Three wins in a row?
For the first two minutes Thursday night against San Jose the Edmonton Oilers looked like they hadn’t won three games all year.
A team that’s been making a habit out of slow starts and big mistakes doubled down on both counts, falling behind 3-0 on the first five shots of a game that looked over by the midway mark of the first period.
A Rogers Place crowd that was getting its first look at Macklin Celebrini couldn’t believe what it was seeing, only it had very little to do with the 19-year-old San Jose superstar.
One-zip Sharks at 26 seconds.
Two-zip Sharks at 1:35.
Three-zip Sharks at 11:40.
Three-nothing San Jose at the second intermission.
And then, naturally, the Oilers won. Some way, some how, they turned that stinking landfill of a hockey game into a thing of beauty.
“Never in doubt,” grinned Oilers forward Kasperi Kapanen, after a stunning 4-3 comeback win that saw Edmonton score twice with their goalie pulled before closing the deal in overtime. “It didn’t start the way we wanted it to, but that’s hockey sometimes. We knew we had to make a push in the third and this team is always in it. That was a good example right there.”
That the Oilers were able to crawl out of their latest hole and steal a win is a testament to the offensive firepower of their top four guys — Leon Draisaitl from Evan Bouchard closed it to 3-1, Connor McDavid from Draisaitl closed it to 3-2, Evan Bouchard from Draisaitl tied it with 59 seconds left in regulation and Hyman from McDavid won it in OT.
“When you play 82 games, some are going to be really good and some aren’t,” said Hyman, putting this game in the ‘aren’t’ category. “But you have to bear down and stick with it and find a way. We were able to do that. Really good teams tend to find ways to win games all different sorts of ways.
“I like that we stuck with it but obviously we can clean up lots. That just comes with being more urgent and competitive. They outworked us for two periods and we slowly found our game.”
So, after nine failed attempts, the Oilers finally extended their winning streak to a season-high three games.
“I guess it was going to take a game like that, an ugly one, to get us over the hump,” said Hyman. “Crazy stat with where we are, but we won three in a row so we can stop talking about it.”
They aren’t kidding themselves, playing this kind of game is going to get them beaten nine times out of 10. Yes, they came back on a young team that’s still learning how to win, but try falling behind 3-0 to Dallas, Minnesota or Tampa Bay and see what happens.
This was the one time out of 10, and now they can file it away in the memory banks for the next time they dig themselves an ugly early hole, which not be very long from now if they don’t shore things up.
“The positives are that you’re going to be down by two goals in the playoffs, or 3-1 in a game late in the season, and when you (come back) you build that sense that you can do it and you have done it,” said Hyman. “I think this group is pretty confident that no matter how we’re playing we can climb out of a hole.
“You obviously want to start out great, you want to be in the lead, you want to do all the right things, but hockey sometimes doesn’t work out like that. It’s good for us to win a game like this. You don’t want it to happen often, but every once in a while it’s good for your team.”
Late To The Party
Edmonton’s starts have been nothing short of garbage lately.
Against Pittsburgh three games ago, Tristan Jarry gave up three goals in the first 2:57 of the opening period and went the distance in a 6-2 defeat.
Two games ago against Washington, Ingram got the hook eight minutes into the second period after his third goal against in 12 shots. Once again, he was hung out to dry.
Last game against Anaheim, the Ducks had a 1-0 lead at 3:24.
And now two goals in the first 1:35 against San Jose and 3-0 at the first intermission.
“Our starts have been not very good,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “The intensity has been there but not the focus and execution. The chances we gave up in the first period were horrendous where Connor (Ingram) has no chance at stopping those. Two of them were giving away the puck and they counter.”
This is the kind of stuff that got Stuart Skinner run out of town. An avalanche of goals and you couldn’t blame the goalie on any one of them. There was a wide open back door tap in on the first shot of the game. A clear cut breakaway on the second shot of the game. And then after Ingram made a save on a two-on-one, the rebound banked in off Bouchard.
“I wouldn’t say tough start for our goaltender, it was a tough start for our team,” said Hyman. “It was a lot of self-inflicted stuff that we can clean up.”
Ingram didn’t spend any time worrying about whether the goals were his fault or not, not with the Sharks continuing to swarm and the game one goal away from being out of reach.
“Just make the next save,” he said. “The next one is the most important one. You can’t take it back, you can’t change it, so you better live with it and figure it out.”
You Can’t Decline Penalties
Strange play in the second period when Mattias Ekholm got the stick up on Celebrini, taking a high-sticking penalty in the process. Only, the stick hit Celebrini in the chest and his head snapped back as a natural reaction to having a piece of lumber waived next to his face. Celebrini tried to tell the referees that he wasn’t hit in the face and to wave off the penalty, but they conferred and handed out the two minutes anyway.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com