DOWN TO GAME 7 IN ANAHEIM
Draisaitl leads Oilers in rout
Mark Messier, say hello to Connor McDavid.
Back in the spring of 1994, the New York Rangers’ captain famously guaranteed his club, which hadn’t won a Stanley Cup in 50 years, would stay alive against the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference final, down 3-2 in the series. And they did just that.
Last Friday, the overpowering words from the kid currently wearing the C on his Edmonton Oilers jersey after their shocking loss to the Anaheim Ducks in Game 5, up 3-0 with 196 seconds left, were: “We’ll be back here Wednesday.”
Like a good leader, part father, part big brother, McDavid also gave Leon Draisaitl a tap on the arm to get the heck into the dressing room when Draisaitl wore the look of an anguished man as he leaned on the boards, watching the Anaheim Ducks celebrating Corey Perry’s doubleovertime winner.
So, yes, McDavid channelled the Moose on Sunday, even if he gobsmackingly didn’t get a point as his club blew the doors off the Ducks with three goals on their first six shots on John Gibson — all fivehole — and four in the first eight and a half minutes as Jonathan Bernier came out of the bullpen.
They wound up with five in the opening 20 minutes, one off the club record for a period, en route to a 7-1 victory.
Draisaitl continued to beat the Ducks like a rented mule this season, with his first career hat trick and two helpers, as his dad was visiting from Europe, and now has 13 points in the six series games.
Mark Letestu had two goals and two helpers for his best-ever game, regular season or playoffs, and has eight points in this series and 11 in the post-season. Anton Slepyshev had the other, while Rickard Rakell was the only Ducks player to beat Cam Talbot.
Draisaitl and Letestu were the driving forces, but Letestu said Draisaitl was the real big wheel.
“Leo led the charge,” Letestu said. “He picked up the puck on his first couple of shifts and you knew he was determined to do something with the first two goals. He set the tone for the whole game.”
Goals, hits, more goals. No points from McDavid, but so what?
“Maybe he’s saving them for the next game,” Letestu said. “We’ve got a big one Wednesday where he can fill up the scoresheet.”
What went wrong for the Ducks, apart from an icecold Gibson?
“Everything,” Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle said. “They score on basically the first three chances. We weren’t able to recover. As a group, we didn’t handle the puck.”