Shocking Sharks comeback ruins Oilers’ playoff return
Heartbreak washes over ocean of orange after San Jose’s Karlsson scores in OT
The Edmonton Oilers and their long-suffering fans unleashed 11 years worth of pent-up frustration on the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday night.
It wasn’t enough. In a stunning turn of events at Rogers Place, the Oilers roared out to a fairytale start in their first playoff game since 2006, only to watch the short-staffed and beaten-up Sharks unleash over 1,000 games of post-season experience in a 3-2 overtime victory.
The Sharks were without Joe Thornton, who is doing his best to make it back from a knee injury, and had Logan Couture playing in a full cage after taking a puck in the face late in the season.
But they were nobody’s pushover, storming back from 2-0 down to win it on Melker Karlsson’s winner at 3:22 of the extra period, taking a 1-0 lead in what looks like it’s going to be a very interesting series.
The initial 10 minutes was supposed to be when the Oilers were jittery and overwhelmed by the ground-shaking atmosphere. Instead it was Edmonton that took control, both on the ice — where the Oilers grabbed the early momentum — and in the stands, where the sea of orange sounded like cross between a rock concert and a riot.
Jordan Eberle, who waited 507 NHL games for this, started painting his name on the scoresheet early. He slid a nice cross-ice pass to a wide-open Oscar Klefbom, who sifted one through Sharks goalie Martin Jones 6:44 into the opening period to give the Oilers their first post-season lead in 11 years.
The Oilers came into the series with a decided advantage on the power play, and it showed itself in the first period, when the Sharks went zero for two and Edmonton went one for one, grabbing a 2-0 lead on Milan Lucic’s goal at 17:07.
The Oilers put themselves up 2-0 at the first intermission and looked great doing it.
But the Sharks, as everyone seems to have forgotten, are just one year removed from playing in the Stanley Cup final. They’ve built up a tremendous amount of character and resilience during that run and put it to use in dominating the second and third periods.
They ran wild over the Oilers in the final 40 minutes of regulation, outshooting them 26-7 and tying it on a second-period goal from Joel Ward a third-period equalizer form Paul Martin at 5:22 of the third.
The Sharks looked plenty good even without Jumbo Joe in the lineup.
“He’s a huge piece of this team — he always has been,” San Jose centre Joe Pavelski said. “When we get him back that will be nice, but we’ve had a few games to adjust without him and guys have done a good job stepping up.
“We’ve always talked about our depth — it’s good. And the structure of our team, what we want to do … it doesn’t change whether one player goes in or out.”
Late hits: The Oilers started Iiro Pakarinen on the fourth line in place of Anton Slepyshev and went with defenceman Eric Gryba in place of Matt Benning. Matt Hendricks and Jujhar Khaira were the other scratches ... Drake Caggiula stepped out of a penalty box and had a breakaway moments into the third period, but his stick snapped on the shot … The Sharks were 1-22-1 when trailing after two periods during the regular season and the Oilers were 29-2-1 when leading after two periods.