SERIES STRANGLEHOLD
Oilers head home up 2-0
ANAHEIM, CALIF. After you’ve won Game 1 on the road, you’re playing with house money in Game 2, but sometimes, it’s just in the cards, especially when your goalie has the hot hand.
Lady Luck helps, too.
So while the Edmonton Oilers didn’t need Cam Talbot a whole lot in their 5-3 win Wednesday against Anaheim Ducks because Leon Draisaitl had four points and Mark Letestu and Adam Larsson each had two goals, Talbot stood on his head with 39 stops in Friday’s 2-1 victory.
And he also breathed a heavy sign of relief with eight minutes left when Cam Fowler beat him cleanly with a 55-footer but the slapper smacked so hard off the iron you could hear it up in the press box.
Fowler, who missed 31/2 weeks with a knee sprain after a hit by Calgary’s Mark Giordano late in the season, also blew a tire on a breakaway in the third, as if there was a sniper in the seats in an Oilers jersey among the other 17,000 Ducks fans at the Honda Center.
The Oilers were outshot, outhit and lost 60 per cent of the faceoffs as they bent but didn’t break after scoring 65 seconds into the game on Andrej Sekera’s screened shot that surprised Ducks’ goalie John Gibson.
The Oilers got a power play goal from former Ducks’ winger Patrick Maroon, and held on through the final 25 minutes after Jakob Silfverberg ’s hard shot beat Talbot in the second period.
In the second, the Oilers capitalized on a holding penalty to Korbinian Holzer on Zack Kassian to take their 2-0 lead on Maroon’s power play tally.
After some tremendous pressure, with Gibson waiting out Connor McDavid on a deke and Draisaitl hitting the crossbar, Jordan Eberle’s shot into the crease bounced into the net off the skate of Maroon.
Then the Ducks got one of their own when defenceman Darnell Nurse hit fourth-liner Jared Boll with a high-stick in the crease and Silfverberg’s power play 40-footer sailed past Talbot, who was screened by Patrick Eaves, to make it 2-1 heading to the third.
The Oilers played most of the period without winger Drake Caggiula, who drove the net on Gibson on his eighth shift of the night but stumbled as he crossed the crease and fell hard into the boards, appearing to hurt his right knee. Benoit Pouliot took his spot on the left side on the third line.
The Oilers scored on the first shot of the game after just 65 seconds on a seeing-eye 50-footer by Sekera that smacked the knob of Gibson’s stick. Then they relied on Talbot to get them out of the first period up 1-0 with huge stops on Andrew Cogliano, Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler.
The Ducks outshot the Oilers 10-1 over the last 15 minutes of the period with Kesler having the best chance while short-handed.
They also won 60 per cent of the faceoffs and outhit the Oilers 16-6.
Gibson did rob McDavid, sent in by Draisaitl, stabbing a 15-footer with his mitt and the Oilers had a goal by Kassian rightly waved off when Letestu shoved Brandon Montour into Gibson during a battle in the blue paint and the goalie was totally out of the play.
Sami Vatanen still wasn’t back on the Ducks’ blue line after hurting his shoulder in Edmonton earlier in April.
Anaheim’s Nick Ritchie was a late scratch with the flu and Boll took his spot in the lineup, while Rickard Rakell moved up from the third line to the No. 1 line with Getzlaf and Eaves.