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R1 G1 Sharks at Oilers: The Wait Is Over |
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It gives me shivers. Tonight the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin and the Edmonton Oilers, for the first time since game 7 of the Cup final in 2006, will be staking their claim.
The story of the Edmonton Oilers is one of futility and frustration and – hopefully – redemption. After several years of failure, the Edmonton Oilers committed to a rebuild in 2009 that cost them everything. Managers, coaches, even training staff felt the purge over time. Finger pointing and blame laying were central to the Oiler experience for over a decade. Countless players, so many of them not good enough to remain in the league at all, skated through the Oil Rig and onto the ice. Reciting their names would serve no purpose but to invoke the memory of pain. Unlike Homer, I’ll save you the catalogue of ships and we’ll move right into the action.
When Edmonton was gifted Connor McDavid through nothing but good fortune it forced the club to change direction again. It forced the team to become more accountable to wins and losses. That attitude forced, perhaps, the club to move out legitimately good players to fill holes in the lineup that had gone willfully and woefully ignored. And the fruits of the sacrifice have turned into playoff games. Peter Chiarelli and Connor McDavid have delivered us that. It was a difficult summer and there may yet be consequences down the road because of Lucic’s contract or the Reinhart trade but today – TODAY – Edmonton owns a legitimate chance of making it beyond one round of the playoff. And should that happen, the team who remains the healthiest might be able to take a wide open Western conference.
The Oilers play the San Jose Sharks, a team that has traditionally abused them, in this series. However, this season the Oil have flipped the script. Edmonton has the best record of any team in the conference against Western Conference opponents. Against San Jose the club has gone 3-1-1. This may be Edmonton’s best opportunity to strike.
It’s important to note that two of the Sharks best players are injured. Should either of Couture or Thornton play then neither will be at or probably close to 100%. The Sharks have been in a bit of a free fall since the trade deadline including two losses late in the season and a week apart to the Oilers. For the first time in my adult life the Oil are a legitimate favorite to win a series. Well, depending on who you ask. A lot of statistical models still like the Sharks, but many don’t take injuries or outlier impacts into account (looking at you McDavid).
For Connor McDavid, he can expect to see a healthy dose of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun in this series. In fact, no player has played against McDavid more than Vlasic has. The Shark’s shutdown defender has seen 59:47 of 5v5 ice-time against McDavid thus far in the 2016-2017 season. Has Vlasic gotten the job done? Well…McDavid has 2 goals and 3 assists in that time so…no. He has not. But that’s a Sisyphean task any defender. Vlasic and Braun may as well be tasked with preventing the sun from rising.
Perhaps the real task for Vlasic and Braun is to prevent the sun from setting. Is this the passing of the torch from the long-in-the-tooth Sharks to the still green Oilers? The McDavid lead Oilers chased top spot in the Pacific but just missed while the Sharks stumbled and fell out of contention. Has the sun set on San Jose and is this the beautiful sunrise for the Edmonton Oilers? I think that’s what we’ll see over the next week.
LINEUP
Based on the lines from yesterday’s practice it looks like Pakarinen will get to be the 4RW for the Oilers in the post season. There’s a 5th line of Hendricks – Khaira – Slepyshev that is practicing with the club and sitting in the press box tonight. Looks like Gryba should get the start on the 3rd pair.
Maroon McDavid Draisaitl
Lucic RNH Eberle
Caggiula Letestu Kassian
Pouliot Desharnais Pakarinen
Klefbom Larsson
Sekera Russell
Nurse Gryba
Talbot
Brossoit
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) The Greats. This is the beginning of Connor McDavid’s career in the post-season. Every great player has a playoff story. It’s harder to win a Stanley Cup more now than ever, but the truly great players seem to find a way. Connor McDavid is in the elite class of NHL players. We are witnessing chapter one of his story. He lead the NHL in scoring for likely 80% of the season or more but somehow still saved his best performances for the end of the year. The final 14 or so games were as if he finally decided he was going to put his foot on the gas pedal and never let up. Can there even be another gear from what we’ve seen? The last 82 games were a warm up. The real games begin today. The story of Connor McDavid, the one that’s going to be told on his Hockey Hall of Fame placard, will include these games that have yet to be played. We know it because he’s already one of the greats.
2) Logan & Joe. The reports from this morning suggested that Joe Thornton was doubtful to play and Logan Couture was a little more likely. Thornton was wearing the non-contact jersey in practice yesterday and apparently Couture took a hard skate. Couture was wearing a full face mask and having trouble breathing when exerting himself when last we had checked in on him. If he can breathe again I imagine he’ll play. If/when both return there will be a massive target on their backs. You know the Oil will try to make life difficult for them, and it shouldn’t be hard. If Thornton has trouble skating the Oilers aren’t necessarily a great matchup. And you know Kassian and Lucic will try to finish every check on Couture. The return of these players would be a huge boost to the Sharks. Edmonton needs to ensure that neither make that return successfully.
3) Welcome To The Show. This is the 1st playoff game for 5 of Edmonton’s top 7 scorers. Gryba has 10 playoff games. Sekera has 8. Larsson only 5. Klefbom, Benning, and Nurse have 0. Kris Russell leads the way with just 36 games of post-season experience on the blueline. We should expect jitters. I’ve had so much nervous energy that I thought my heart was going to explode last night. So I can scarcely imagine what this will be like for the players. Veterans like Milan Lucic have reassured the group that even the most playoff savvy men will feel it until the first shift is over. Me? I’m a wreck and I wont be able to take a shift to get my feet back under me. I’m going to be at a 9/10 for stress all day and then when the puck drops I’ll have to have the kids ready to dial 9-1-1 in the event that my heart just forgets to keep beating. We have been waiting a long damned time for this night. It’s been 11 years. We’ve watched a lot of bad hockey with the expectation that one day – ONE DAY – we would be proud of our team again. Enjoy it. You’ve earned this.
Puck drops at 8PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet. Game On!
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Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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