It’s not how they drew it up in practice.
And it’s not the kind of game they’ve been promising to play for weeks.
But on another one of those nights when the Edmonton Oilers fell back on their own habits and dug themselves a precarious hole, they dug in and outscored their mistakes 5-4 in a thrilling comeback victory over the Ottawa Senators.
Two goals from Leon Draisaitl (who had a five-point night), one from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the equalizer from Zach Hyman with 1:25 to play in regulation and the winner from Evan Bouchard in overtime pulled two points from the brink of defeat.
The Oilers won this game the way they’ve won a lot of their games this year — easing their way in, digging a difficult hole and then launching a furious third-period rally in an attempt to pull something out of the fire.
“We did a good job in the third of putting them on their heels and keeping it fairly simple,” said Draisaitl, who has 10 points in his last three games. “We just needed two plays and it ended up working out for us. But we have to be careful to be in those situations too many times. You can’t keep chasing games going into the third, it’s not a recipe for success.”
It was exciting. And they’re starving for points, but it’s not sustainable and they know it.
“We’re not coming off this game patting ourselves on the back,” admitted Hyman. “We’ve been to the finals two years in a row, we know what it takes. We know what type of hockey you have to play.”
This isn’t it. But with the standings as tight as they are, they’re not about to start critiquing a desperately-needed comeback win.
“At this time you take any point you can get, and there are a lot of positives, for sure,” said Draisaitl, who has been beating the team defence drum since before the Olympic break.
“But there are also still some things that we need to clean up. As a group we can be better, just make it a little easier on ourselves. That’s what it comes down to.”
Work In Progress
Fans who came to the rink expecting to see the Oilers cut down on the goals against and commit to tight, disciplined hockey, like they’ve been talking about all week, didn’t see much of it in the early going.
The Senators scored twice on their first six shots and the Oilers took three minor penalties in a first period that only ended 2-2 because a couple of fortunate breaks around the Ottawa net (including an own goal). Leon Draisaitl got credit for both to up his total to 33 on the season.
And the hits kept coming in the second period, starting with Drake Batherson being left all alone at the back door to make it 3-2 and the Sens doubling their lead on a fire drill in the Edmonton end 41 seconds later. Four goals on 14 shots, if you’re keeping score at home.
“Yeah, we knew that wasn’t good enough, four goals in 40 minutes,” said Bouchard. “But we stayed confident. We know we can come back. We knew we had to have a push in the third period. The first two weren’t good enough.”
But when you’ve got Edmonton’s firepower and flair for the dramatic, you’re never out of a game.
“It’s certainly something that we can do, and we will do it again, I know that,” said Draisaitl. “That’s what we do. But, long-term if you want to go deep, if you want to be all the way at the end, that’s not a recipe that you want every other night in a playoff series.”
On the bad news front. Curtis Lazar left the game in the first period and will be out for the near future and Jake Walman didnt’ play in the third period but head coach Kris Knoblauch doesn’t think the defenceman’s situation is serious.
The cavalry isn’t Ccoming
At his media availability on Monday, general manager Stan Bowman said that while he’s trying to make something happen in advance of the trade deadline, any real change in Edmonton’s fortunes must come from within.
It still isn’t happening yet, but Connor McDavid still believes they are going to figure this out.
“I do feel like thew answers are in the room,” he said. “We’ve shown that we can play that way at times. It hasn’t shown up all the time, it needs to show up more, certainly, coming down the stretch.”
Zero breathing room
The very real danger of missing the playoffs altogether hit home Tuesday morning when they looked at the standings and saw themselves in the second wild-card spot, behind teams that have games in hand.
“There should be a lot of urgency on winning games and playing good hockey, but we control our fate,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “We don’t have to bank on other teams losing games, we just have to win our games.”
There are 20 games left and the Oilers look very little like a team that has what it takes to launch a serious playoff run. There’s still time, but the signs don’t look good.
“We control our own fate, that’s all you can ask for at this time of the season,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse. “Have things gone the way we planned and how everyone expected coming into the season? No, but there’s a lot of excitement and a lot of opportunity.
“It’s easy to look at it from a very negative mindset, that’s a default sometimes for everyone, to go to the negative side of it, but there is a lot of hockey to be played here. This is a team that’s been through a lot and is excited and is geared up and we have to answer that call now.”
There is a notion that the Oilers have been through enough playoff battles in the last three years that they know what it takes to win when it matters and they know WHEN it really matters. It’s getting to that point right now isn’t it? Time to hit the switch.
“I don’t know if there’s so much a switch but there have been stretches over the course of the year where we’ve played the way we want to play and showed that we can do it,” said Nurse. “Now it’s about doing it each and every night. There’s no more runway, we just have to go out and do it. We can talk all we want, we just have to go out there and play.”
“I do feel like the answers are in the room,” said the Oilers captain. “We’ve shown that we can play that way at times. It hasn’t shown up all the time, it needs to show up more, certainly, coming down the stretch.”
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com