KLEFBOM ENDS THE DROUGHT
D-man hadn’t scored since March 4
Defenceman Oscar Klefbom went into the Dallas Stars game Tuesday with no goals on 75 shots — two lower than his Edmonton Oilers sweater number but who was counting, eh?
Certainly not the Oilers blueliner, whose shooting percentage of 0.0 was way south of Alex Chiasson’s out-of-this-world 41.7 per cent. But after Klefbom’s 15-footer in overtime eluded Dallas goalie Anton Khudobin on his 81st shot in 24 games, we can stop with the negative stats.
Klefbom did have the highest shots-to-no goals ratio in the league — but no more after the 1-0 winner. Now New York Islanders defenceman Johnny Boychuk has it. No goals on 58 shots.
Klefbom says he wasn’t that concerned about his O -for until beating Khudobin after Leon Draisaitl swept past Jason Dickinson and pulled rookie defenceman Miro Heiskanen to his side before delivering a sweet feed.
“Long wait, lots of shots on net ... but if I start looking at shooting percentage, I mean, you can find all kinds of stats out there,” said Klefbom, whose last goal came March 4 against San Jose, a few weeks before he was shut down to get his shoulder issues repaired with surgery.
“If I hit the net with my shots and we’re creating rebounds, I’m happy. But obviously it’s nice to get the first one out of the way. I tried to go short side but to be honest, I just wanted to hit the net ... the ice is usually pretty crappy in overtime. If you start aiming too much and miss it, that’s not good.”
Klefbom would normally be a spectator as Draisaitl and Connor McDavid work their OT magic. He would be the defensive conscience on the three-onthree. But he got into the play against Dallas. That’s what he does best if you talk to NHL pro scouts, who applaud his ability to be an attacker.
“I’ve seen those saucer passes Leon makes to Connor a number of times so I tried to be there for him. I knew he’d find my tape,” he said. “Seems like we have a mental advantage going to overtime with the three-on-three.”
The Oilers are 5-2 in OT this season and Draisaitl has six overtime winners since 2016-17, second only to Boston’s Brad Marchant, who has seven.
On Draisaitl’s eight shifts in overtime this season, he has two goals and two assists, so he’s figured in four of the five OT winners.
McDavid wasn’t up with Draisaitl on the winner, rare for him.
“Dallas uses a two-D system and they’re kind of just circling with guys, which makes it hard,” McDavid said.
“You would like to isolate a guy and Leon did that by out-skating him. But on three-on-three it doesn’t matter who’s back. Forward or defence. It’s three guys out there and obviously if there’s a two-on-one coming our way, we’d like Klef playing it, but at the same time, he likes to jump up. He’s done that a number of times since we started the threeon-three.”
Klefbom said “If I’m out with those guys, the deal is they let me go and read off me. But usually it’s the other way around where I’m reading off Connor and Leon and I want to be the safety guy.”
Klefbom played 28:30 of the nearly 63 minutes, the thirdmost ice time of the season. He went into the game possibly a little banged up but still had six shots and four blocks. And while he had some adventuresome moments against Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alex Radulov, the Stars’ top line, he got the job done in overtime.
He didn’t make a good play with three seconds left as Benn was all by his lonesome to take Radulov’s pass, but he survived because Mikko Koskinen stoned Benn.
“I thought, oh man, it’s going to be one of those nights. Benn and Seguin are not the guys you want to leave in the middle of the crease,” said Klefbom.
There were some Klefbom wobbles but he played 23:47 even-strength against Dallas and Larsson played 22:01. The Oilers’ second pairing of Kris Russell (20:57) and Darnell Nurse (21:59) were in the same ballpark.
The third pairing of Matt Benning (9:14) and Jason Garrison (8:44) didn’t get a lot of work. They were solid, creating more than they were allowing, but coach Ken Hitchcock says he needs the 5-6 guys in his rotation to play more — whether that’s Benning and Garrison or Kevin Gravel and Chris Wideman, who didn’t play against the Stars.
“There’s some things we like but they have to play better,” said Hitchcock. “They have to play more with the puck in front of them. We can work with them on that but the third pair has to get more minutes so we’re not asking so much of the first pair.”
I just wanted to hit the net ... the ice is usually pretty crappy in overtime. If you start aiming ... that’s not good.