OILERS COME UP SHORT IN HIGH-SCORING OPENER
Avs gain early edge as teams forget about defence
COLORADO 8 , EDMONTON 6
It was nuts. There's no other way to describe it.
In a series billed as a showcase of the league's premium high-end talent — best on best to decide the West — the Edmonton Oilers and Colorado Avalanche delivered a wild, 60 minutes worth of madness in Game 1 of the conference final.
Fourteen goals. Two goalie changes. A controversial offside ruling. The game had it all. Except maybe defence.
And when the fireworks were over and last goal horn screamed into the night, the Avalanche won 8-6 to take a 1-0 series lead.
It was playoff hockey be damned as both sides traded breakaways and odd-man rushes like it was a high school ball hockey game. It was so loose that Wayne Gretzky, the greatest offensive player of all time, implored the teams to tighten things up.
“You've got to play defence, man,” Gretzky said on the TNT panel But the Oilers and Avs were having none of it.
It was 3-2 Colorado after one period and 7-4 after 40 minutes before the Oilers' valiant third-period push died with a Gabriel Landeskog empty netter.
“This Colorado team, their record in regular season speaks for itself,” said Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. “They were able to have that type of success because of the players that they have and the style of game that they play.
“They're fast, they can hurt you if you turn the pucks over, they have good special teams. It's going to be a challenge for us.”
The teams got after it early, with Evander Kane drawing first blood on Edmonton's second shot of the game, a breakaway just 5:04 after the opening faceoff.
Alas, just 36 seconds later, the Avalanche were even when J.T. Compher converted a two-onone after Edmonton's third line got caught deep in Colorado's end.
Two goals on four shots. It was a sign of things to come.
From there, the rest of the first period was all Colorado. Kane's goal would be the last shot Edmonton would get for the next 10 minutes, almost all of which were spent in their own zone trying to keep up with an Avalanche team that owned the puck. It was like the Oilers were playing a faster version of themselves and didn't know what to do.
The inevitable Avalanche goal came at 15:10 when Devon Toews hit Nate Mackinnon with a stretch pass between defencemen Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci for a breakaway goal to make it 2-1.
“The other team is going to do some good things,” said Woodcroft. “We understand that there will be moments within the game and within the series where the other team is going to present some problems.
“But our belief is that we have the people in our dressing room who can handle that.”
With two minutes to go in the first period, the shots were 14-4 Colorado.
Then, with time winding down in a period the Avalanche owned, Brett Kulak found Zach Hyman at the back door and it was 2-2 with 23 seconds left in the period. It was Hyman's sixth straight game with a goal and allowed Edmonton to get out of a period tied 2-2.
Wait? What? Yup. The Avs struck back quickly one more time, with Cale Makar scoring just nine seconds later to restore the lead. Woodcroft challenged the play as offside, but Makar didn't touch the puck until the Colorado player had cleared the zone, turning the play into a delayed offside.
The goal stood and Edmonton was assessed a delay-of-game penalty, which would turn out to be quite costly because Nazem Kadri scored on the ensuing power play 32 seconds into the second period.
Edmonton would get that one back on a gift — Ryan Mcleod sliding in a freebie after Avs goalie Darcy Kuemper lost track of the puck in his crease — but that only interrupted the bleeding temporarily.
Mikko Rantanen went high blocker at 4:40 and Compher's second of the game at 6:20 made it 6-3 Colorado. That was the end for Smith, who got the hook after giving up six goals on 25 shots in 26 minutes. Mikko Koskinen came in relief.
There was some unsettling news for the Avs, though, as Kuemper went to the dressing room with an upper body injury during a break in the action, forcing backup Pavel Francouz to come in off the bench.
Despite nine goals and two goalie changes, the craziness didn't end there. Former Oiler Andrew Cogliano made it 7-3 at 16:20 and, just when it looked like the Oilers were done for good, Mcdavid scored at 16:51 to make it 7-4 at the second intermission.
Three minutes into the third period, the Oilers closed it to
7-5 on Derek Ryan's goal and the game was back on. Ryan Nugent-hopkins closed it to 7-6 with 7:24 remaining.
That was as close as they got. Teams that take a 1-0 lead hold an all-time series record of 505-234 (68.3 per cent) in a best-of-seven NHL playoff series including 6-6 in the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Oilers lost the first game of all three playoff series — 4-3 to Los Angeles, 9-6 to Calgary and now this. That's 22 goals against in three games.