in hard on a forch check. Oh, by the way, showed up in style tonight. Rolls-Royce. He’s been doing that. But look at that hit from Evander Kane. That was Zack Whitecloud who he had just been chirping at that turned the puck over. Then there’s that mess on the second goal. He said he was pushed in and but he goes to the net hard. And then this one, bit of lucky bounce there off a skate, but he drains one. So Evander Kane, he’s physical, he can score, he’s got a great shot, he’s on the right side of it in every way right now, Jay. So right start to finish from showing up in style. Uh on a night like this when the Oders needed solid performances, uh he was exceptional. And Chris Knobblock has been exceptional to me, Ryan, in the way he reads this team and the way he switches up lines, the defense pairings, splitting up McDavid and Dryidle. That seemed to pay off pretty well in game four as well. Yeah, there’s one thing I want to point to, one decision. So, Leon Dryidle had a tough game last game. We were all wondering what were they going to get from Leon Dryidle tonight? You expected a bounceback performance. Here was the message that Chris Knobblock sent Leon Dryidle. He decided to give him two hard charging, fast skating, hardworking fourthline players on his wing, Pod Kohl’s and Kain. And then he said, “We’re going to hard match you all night long against Jack Eel.” So he gave him an incredibly important defensive assignment, Jay. Rather than saying, “Go outsore the mistakes, you know, earn it back by getting points,” he gave him an incredibly important assignment. And Dryidtle was really good defensively. Jack Eel not a single shot on net at even strength. Dryidle was on the ice for roughly nine of Eichel’s 13 even strength minutes. That line hard matched against them all night long. So he taps into the details in Dryidle’s game. He taps into his competitive pride, not wanting to lose that matchup against Ekeel. And he gave him two fourthline wingers making the message clear. Jay, straight lines, hard work. That line was excellent. This was a great bounceback performance from Dry Cidle and a really smart move from Chris Knobblock. And speaking of bounceback performances, Stu Skinner needed a big game. Boy, did he ever deliver on the evening. 23 saves, gets the shut out. How important do you think this will be for his confidence going forward? Yeah, I think it’ll be really important. You know, 0 and3 Calvin Picker comes in and goes six and0. Everybody knows what those numbers mean. And there’s a lot of pressure in this city. You know, Stu Skinner was asked about that. how do you how do you manage to kind of keep the noise out? And he was like, “What noise?” In other words, he doesn’t hear any of it. Or at least he doesn’t want anyone to think he hears any of it. But he came out tonight and didn’t see a ton of pucks, but made some excellent saves in the first period and made some tough saves in the first period. He admitted after when you see shots that are that tough early on, it really gets you relaxed and gets you feeling it. So, he was confident right from the get-go. Made good saves all the way through this game. Stuart Skinner really needed this. Whether he listens to the outside noise or not, the stats don’t lie. The results don’t lie. He bounced back strong. He needed this performance. He’s got a really good high-end game, Jay. When he taps into that high-end game, he might take you to a Stanley Cup final all the way to game seven. Maybe he hasn’t been in command of that high-end game recently. He found it here tonight. I want to talk to you about the others defense pairings. Uh Chris Knoblock tinkering a bit with that as well. Ryan and Craig Button talked about it earlier. Brett Kulak, it’s playoff Brett Kulak. He’s playing incred Troy Ster is playing incredible hockey. It’s getting to the point, Ryan, where’s Matias? Who are they going to take out of this lineup to get Matias back in? I realize Matias will go back in. They’ll do it. But it’s a nice problem to have, isn’t it, for a team that was maybe concerned about defense going into this postseason? Well, you think about when the postseason started, you had Jake Wallman was injured at the end of the season. They didn’t know what his game was going to look like. And you had John Clingberg who really hadn’t played quality hockey uh for a month and a bit towards the end of the regular season. And now you’ve got top four defenseman in both of those guys. But to your point about Knoblock and Paul Coffee here uh who runs the blue line, they make the call to take Emerson out, a good penalty killer, and go with Troy Stcher. They love the competitiveness of Troy Sterch. Not a big guy, but they love the way he skates and competes and doesn’t back down from anybody. They inject that into the lineup tonight. It’s a gutsy call and Ster played really well. Look, there were four new lines and three new D pairings coming into this game tonight. Some of them had spent time together before, but a couple of them were first time lines he put together. Bottom line, Jay, all of it worked. All four lines had positive contributions on this night. All three D pairings looked good. So, it was a nice touch by the coaching staff in this game here tonight. And now the Oilers one win away from returning to the Western Conference Final. The series shifts back to Vegas for Wednesday night. And we’ll talk to Ryan Rashog from T-Mobile Arena. This is our Edmonton Chief. Oh, sorry, Rashard. Rashard. It’s Rashard. Yeah, get that get that right, please. I will. I will.

What did you think about Evander Kane’s Game 4? How did splitting up Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl pay off? How important was this win for Stuart Skinner’s confidence? TSN Oilers reporter Ryan Rishaug joins SC with Jay Onrait to discuss.