All that had been going wrong was right again Saturday as the Edmonton Oilers wiped the egg off their faces and then wiped the floor with the New York Rangers.
The Oilers had been reeling, 1-2-1 in their previous four games and forced into soul-searching mode after getting schooled by Minnesota, and needed to show something before a five-day break in the schedule.
They did.
In a much-needed show of strength, they got two goals from Connor McDavid, singles from Vasily Podkolzin, Darnell Nurse, Evan Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl and a strong night in goal from Stuart Skinner to right their listing ship with a convincing 6-2 triumph.
“I think there is a lot to build off of,” said Nurse. “It’s one of those foundation games that you can gain some momentum off of if we take it and use it the right way.
“You want to be good on home ice, especially against good teams, and we did that tonight.”
The Rangers are playing a little loose right now, they were outshot 49-29 in Thursday’s loss to the Calgary Flames, and the Oilers took full advantage.
The first period was the kind of start a hockey team dreams of. Edmonton outshot the Rangers 21-8 and led 2-0 at the intermission on the long-awaited first goal of the season from Podkolzin and a short-handed killer from Nurse.
If Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick wasn’t the best player on the ice, the Oilers would have had this thing wrapped up before the second period.
Draisaitl and Bouchard, who checked out of sick bay and declared himself ready to play, put the Oilers up 4-0 just past the midway mark of the second period, then McDavid scored twice in the third to guarantee the win and finish with a three-point night.
Finally, the goals started to flow a team that needed syringes of antivenom on the bench for how badly the offence has been snake-bitten. None more than Podkolzin, who went 21 games and 30 shots on net without a goal.
“Hopefully the results will come for him and for all of us in here,” said Draisaitl, well aware that Edmonton’s actual goals haven’t been on the same page as the expected ones. “I think analytics tell a little bit of a story, but if you are not capitalizing on your looks, analytics are no good. Hopefully this opens the floodgates a little more consistently for us.”
The Oilers improved to 11-9-2 on the season and 5-6-1 at home.
“Tonight was one of those nights that we were able to put some pucks in the net, which feels good,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “We did it against a goalie that has been playing extremely well. I’d like to hope so (that they’ve turned a corner), but this is the NHL and you feel like you’ve solved one problem and you can move on, but it pops up in a hurry.”
SHORT-HANDED STATEMENT
The penalty kill is back with a vengeance. It came into the contest having not allowed a goal against in six games (13 chances) and then laid the foundation for the win over New York. It scored short-handed to make it 2-0 and then drew a penalty 20 seconds into New York’s second power play, setting up the four-on-four goal from Draisaitl to make it 3-0.
“Our penalty kill’s emphasis was to make a statement tonight,” said Nurse. “Guys like Janny, Brownie and Nuge (Mattias Janmark, Connor Brown and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) stepped up and were huge.”
“We believe in ourselves. There are a lot of confident guys who take pride in the penalty kill. We went through a tough stretch but there were a lot of foundation things we were building. We found some success lately and we’re hungry to build and grow.”
COMING BACK STRONG
It would have been very easy for Nurse, Oilers who’d been out a week with a concussion, to sit out the Rangers game and take an extra five days before the Oilers played again. But he wanted to get back in the mix and ended up scoring the first period shortie to set the tone for the evening.
The Oilers weren’t the same without him. They wilted in the third period against Toronto, had zero life against the Montreal Canadiens and were humbled badly, especially around their own net, against Minnesota.
He had a strong comeback in 23:30 of ice time.
“I pushed a little to be in, but with that said it’s the brain,” said Nurse. “With head injuries you’re not going to go out there until you feel 100 per cent. You want to be able to go out there and do your job and you don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you’re setting yourself back months.
“They (medical staff) did a really good job taking care of it, there was a lot of work that went into it, but I felt very comfortable to go out there and play.”
SAVING GRACE
Goalie Stuart Skinner had a strong bounceback game, stopping 33 of 35 shots. Getting run support helps but he also made some key saves to keep the Rangers from clawing their way back into the game, none better than the glove save of Chris Kreider late in the second period moments after the Rangers closed it to 4-1.
If it’s 4-2 at the intermission maybe the game goes a different way, but it wasn’t.
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