EDMONTON — You could hear a pin drop at Rogers Place. In an “almost must-win game,” in the words of Kris Knoblauch, the Edmonton Oilers were down two points before six minutes had passed.
And the one who had been criticized over the previous 24 hours, Darnell Nurse, was a dash-2 – even though none of the goals scored were his fault. Sip.
It was quiet everywhere, except on the Edmonton bench – where Corey Perry intervened.
“After the second goal, I said, ‘It’s all good,’” Perry said. “It was a shitty bounce. What are you supposed to do? Sit and sulk? The scoreboard showed there were still 55 minutes to play. I knew that once we got our feet on the ground, our tenacity would take over. »
Tenacious. Tirelessly. Whatever the buzzword, it was a big win. The Oilers scored five unanswered goals to shock the Dallas Stars, 5-2, and even their best-of-seven Western Conference finals at two games apiece.
“I thought it was going to be a long night,” Knoblauch said. “It didn’t look very good.”
They scored an unflappable Jake Oettinger, the goaltender who hadn’t allowed more than two in a road game this postseason, for seven goals in two games in Oil Country. Then, Edmonton took a two-goal lead perfectly, comfortably crossing the line between aggressiveness and conservative puck play.
The comeback was impressive, but even more so was the manner in which they did it. Mattias Janmark scored the shorthanded game-winner shortly before the Oilers wiped out their 23rd straight penalty. Yes, Edmonton’s penalty takers scored the only special teams goal in this series. Who had this on their bingo card?
And now, suddenly, the roles have reversed as the show returns to Dallas.
The bigger story was the Stars’ clear advantage in depth. Following Chris Tanev’s injury, the balance now tips in Edmonton’s favor if Tanev is unavailable in a crucial Game 5.
Stars coach Pete DeBoer said he was “crossing his fingers” that Tanev would be available Friday night. He left in the second period after blocking a shot with his right foot. There have been rumors that Tanev left Rogers Place with a walking boot, but Stars officials have not responded to their inquiries – it’s the playoffs.
Between his stops in Calgary and Dallas, Tanev has apparently taken the tunnel several hundred times this season to get a blocked shot. Except this time he didn’t return, meaning one of hockey’s true warriors was dealt a major blow.
Consider: Since signing a four-year contract with Calgary in 2020, Tanev has appeared in 93 percent of his available games. If Tanev is out for the rest of the series, he will have missed at least five of the 11 playoff games against the Oilers – since missing three in the 2022 Battle of Alberta with an injured shoulder.
The Stars were already down to five defensemen and Tanev was healthy. DeBoer deployed Alex Petrovic sparingly in this series after playing exclusively in the AHL for the past five seasons. And Ryan Suter struggled a lot in game four.
“On to the next guy,” DeBoer said of Dallas’ approach if Tanev can’t play.
And the next man is…? Nils Lundkvist? He averaged 4:28 on ice in 12 games before being healthy. Derrick Pouliot? Their best hope may be that stalwart defender Jani Hakanpaa can recover in time for Friday night. DeBoer noted that Hakanpaa accompanied the Stars to Edmonton, so he’s getting closer.
However, the fifth match could come down to this: Bouchard-Ekholm-Nurse-Kulak-Ceci-Broberg versus Heiskanen-Lindell-Harley-Suter-Petrovic-Lundkvist.
Advantage: Edmonton.
Compare that thin, rushing Stars blue line to Edmonton, where Knoblauch has made Vincent Desharnais a healthy scratch, a 6-foot-6 top-six staple this season who will be a sought-after free agent this summer if he do. I will not re-sign in Edmonton. Knoblauch already showed off balls the size of a dump truck from the Athabasca oilsands last round when he visited Calvin Pickard for Game 4 against Vancouver; he smashed all the right buttons in Game 4 against Dallas.
Knoblauch traded three healthy players, which DeBoer acknowledged Wednesday is almost unheard of in the third round of a razor-thin playoff series. All three – Ryan McLeod, Perry and Philip Broberg – made a big contribution. Perry assisted on McLeod’s goal that got the ball rolling, and look at the goal celebration scrum – you can almost see Perry trying to convince the Oilers to believe.
So, despite all the (justified) talk about the Stars’ top two lines and the embarrassment of riches in a forward group that has Matt Duchene, Tyler Seguin or Jamie Benn anchoring a third line every night, the Oilers are come out very well. .
“I think our teams are built differently,” Janmark said. “I don’t think their team has the better players than us. I think it’s obvious that they have three lines which are A, B and C, and we have the top line and our top six scoring. So it’s difficult to challenge in that way, but of course we knew we could contribute and maybe in a different way than their depth.
The Oilers got incredibly big changes at even strength from Janmark and Connor Brown and Perry and Dylan Holloway. They may not be flashy, like Knoblauch said, but it’s part of a winning playoff formula.
“Our depth is a defensive liability, especially on the penalty kill,” Knoblauch said. “Today, lately, they have set some key goals.”
Very few teams can rebuild through the draft with special game breakers like Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven outside of lottery positions. They could finally make the difference in this series. But how many coaches have a former Hart Trophy winner and four-time Stanley Cup finalist ready to be reinserted into the lineup in place of a 20-goal scorer in Warren Foegele?
“That’s what good teams have, that’s what winning teams have,” Leon Draisaitl said.
This has been a strange series. There is no animosity, no healthy hatred between these two teams. There’s virtually no emotion except in the rollercoaster of momentum swings within the games. The drama is in what is at stake.
“Best of three for a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals,” DeBoer said.
The Oilers could have folded like a cheap tent in a mild wind Wednesday night. A few years ago, that might have been the case. They responded with what is the signature victory of the Connor McDavid era in Edmonton. For the moment.
“You look at this series, there are four games that Dallas thought they could win, and there are four games that we could have won,” Knoblauch said. “It’s been a good run and I like where we’re going.”
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