If the best revenge is living well, then consider the Edmonton Oilers even for whatever score they had to settle, real or imagined, with the Vancouver Canucks.
The Oilers are Stanley Cup contenders one point out of first place in the Pacific Division while the Canucks are a middling soap opera currently outside of a playoff spot.
And, in Vancouver’s first visit to Edmonton since the officiating dog-and-pony show last Saturday that led to Connor McDavid being suspended for three games, the Oilers stomped the visitors into a puddle.
There was no violence to speak of, but even without their suspended captain it was a bloodletting on the scoreboard as the Oilers rolled out to a 5-0 lead in the first 32 minutes and coasted to a 6-2 decision.
“They had their little push in the second period there, but I thought we handled them fairly well,” said Leon Draisaitl. “All-in-all I thought it was a good effort by us.”
Handled them well? They beat the Canucks so badly there is word that George Parros and the Department of Player Safety might be handing them a suspension.
“I thought we were dialled in right from the start,” said veteran forward Corey Perry, who put on a master class in vintage Corey Perry gamesmanship. “It was all business for us.”
There was a lot of outside noise and a lot of people watching to see exactly how the Oilers would respond after last Saturday. Well, they responded with a vengeance, keeping their cool and sticking to hockey while still managing to humiliate their bitter rival on a big stage.
“It was a great game from us,” said Perry. “We found a way to put the puck in the back of the net and capitalize on our chances. The way they hyped this game up I don’t know what you thought was going to happen, but it was just another hockey game.”
Not if you ask the Canucks. They’ve been lifeless all year, but this one stung more than most.
“We’re disappointed, we’re struggling in some areas, struggling to string multiple games together,” said Vancouver centre Teddy Blueger. “It’s tough right now. It’s frustrating.
“I’m sure everyone has turned on us and they’re not wrong, we haven’t been playing good. But, at some point, hopefully we can turn it around.”
The Oilers who were being counted on to pick up some slack in McDavid’s absence were all over this one. Zach Hyman had two goals and an assist. Draisaitl had a goal and two assists. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a goal and an assist and the power play scored twice.
And then the third and fourth lines chipped in with Adam Henrique and Kasperi Kapanen rounding out the scoring.
“You need guys to score and you need that secondary scoring,” said Draisaitl. “It seems whenever we’re looking for it a little bit and searching for it, guys step up. That’s what makes a good team.”
This one began exactly how the amped-up crowd at Rogers Place hoped it would, with the Oilers taking complete control. This wasn’t the last game of an eight-game, eight-city stretch, like last Saturday in Vancouver, this was rested and highly motivated Oilers team.
And the opening 20 minutes was all Edmonton.
Hyman at 5:52. Draisaitl at 14:22. And Henrique at 14:41.
The Oilers were up 3-0 at the first intermission and Conor Garland, at the heart of the McDavid suspension, was minus two.
Another one from Hyman made it 4-0 and a fifth from Nugent-Hopkins put the stake in.
“Coming off two losses you want to nip it in the bud,” said Hyman, who was playing his first game without a full face shield since his broken nose five weeks ago. “I thought we did a really good job not getting frustrated. There was a lot of outside noise but there wasn’t really much noise in the locker room. Everybody was just focused on winning a game and going out there and playing our best.”
Truth be told, Garland and the Canucks were only bit players in the whole McDavid fiasco. Edmonton’s real beef is with referees and the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. But they didn’t have anything to complain about as far as the officiating was concerned on Thursday — with Trevor Hanson and Brandon Blandina giving Edmonton the first four power plays of the game.
Unfortunately for former Oilers defenceman Vincent Desharnais, he took three of them before the game was barely half over. He got whistled for cross-checking, tripping and completed the Sean Brown hat trick with an interference call at 10:59 of the second period.
Draisaitl extended his home points streak to 17 games, becoming just the fifth player in Oilers franchise history to hit that mark, joining Wayne Gretzky (five times), McDavid (twice), Paul Coffey and Blair MacDonald.
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