EDMONTON \u2014 For those expecting the Edmonton Oilers to make short work of the Anaheim Ducks in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the first 20 minutes of Game 1 on Monday night suggested they would be correct.<\/p>\n
The second 20 minutes suggested they were wrong \u2014 and the final 20 minutes kept the possibility on the table.<\/p>\n
Edmonton held a two-goal lead after the first period, watched it leak away during a disastrous second period and then came all the way back in the third, beating the Ducks 4-3 at Rogers Place on a late goal by Kasperi Kapanen, his second of the game.<\/p>\n
Oilers center Jason Dickinson, a defensively impactful third-liner who missed the final few regular-season games because of an injury, scored twice, including a goal with 2:39 left in the first period after defenseman Jake Walman sprung him for a mini-breakaway. He added the crucial score-tying goal at 11:30 of the third, after a Mattias Ekholm shot off Anaheim goaltender Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l\u2019s pads.<\/p>\n
Kapanen\u2019s first goal made it 2-0 late in the first period. Troy Terry got the Ducks on the board 19 seconds into the second period, and then, 4:19 later, set up Leo Carlsson with their own rebound opportunity off Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram.<\/p>\n
Anaheim controlled the run of play for the rest of the period, adding another goal by Terry that put it up 3-2 at the second intermission.<\/p>\n
Connor McDavid effective but scoreless<\/p>\n
Connor McDavid\u2019s streak of registering at least 1 point in every Edmonton victory this season finally came to an end, but you won\u2019t hear any complaints from the Oilers captain. His teammates found a way to rally for a third-period victory without the NHL\u2019s scoring leader finding the scoresheet. That didn\u2019t happen in any of Edmonton\u2019s 41 regular-season victories this year.<\/p>\n
McDavid had some dazzling rushes throughout the night, as per usual, but he also appeared to be forcing it at times. In particular, the Oilers\u2019 power play struggled to make clean entries, and McDavid had a couple of turnovers at the offensive blue line. McDavid finished with three shots on goal.<\/p>\n
Leon Draisaitl returns<\/p>\n
Leon Draisaitl played his first game since suffering a knee injury March 15 and made good on his promise to \u201cfind ways to contribute\u201d while rediscovering his timing and adjusting to game speed. That injury forced him to return home to Germany for treatment and included what Draisaitl termed \u201clonely times\u201d grinding alone on his rehab work, but he looked surprisingly spry while jumping directly into the playoff cauldron.<\/p>\n
Draisaitl moved around the ice well and found the scoresheet in his first period back \u2014 sending a touch pass to Kapanen in the slot to put the Oilers up 2-0 before the intermission. Not only did that make him the 12th player in league history to hit 90 career playoff assists, but he also became the fastest among the group to get there in just 98 games (besting former Oiler Jarri Kurri\u2019s mark of 117 games). He also picked up a secondary assist on Kapanen\u2019s game winner. If there\u2019s one area where Draisaitl will likely put in extra work before Game 2, it\u2019s on his patented one-timer. The sniper\u2019s timing appeared a touch off, particularly during a second-period power play in which he whiffed on one attempt and fired another wide.<\/p>\n
Troy Terry leads the way for Ducks<\/p>\n
As Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek revamped the roster during the club\u2019s rebuilding period, and longstanding veterans such as defenseman Cam Fowler and goaltender John Gibson were eventually moved out, Terry would become the franchise\u2019s longest-tenured player.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old right wing, who has been with Anaheim for nine seasons, joined a multitude of teammates Monday who played their first playoff game. He would make the long wait worth it with an (at the time) momentum-changing second period, in which he factored in all three Ducks goals.<\/p>\n
In the opening minute, Terry banged in a rebound left by Ingram after an initial stop on Carlsson. That got the Ducks right into the game after a rough opening 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Terry returned the favor just over four minutes later as his shot created a rebound that Carlsson knocked into an open net for a 2-2 tie. And when the Ducks gained a power play on Darnell Nurse\u2019s cross-checking penalty, Terry ripped a wrist shot over Ingram\u2019s left shoulder to give Anaheim its first lead.<\/p>\n
Anaheim\u2019s defensive woes<\/p>\n
If the entire season didn\u2019t provide a convincing argument about the Ducks\u2019 need to play a stiffer brand of defense, the Ducks were quickly reminded of that in the first period when the Oilers steadily gained better offensive chances and then cashed in.<\/p>\n
The Anaheim blueliners had some moments to forget. Tyson Hinds, who has six NHL games under his belt after spending most of the year in the AHL, got caught unprepared as Edmonton\u2019s Jake Walman sprung Jason Dickinson for a breakaway finish past Dostal.<\/p>\n
And it was 2-0 just 60 seconds later. Pavel Mintyukov lost a puck battle with Oilers winger Vasily Podkolzin, who got the free puck to Drasaitl. Eventually, Kapanen was free to put in a rebound as Mintyukov\u2019s partner, John Carlson, went to the ice on Kapanen\u2019s first shot and failed to bat away the loose puck. Then, in the third period, Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas fell to the ice before the Oilers\u2019 score-tying goal in the third period.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just the Ducks\u2019 defensemen who had it rough. Chris Kreider committed a bad turnover that sparked Edmonton\u2019s possession on the first Kapanen goal. Kreider would get moved off the top line to open the second as Mason McTavish took his place. Anaheim finished 29th in goals against during the year.<\/p>\n
Injury scares for Oilers<\/p>\n
The Oilers dressed a lineup at full health for the first time all season, but that didn\u2019t last long. Veteran forward Adam Henrique, a longtime Duck, clutched at his knee after falling awkwardly and didn\u2019t return to the game after the 17:51 mark of the first period. There was no official update from the Oilers on his status.<\/p>\n
Edmonton got another scare when Zach Hyman was shaken up by a reverse hit from Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe that appeared to leave him stunned during the third period. Hyman went straight to the Oilers dressing room for evaluation, but returned to the bench after a couple of minutes and took his usual spot on the top line with McDavid and Matt Savoie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 For those expecting the Edmonton Oilers to make short work of the Anaheim Ducks in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[233,146,5,4,465,466],"class_list":{"0":"post-557089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-draft","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-nhl-draft","13":"tag-nhl-entry-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116441070463757340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}