Long wait comes to an end as Isles pick up rare victory in Edmonton
As his playoff-drive team prepared to play former Oilers captain Doug Weight’s New York Islanders Tuesday night, Edmonton coach Todd McLellan sounded a loud warning bell.
Coaches are paid to be concerned every day behind closed doors, but McLellan was worried in front of a lectern microphone as he cleared his throat.
He was reading his team and didn’t like the signs before Game 2 of their eight-game homestand.
“One of the challenges we’re going to face is to make sure our desperation level matches theirs,” said McLellan. “We can’t fall into a comfort zone where we think everything is fine because a lot of the teams we’re playing are right on the (playoff ) cusp. I’m trying to convince our guys we’re there as well.” Message delivered. But it didn’t stick against the hungrier Islanders, who won their first game in Edmonton in 14 years, dating back to March 13, 2003, when current New York general manager Garth Snow was in net. It was two days after the hometown Oilers shockingly dealt Janne Niinimaa to the Islanders for Raffi Torres.
The Oilers weren’t awful even though the score said 4-1 for the visitors as Anders Lee got two, Andrew Ladd his 10th snipe in the last 20 games and flashy Josh Ho-Sang his first NHL goal. But while the second-place Pacific Division Oilers were there in body, their collective minds were missing too often.
Too many goalmouth chances that went awry around Thomas Greiss, who only gave up a deflection to Zack Kassian. Muffed defensive assignments. Another goal given up on their poor penalty kill the last few weeks. And the Isles were prepared to go for the black-and-blue look to go with their travelling white jerseys. They threw their appendages into all the shooting lanes.
“They chose to block a lot of shots (16 over the final 40 minutes) and we didn’t. They capitalized on their power play and we didn’t. They scored in the blue paint and we didn’t and not from lack of opportunities. They bore down, we didn’t,” said McLellan, rattling off a list of negatives. “They also scored on an outnumbered situation for their third goal. We also had numerous out-numbered rushes and got too cute, giving it away. We had a 2-on-0 and chose not to shoot. The giveaways-to-take-always ratio was probably 2-1 in their favour.”
So, yes, it added up to a threegoal loss with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Justin Schultz coming in Friday. Not exactly a bright light on a dark night, even if Ryan Nugent-Hopkins chose to put a sunny spin on it.
“Maybe we need a team like Pittsburgh coming in. Might help us a bit. They are such a good team and we’ll get a good taste of what it’s going to be like coming down the stretch,” said the Oilers centre, who has mastered the art of the chill by not letting a whole lot get to him.
Maybe the Penguins — who have 88 points, 10 more than the Oilers — will up their game. But this was about the Islanders, now 14-6-3 with Weight behind the bench after taking over for Jack Capuano. They simply wanted it more than the Oilers after they gave up four goals Sunday in the first 20 minutes in Calgary.
They responded Tuesday by scoring first with Ho-Sang ripping a 50-footer past Cam Talbot on a power play late in the first. Then after Kassian tipped Matt Benning’s shot home, Lee wormed his way free to bang a Josh Bailey shot past Talbot. In the third, Brock Nelson found Ladd with the rookie Benning looking the wrong way.
“Some mental mistakes cost us, a little wake-up call. You have to be sharp at this time of year. A little preview for what the last 16 games are going to be like,” said Oilers winger Milan Lucic, who had a strong night.
The Oilers didn’t stink the joint out by any means, but is this team beyond deserving better when they don’t bring their A — or even B-plus — game?
“I agree with what you said there, but what you learn is nothing’s given,” said Lucic. “If you have a prime scoring chance, it doesn’t mean it’ll automatically go in. It’s bearing down. They did, we didn’t.
“They got the big second goal (from Lee) and they were able to create momentum off it and all that type of stuff. We weren’t able to get the second one to get our game going and I guess the frustration built up more and more as a team as the game wore on. Learning curve. Like I’ve said, I don’t think we played a poor game or a bad game, but the mental sharpness wasn’t there.”
It was the Oilers’ fourth loss in their last seven games.
We’ll leave Weight, one of the most popular Oilers of all-time, with the final words:
“We were fast, we were really good in the neutral zone, bottling up the area and moving our feet and we had some really good Ozone time. They’re a dangerous team, Tommy was really good between the pipes, he made some really good saves at 1-0 at 2-1,” he said.
“The crowd was waiting to get into it and if one of those goes in, you could tell it was going to be a tough building to play in, but the guys really played well in our zone; they were quick and they were physical.” ON THE BENCH: With the Oilers falling behind early, McLellan leaned on his top line with Connor McDavid playing 24:05, Leon Draisaitl 22:27 and Patrick Maroon 21:24. New third-line centre David Desharnais only played 10:40, including just 2 1/2 minutes in the third.