Mcdavid and his magic touch inspire Oilers
Gretzky and goaltending.
That used to be the formula.
Mcdavid and netminding. Works just as well.
Yes, there’s all sorts of other pieces and parts at play. You need most of them going most games to win a Stanley Cup playoff series. But if you’ve got the two prime components, Connor Mcdavid and goaltending, you have a chance to beat anybody in a Stanley Cup playoff game.
And that was about as big of a Stanley Cup playoff game as you could manufacture as a test for today’s Mcdavid-leon Draisaitl era Edmonton Oilers here Monday.
A loss and hub host Edmonton would have had to try to become only the second team in this history of NHL best-of-five playoff series teams to go down 2- 0 and come back to win the series. Fifty-five of the first 56 to try failed.
Mcdavid was magic as he scored two absolutely gorgeous goals early and registered his first ever Stanley Cup hat trick in leading the Oilers to a 6-3 win over Chicago to tie the series 1-1. Ryan Nugent- Hopkins made some Oilers playoff history becoming the first Edmonton player ever to open a playoff series with back-toback three-point games.
No. 97’s second of the night as he danced down the ice somehow controlling a bouncing puck, was a definite entry as one of his greatest goals ever.
Mcdavid has been an absolute stud since the Oilers returned to play, clearly motivated to be all he can be as an inspiration and a leader. It’s like the 23- year- old has decided this to be the time and place to prove his greatness beyond a question of a doubt.
I have no idea if he walked across the pedway from the J.W. Marriott to Rogers Place Monday during the thunderstorm that preceded the game thinking about a tweet produced by a respected longtime American hockey writer earlier in the day. But it’s the kind of thing that most greats of the game have to endure until they win a championship.
Maybe it was the 14 days of quarantine upon arrival but when he emerged, Denver hockey writer Adrian Dater immediately went to Game 1 of the Blackhawks- Oilers series and was inspired to tweet the following:
“Regretting my Oilers pick over Chicago. Connor Mcdavid is a brilliant talent but a personality- deficient guy. I think his blandness rubs off too much on his teammates. Happy to hear opinions to the contrary but fact is he doesn’t inspire others.”
Mcdavid’s responses came at 0:19 and 4: 05 of the first period to give the Oilers a 2- 0 lead and again at 17: 10 of the second after the Blackhawks tied it up 3-3.
Mcdavid gave the Oilers the goals while the team fought to find the components in terms of winning their share of the battles and little races to the puck that they hadn’t managed in their no-show 6-4 loss in the series opener Saturday. Most of them succeeded.
After saying the Oilers were “embarrassed” by their effort in Game 1, local teammate Tyler Ennis was invited to the zoom media interview room to sit beside Mcdavid.
“Connor led the way, especially early. He set the tone for us and gave us the spark, which was exactly what we needed, and everybody followed.”
Coach Dave Tippett marvelled at how Mcdavid grabbed the game by the throat.
“Those first two goals were very strong goals that sent a very strong message to our team that he’s here to play — but I liked the way our whole team responded.”
It was interesting that goaltender Mikko Koskinen was not one of the four players invited to the post-game media availability. And there wasn’t one question about his performance directed at his teammates or his coach.
Koskinen kept the Oilers level or leading in the game from start to finish. He didn’t give up that ridiculously soft goal early that seems to take the air out of this team. It most certainly did when Mike Smith turned the puck over and allowed an early goal to be scored off his back from behind the net in Game 1.
Koskinen played a steady, solid game as he stopped 23 of 26 shots after stopping 18 of 19 in relief of Smith who allowed five in less than half the game Saturday to record the first Stanley Cup win of his career.
To beat the Blackhawks in this series, steady goaltending behind a hungry hockey team willing to engage in all those little battles will do it.
There’s a major mismatch there between a seriously inadequate Blackhawks defence and Edmonton’s exceptional playmaking skill.