D-man Russell pots winner against Panthers
Defenceman’s first of the season caps big night for short-handed defensive unit
SUNRISE, FLA. Edmonton Oilers defenceman Kris Russell rides more horses than Harleys, but sometimes you’re the big wheel offensively on the road and your teammates slap a motorcycle helmet and vest on you as a loud thank you for a job well done.
While the Oilers lost a key piece of their back end for a second straight night, starting the game against the Florida Panthers without Adam Larsson and then having to go the last two periods without Andrej Sekera, they still managed a win against the hottest team in the NHL.
Russell got his first of the season in his 49th game, when he raced up with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and finished off a nice Draisaitl feed with eight minutes left for a 4-3 Oilers victory over the Panthers, who’d won eight of their last nine games.
Russell earlier banged a long shot off the iron and Zack Kassian picked up his fifth of the season — a goal that was originally credited to defenceman Eric Gryba — following a first-period blast by another D -man, Oscar Klefbom, past Florida goaltender James Reimer. The scoring change prevented the Oilers from getting three goals from their blue-line in a single game for the first time all season.
Three times previously they’d had two goals in a game by their D — the last Jan. 26 when Sekera had a couple against San Jose.
But he was a cheerleader for Russell in this one.
“Kris has had chances this year, but it wasn’t going in. Earlier he hit the post. He’s had some tough luck with his offence and finishing this year, but he made no mistake on his goal,” said Oilers head coach Todd McLellan.
They also got a goal from their struggling second line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins banging a shot past Reimer off some strong work from Jordan Eberle and Milan Lucic — all three players mired in slumps and coming off a poor night against Tampa Bay Tuesday when McLellan called them out without mentioning names.
But this was about the Oilers’ resolve and the unexpected offence from the defence.
“The farther we go, we’re going to need depth scoring,” said Russell.
“Really good play by Leon. He slows down the play and gets off the quick pass. Got it up high and fortunately it went in.”
Russell played 19 minutes and 55 seconds, while Klefbom got 26:32 of ice time, Gryba 17:20, Matt Benning 25:53 and Brandon Davidson 20:12 because Sekera only played 11 shifts.
Sekera stopped an Aaron Ekblad power-play shot 21 seconds into the middle period on his arm and immediately went to the dressing room. He returned for two brief shifts, but that was it. Ironically, he also took a hard shot on his arm late against the Panthers a month ago, but it was just a flesh wound.
This may be worse, although Sekera is a quick healer.
“How badly was he hurt? Enough to not finish the game, but I think it’s more of a soft-tissue muscle thing than anything else. We’ll see how he is tomorrow (Thursday),” said McLellan.
McLellan implored his team to get their foot back on the gas pedal after lacklustre games against the Lightning and Chicago.
“We figured we had about 11 players going in Tampa. Tonight we had 20,” he said. “Takes that many to win at this time of year. The message got through.”
The defence also stepped up big time. They had their problems against a good Florida team that pressures with their puck possession and three times came back from a goal down as Aleksander Barkov, Colton Sceviour and Jonathan Marchessault scored. They bent, but they didn’t break. “Three goals by the D? Yeah. They were active. That doesn’t usually happen when you’re down a D for half the night, but we found a way to get them up in the rush,” said McLellan.