Oil Kings know how to rally
Since Feb. 7, Oil Kings have won 12 games after trailing
The Edmonton Oil Kings have plenty of reasons to pu out their chests this season. Owners of a 15-game winning streak and the top regularseason record in the Western Hockey League, the Oil Kings are also proving to be kings of the comeback.
Since Feb. 7, the Oil Kings have rallied for 12 come-frombehind wins. That figure includes their Game 2 and Game 3 victories over the Kootenay Ice. The Oil Kings swept the Ice last week to set up their second-round playo date with the Brandon Wheat Kings, which gets underway Friday at 7 p.m. at Rexall Place.
Oil Kings defenceman Keegan Lowe said that knowing his team can come back when trailing late has the group in a great state of mind.
“It’s definitely something that helps us,” he said. “We had that 11-game winning streak before Christmas and a lot of those games we were winning by three- and fourgoal margins.
“Then we had another (11-game win streak) at the end of the season. A lot of those games we won in different ways, where we came from behind or just one-goal games or held the lead the whole game. I think just winning games in di erent scenarios helps us a lot.”
Lowe had the game-winner in Game 2 of the Ice series, blasting a slapshot past Kootenay netminder Nathan Lieuwen with just 3:12 left in the third period. It was the Oil Kings’ only lead of the game.
“I think it’s the growth of our hockey club,” Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal said.
“We used a lot of those adversities in the regular season to help us in the first round.
“We’ve got to take what we’ve learned from the first round and implement it in the second round. We don’t want to fall behind too much, but we want to make sure we’re comfortable playing from behind.”
While some of the wins have started as early 1-0 deficits, there have been other, more dramatic comebacks for the Oil Kings. On Feb. 24, the Oil Kings found themselves down 3-0 in the first period and trailed 4-3 in the third against the Medicine Hat Tigers, before pulling out a 5-4 shootout win. They pulled out the Game 2 win over Kootenay at Rexall Place and in Game 3 in Cranbrook, they trailed 3-1 at the start of the third period before a five-goal blow-up to get a back-breaking win over the Ice that put Kootenay on the brink of elimination. In total, the Oil Kings have trailed and won 27 games this year.
One of those wins came against Brandon. The Wheat Kings went up 2-1 in the second period on Dec. 8, before the Oil Kings answered back with five consecutive goals to blow the game open. They went on to win 7-3.
“There’s a lot of confidence in that room, going into the third period down two goals, three goals,” Oil Kings forward Michael St. Croix said. “I think everyone in the room expects to win going into those circumstances.
“In the playoffs you’re not going to be up all the time. You have to come from behind sometimes and fortunately, we’ve been able to do that.”
Laxdal concurred, saying that there would be plenty more tests in a variety of forms coming for his team with the series against Brandon.
“We’ll face adversity,” Laxdal said. “That’s playo s, that’s hockey and that’s sports in general. Nothing’s ever easy in sports and nothing’s easy in life.
“If it were easy it wouldn’t be worthwhile, right?
“These kids are going to face some adversity. That first drop of the puck, they might hem us in for the first two minutes and that’d be their first test of adversity. There’s going to be di erent tests throughout the game and (it’s about) how we respond to it.
“Our group is a pretty calm group and they understand that they can battle back in games. You look at this group from where they were two years ago to where they are now and it’s night and day. It’s great to see these kids grow.”