STARS FALL
Oilers win their third 5-4
Nobody on the Edmonton Oilers said it out loud or wrote a headline with it. But the idea was to come back to Rogers Place and just start over.
I mean, think about it.
The Oilers hadn’t won a game in their beautiful new building since Connor McDavid scored three, Cam Talbot registered the shutout and Edmonton defeated the Calgary Flames 3-0.
Not one.
The opener was Oct. 4. Thursday night was Oct. 26.
It was like the opener against Calgary was an affirmation of all the pre-season odds and predictions projecting Edmonton in the Stanley Cup Final after their 103-point season, two rounds of play in the post season and Connor McDavid’s Hart, Art Ross and Ted Lindsay awards.
Some of the spectacular atmosphere from the playoffs could be felt in Rogers Place and certainly the Oilers sent their fans into the night high on expectations not just for 2017-18 but for most of the next decade.
Then, inexplicably, all the wheels feel off. Talbot couldn’t stop a beach ball, the defence came unravelled, Leon Draisaitl suffered a concussion, McDavid was fine but not leading the league in scoring or stacking up early Hart votes. Eight games in and the Oilers were 98 points south of another 103-point season.
But the Oilers went on a threegame road trip and Talbot and the defence got their game back and there they were last night, skating on the Rogers Place ice in their new orange home jerseys with Draisaitl back and starting on the No. 1 line with McDavid.
After sending out the Ryan Nugent-Hopkins line for the opening faceoff for several games, McLellan put out his No. 1 defensive pair, Adam Larsson and Oscar Klefbom for the opening faceoff with the reunited No. 1 line of McDavid, Draisaitl and Patrick Maroon.
Still, there was a distinct lack of playoff-type atmosphere in the building to begin the game, mirroring the depressed state of the town since the Oilers hit the skids after the opener. And it never really changed through three leads and a trio of even-up Dallas goals.
It was 10 minutes into the first period when Ryan Strome backhanded one from one side of the blue line to a flying McDavid at the other. The captain broke in alone and scored his fifth of the season to give the Oilers the lead in a game for only the second time since opening night.
The effect of that didn’t last long. Sixty-three seconds to be exact.
Jamie Benn. One-one.
The Oilers’ puck luck had been so bad this month that when Maroon was credited with one off a skate with 25 seconds remaining in the first to give Draisaitl his second assist of the night, you had to figure it was one they had coming.
If nothing else, the Oilers, outscored 11-3 in the first periods this season, had a first period lead to take to the dressing room.
But even when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored his third goal of the year to make this only the second time since the opener that the Oilers scored more than two goals in a game and equalled the most goals Edmonton had scored in a game so far this year, the crowd kept their composure, if you want to phrase it that way.
As the game progressed it was remarkable how much these two offensively gifted but misfiring teams looked so much like each other at this stage of the season.
Ken Hitchcock’s Stars, taking advantage of a power play on a Darnell Nurse penalty midway in the third period to go ahead 4-3. The Oilers can’t kill penalties and can’t keep out of the box. It was the third power play of the game for Dallas.
At that point the idea of coming home and starting all over again seemed unlikely.
But this wasn’t to be the usual first-game-home-from-a-roadtrip loss before the Oilers headed into their 10th game of the season and second game of a fivegame home stand Saturday night against the Washington Capitals.
No, this was the night to start all over again.
Nugent-Hopkins with his second goal of the game and Matt Benning with his first of the season sent the fans out the doors with a 5-4 win.
It’s highly doubtful if the euphoria lasted more than a block or two. This team hasn’t won two in a row yet.
But last night, they really did give themselves a chance to start all over again.