Game Day 47: Washington at Edmonton
A chaotic but largely triumphant fortnight for Edmonton Oilers ended on Saturday with violence, disappointment, and more chaos. The Oilers fell 3-2 to Vancouver Canucks in a hotly-contested, poorly-officiated contest that concluded with a match penalty for a player on each team, penalties for all eleven skaters on the ice, and another black eye for the National Hockey League.
The Oilers nonetheless emerged from a travel-laden slate of 9 games in 15 days across all 4 of the league’s divisions and time zones with several dramatic comebacks, a few heart-pounding finishes and most significantly, a 7-2-0 record. In a hectic six day stretch this past week, the club recorded hard-fought wins over Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, and Colorado Avalanche before the last-minute 6v5 5v4 press in Van City that came oh-so-close to producing a tying goal.
The squad has finally returned to Edmonton for a two-week, six-game home stand which should allow the group to recharge its batteries to some extent. That goes double for Connor McDavid, who receives a league-enforced three-game vacation for his actions at the end of the Canucks game. More on this incident and the resulting suspensions a bit further down the page.
In the short term, his team must soldier on without their captain, who will miss tonight’s contest against Washington, Thursday’s rematch with Vancouver, and Saturday’s matinée vs. Buffalo.
Tonight’s opponent
First up, the Capitals, without question the league’s surprise over-achiever in 2024-25. Indeed, it’s hard to achieve any better than first overall, where the Caps sit right now with a 31-10-5 record for 67 points and a stellar .728 points percentage. They come by that standing honestly, ranking second in the league in goals for (3.54 per game), first in goals against (2.43), and first in goal differential (+52 in real goals). This from a team that scraped into the playoffs last season despite a -36 goal differential and were swept in the first round.
Lots of credit to go around, starting with second-year coach Spencer Carbery who is achieving outstanding results with what can be described as a mixed roster.
The club’s goal scoring leader is a revitalized Alex Ovechkin, who has lit the lamp 21 times in just 30 games, having missed several weeks with a leg fracture. That surge has put the Great Eight within 20 goals of the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, for career regular season goals. That pursuit dominates the headlines every time he scores, in the process obscuring the accomplishments of his teammates.
Which are considerable. Team scoring leader Dylan Strome’s 46 points in 46 games are impressive but not earth-shattering, currently ranking T-29th in league scoring. But he has plenty of help, as no fewer than six Washington forwards have over 30 points. By way of comparison, the Oilers have two.
Among the Caps scoring leaders are unexpected names like Aliaksei Protas, a gigantic 24-year-old Belarussian who entered this season with 13 goals in 169 NHL games. He currently has 19 goals with 19 assists to match, while his +26 leads the squad and ranks second in the NHL as a whole, behind only Leon Draisaitl‘s +28. Protas is one of ten Caps with a double-digit plus; five others are +5 or better. That’s three units deep of outscorers.
Then there’s a defensive group built around veteran John Carlson, which in the last 24 months has been bolstered by the additions of Jakub Chrychrun and Rasmus Sandin via the trade route and Matt Roy as a free agent. All are thriving.
Finally, the big surprise in goal, where former Golden Knight Logan Thompson has been crushing it all season. Through 26 appearances he ranks top-three in the league in both goals against average (2.09) and save percentage (.925) while sporting a W-L-O record of, get this, 21-2-3. Sounds like he might be good enough to help Team Canada in the 4 Nations Face-off, no? Sadly, he was somehow overlooked for selection.
From this distance it seems like the Capitals in general have been overlooked this season. To their opponents’ peril.
Tonight’s line-up
In the words of Oilers coach Kris Knobaluch, “Lines will be mixed up a little bit” in McDavid’s absence, with the suggestion he has not yet decided who will line up at left wing with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman. Which likely means that the well-oiled trio of Leon Draisaitl between Vasily Podkolzin and Viktor Arvidsson will remain intact. Adam Henrique and Noah Philp will centre the third and fourth lines respectively.
The enforced absence of McDavid along with the reassignment of Derek Ryan and Josh Brown to the AHL leaves the Oilers with just 18 available skaters tonight, meaning both Jeff Skinner and Kasperi Kapanen will draw back into the line-up after the club went with just eleven forwards last game. Skinner has 32 career points vs. the Caps, more than any other Oiler. Might this be his chance to skate in the top six?
Stu Skinner is expected to get the start in goal and likely will against the Canucks on Thursday as well, which under Knoblauch’s strict 2:1 regimen will leave the Buffalo game for Calvin Pickard. The (projected) goalie battle between a pair of Team Canada also-rans will provide a fascinating sub-plot to tonight’s affair.
On the McDavid and Myers suspension
Let’s start with this: Connor McDavid deserves to have been suspended for his actions against Conor Garland. His frustration with Garland’s quarter-minute obstruction clinic with the game on the line was certainly understandable, but his response was literally over-the-top, his stick coming up and over Garland’s shoulder pads to make contact with his head. That simply cannot be allowed.
Whether that suspension should have been one, two or three games has been a matter of debate, even as the league has already decided on the latter. That decision will disappoint some 55,000 folks who bought high-priced tickets for the next three home games with the expectation they will see the high-priced stars, McDavid foremost among them. As Draisaitl dryly put it this morning, “I guess we don’t overly care about having our best players in the league in the game.”
The league’s suspension video makes clear it was an act of retaliation, while downplaying the illegal tactics of Garland that precipitated the incident. Both players had their sticks raised, though McDavid came up and over and made contact with the side of Garland’s head. That’s suspension-worthy.
More galling to this and many observers is the league’s unwillingness to acknowledge the role of its own officials in the situation. Veteran refs Wes McCauley and Chris Lee had a rough night, missing some obvious infractions earlier in the game: against Vancouver’s J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson in the first period, and on McDavid himself in the middle frame. But the no-call on Garland was next level negligence.
While Wes McCauley got most of the attention as the more, uhh, notorious of the two referees, to me it was the back official, Chris Lee, who blundered here. As the above angle shows, Garland and McDavid were literally the two closest players to Lee as the Oilers’ star struggled to escape an apparent arm bar by the tenacious Canuck. Even if one were to accept NHL Player Safety’s view that the players were “tied up”, McDavid finally breaks free around the 0:10 mark of the vid, only to again be grabbed and spun around by Garland, far from the puck. This moment is also captured in the feature image up top. This is holding and/or interference all day long, and all game long for that matter. Yet even as he has a clear view throughout, Lee’s arm remains down the entire time and is raised only when McDavid finally retaliates.
To say I expect better from an NHL referee is an understatement. I would expect better from a beer league referee.
Not that a called penalty at that late point in the extended scrum would have had much impact in the game’s outcome, but the absence of any sort of a call for an extended foul with the game on the line surely played a role in enraging McDavid.
Yet the involvement of the referees went unmentioned, and both were back in action on Monday night as if their prior game hadn’t descended into chaos on ice.
Finally, the incident between Tyler Myers and Evan Bouchard. With the scrum going on in front of them, Bouchard glides towards Myers, one hand holding his stick with its blade literally on the ice, the other hand removing his mouthguard as if he simply wants to talk to Myers. The 6’8 Canuck responds by smashing Bouchard in his (unprotected) mouth with a two-handed crosscheck. It’s hard to accept that action warrants just the same length of suspension, but such is the compulsion towards “even up” calls in the NHL that it extends even to the realm of suspensions.
It’s galling, but there it is. McDavid, the Oilers, and perhaps especially their fans have no choice but to accept these outcomes, whether we agree with them or not. Deep breath, everybody (me included). The team is in a good spot in the standings, and it may well prove that a week off will do #97 some good in the long run.
Recently at the Cult of Hockey
STAPLES: “Enough of this crap!” Social media reacts to Mcdavid, Myers suspensions
STAPLES: New look at practice — Ryan out, Klingberg in
McCURDY: Undersized overachiever Derek Ryan placed on waivers
McCURDY: Player grades vs Vancouver
STAPLES: “Horrible officiating”: How the McDavid crosscheck went down
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