OILERS TRY TO HELP FANS SHAKE OFF THE GAME 1 BLUES
After vowing to learn from their mistakes, Edmonton comes out hitting in Game 2
The first thing that had to happen Friday night as the Edmonton Oilers returned to Rogers Place for Game 2 was for the town to bounce back.
Anybody that spent any time at all out and about in Edmonton Thursday couldn’t help but feel the depression that had resulted from the way the Oilers unravelled to lose in overtime to the San Jose Sharks, last season’s Stanley Cup finalists, after taking a 2-0 first-period lead Wednesday in Game 1.
Perhaps the best example was a fan that had ordered four Oilers car flags. Receiving a phone call from the store to inform him the new shipment had arrived, the fan drove all the way out to the location, walked in the door, went up to the desk to pick up his flags and then suddenly changed his mind and left the store. “Aw, naw,” he said.
By the time the fans arrived at Rogers Place for Friday’s 8:30 p.m. start, the fans were able to reboot and replicate the remarkable scene from 481/2 hours earlier.
While the Game 2 crowd didn’t quite dial it up like the Game 1 bunch before the start of the game, they’d started the “Let’s go Oilers” chant long before the home team left the dressing room and greeted them with the same sort of roar when they hit the ice.
Brett Kissel was back with the American anthem and nailed it again and Robert Clark returned for O Canada, standing in the middle of a crowd that was singing in full volume before he once again held his mic to the roof and let them take it home.
While the Oilers were a complete mess on their first power play, they followed up with a stead stream of hits, outdoing their opponents 22-4 in that department in the first frame. And the crowd payed them off with every one.
Zach Kassian came to the rink to play possessed and made the hits and had the scoring opportunities to play a part in turning the tide in that first frame.
Whatever happened to the Oilers after the first period in Game 1, it seemed the crowd helped bring them back to where they were before being outshot 34-9 in the last two periods of that previous 3-2 OT loss.
While it was 0-0 at the end of the first period, it at least looked like it was series on again.
It has been so long since the Oilers have been in the playoffs, people seemed to forget why the first round is considered the greatest theatre of the entire season.
Stuff happens in the first round. It’s one of the reasons Canadians love it so much. Teams run more true to form in the subsequent rounds, but almost always there are a couple of scares and a couple of upsets in the opening round.
Remember Andy Moog and the Oilers winning the first two games in Montreal and sweeping the Canadiens in the first round in only their second year in the league? Remember the last time the Oilers were in the playoffs in 2006 and Dwayne Roloson backed an eighth-place Edmonton outfit to an upset over the first-place Detroit Red Wings? Remember, too, when the Oilers advanced against these Sharks in a subsequent series that year and lost the first two games before winning the next four?
And on the close call side of the ledger, remember 1990 and Bill Ranford’s nightmare opening game against Winnipeg? Ranford gave up three goals before the Winnipeg Jets had a real scoring chance in a 7-5 loss and ended up down three games to one in the series. Ranford ended up winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
Maybe the cure for the funk Edmonton fans found themselves in came with the it’s-still-hockey-season white Easter snowfall Friday.
Maybe it was the Oilers players detailing their shortcomings and confidently saying there was nothing that happened in the opener that couldn’t be fixed.
More likely it was the second wave of Game 1s played Thursday.
By the completion of the opening games for everybody, all five Canadians teams in the playoffs — Montreal, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary — lost their first game. Five of the eight visiting teams won. Three games went to overtime.
And because of what happened in Edmonton in Game 1, there was a new focus for the fans beyond the scoreboard.
The 50-50 is getting great play around the hockey world with a carry-over payout of $336,995 won by David and Tanya Idzan just short of the world record of Connor Croken’s $348,534 from a similar situation with the Edmonton Eskimos.
Stanley Cup 50-50 payout standings after Game 1: Edmonton $336,995, Chicago $75,504, Montreal $39,385, Pittsburgh $30,043, Ottawa $24,463, Anaheim $17,118, Minnesota $10,000.
Friday night in Game 2 with no carry-over, it was up $150,000 in the first intermission.
The point is that Edmonton, with the first two Stanley Cup playoff games in 11 years here, has managed to make itself a story off the ice.
Stuff happens in the first round. It’s one of the reasons Canadians love it so much. Teams run more true to form in the subsequent rounds ...