Can it be true? Oiler fans jealous of Leafs?
Not easy for today’s Edmonton team to live up to days of Gretzky
TORONTO — It’s been a long time since the Toronto Maple Leafs walked out of Edmonton with folks saying, “Wow, if we could only be like those guys.” Well, never, actually.
But that’s how it was this week following three dominating Leaf wins over the hometown Oilers. The two teams went into their mini-series separated by only four points. After the trio of contests, the Leafs’ lead was up to 10.
The Leafs had been envied at times in Alberta’s City of Champions for their individual players. But as a team? Not often since they were one of three (Los Angeles and Boston were the others) that voted against the Oilers joining the NHL back in 1979 along with the Winnipeg Jets, Hartford Whalers and Quebec Nordiques.
Of course, the Oilers did join the league and they came in with Wayne Gretzky, Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson, while the Leafs were just about to fall apart completely in the wake of Punch Imlach’s second tour of duty.
Those Oilers stars set the tone for a style and quality of play in Edmonton and the NHL. With Gretzky and Kevin Lowe still part of the organization, it can’t be easy for modern-day teams to measure up to what the Oilers dynasty did in winning five Stanley Cups in seven years.
But, after the Leafs finished off three wins this week, having outscored Edmonton 13-1 while using three different starting goalies, there was indeed admiration expressed in the Alberta capital. It wasn’t about Auston
Matthews, who only played once, or even Mitch Marner. No, it was about Zach Hyman, who scored in every game and drove Oilers goalie Mike Smith — with his Undertaker look — to absolute distraction. Smith punched Hyman in the back of the head in the third period Wednesday, taking a penalty. But, when Hyman scored later in the period and again landed in the Oilers goalie’s lap, the best Smith could do was a playful shove with his blocker.
Even Smith seemed to say, “What can you say when a guy tries that hard?”
It was the Hyman work ethic and the defensive conscience of the Leafs that had tongues wagging in Edmonton. Hyman’s a free agent after this season and likely due a big raise, and scribes covering the Oilers were already imagining Edmonton taking a run at him if the Leafs can no longer afford him.
Until they faced the Leafs, the
Oilers had run off a pretty impressive 11-2 streak and, aside from the ongoing brilliance of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, there had been hope this was becoming a morerounded hockey team.
Players such as Dominik Kahun, Alex Chiasson and Jesse Puljujarvi had been making solid contributions.
What the impressively cohesive Leafs seemed to expose, however, was a lack of grit and work ethic among the Edmonton forwards. For three games, it was like the Oilers were playing with slightly less intent. They don’t have good-sized forwards like Hyman and Ilya Mikheyev bringing their nonstop motors to the rink every night. Watching Mikheyev outleg McDavid in a 100-foot race to a loose puck in the Edmonton zone was a telling moment on Wednesday night.
James Neal was back in the Edmonton lineup, as was Kyle Turris, but neither brought any energy or industriousness to the game. The Oilers have more skill these days, and their offence has gone from surprisingly mediocre two years ago (20th) to surprisingly good this season (10th).
But they don’t seem to have the lunch-pail types who can also play a disciplined skill game. That, of course, is what makes Hyman unique (and cheap at a $2.25-million U.S. cap hit) to the Leafs. Players such as Tyler Ennis and Kailer Yamamoto might bring zip, but they don’t have the bulk to crash and bang like Hyman does. Or Mikheyev.
Goaltending was also exposed as an Oiler vulnerability, part of the reason GM Ken Holland went out and grabbed Alex Stalock off the waiver wire this week. Mikko Koskinen and Smith have been erratic this season. In the three games against the Leafs, Smith was good for the final two periods of the second game after replacing
Koskinen, a 3-0 Leaf win, and that was about it as far as elite netminding from an Edmonton point of view. Teams never play to their potential when their goaltending is uncertain.
The Oilers, as the adage goes, weren’t as good as they looked in winning 11 of 13, and they’re not as bad as they looked while getting smoked by Toronto. McDavid had no points in the three games and Draisaitl had one, and that’s not going to be a repeating theme.
They’ve just got to find a little more will, particularly on the front lines. The player you wonder about is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the former first-overall pick who is an unrestricted free agent at season’s end. R.N.H. has become a versatile performer, more often a left winger than a centre, but he’s not likely to grind an opponent down with his effort alone. The trade deadline is five weeks away and, like all playoff-bound teams, the Oilers are going to be looking to make their mix a little better.
Oilers observers admired the Leafs this week for their energy and attention to defensive details. Those are things the Edmonton coaching staff, led by Dave Tippett, can control. The Oilers coach certainly wasn’t just telling his players to forget what had happened at the hands of the Leafs.
“You can’t put it behind you. You have to recognize what you’re doing, recognize how you played,” said Tippett. “If you don’t recognize, it’s awful hard to fix it.”
“You have to recognize what you’re doing, recognize how you played.” DAVE TIPPETT OILERS COACH