EDMONTON — It’s still unknown whether the Edmonton Oilers have two more wins over these Anaheim Ducks in them this spring. But the Oilers couldn’t settle this series on Tuesday night anyhow.
They just had to win one to stay alive, and darned if a veteran team didn’t muster up its best game of the series in a tidy 4-1 win on home ice. The win earns Edmonton one more flight to California and one more chance to skirt extinction, down 3-2 to the Ducks in Round 1 of these National Hockey League playoffs, with Game 6 set for The Pond on Thursday night (10 p.m. ET/ 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet).
“I don’t know what it is with us,” said Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard after a three-assist night. “When our backs are against the wall, we play good hockey, and we did that tonight.
“It shows we’re a good team,” he added. “We know that and we proved it tonight. Good teams find a way to do it multiple times in a row.”
By the 10:13 mark of the opening period Tuesday, the Oilers had scored three times and sent Anaheim starter Lukas Dostal to the showers. And even though the Ducks outshot them handily the rest of the way, an Anaheim team that averaged five goals a game through the opening four games of the series only put one puck behind goalie Connor Ingram, who got his net back after Tristan Jarry got the nod in Game 4.
“(The coaches) let me know what was going on. I had no problem with it,” Ingram said of losing his gig for a game. “I was frustrated after Game 3, just with myself and what was going on (allowing six goals). So to give myself a little break mentally and physically was huge.”
Ingram made a few game-preserving saves, thwarting Leo Carlsson on a partial breakaway late in Period 1 that held the score at 3-0. A late Ducks goal would have been invaluable heading into the intermission, but instead Ingram gave the Oilers the save that makes a real difference in a game like this one.
“(Ingram) was timely,” said Connor McDavid. “He didn’t face many shots in the first, so that was a huge save at a big moment. Goaltending, as I’ve said before, is not about saving them all. It’s about saving the right ones, and that was the right one.”
An Edmonton team that gets goaltending it can believe in is an entirely different animal, one we’ve seldom seen. They’ll need two more of these to have any chance of coming all the way back from a 3-1 series deficit.
But this was an impressive first step, one that reminded the Ducks who they’re messing with, after a loosely played opening four games.
“They went to two Cup Finals for a reason: They’re a good hockey team,” said Anaheim winger Troy Terry. “We believe in this room, but we knew they were going to push.
“I didn’t think we weren’t ready. I just felt like we weren’t necessarily as physical and maybe just executing early. And they played hard.”
There were positives in this for Edmonton. Many of them, actually.
After playing less than 20 minutes and visibly limping through Game 4, McDavid played 24:09 in Game 5 and looked a tad healthier. He’s still not at the top of his form, but had two assists and said there “was never a doubt” that he’d play Tuesday.
For the first time this series, Anaheim scored less than three goals — and none at even strength. That’s a place to start for an Oilers team that’s been on a season-long search for a defensive game it can be proud of.
Vasily Podkolzin was a juggernaut, scoring the game’s first goal and showing up in a big game with an effort that said to his teammates, “Follow me.” And after breaking up the line of Leon Draisaitl, Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen — Edmonton’s best unit thus far in the series — to put McDavid and Draisaitl together, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins centred a line with Podkolzin and Zach Hyman that produced the first two goals of the game.
Depth scoring, a power play that answered right after Anaheim had made the score 3-1, and only two Ducks power plays allowed are all things that Edmonton requires for success.
Now, they have to do it again in Anaheim, where the young feisty Ducks will try to close this series out on Thursday.
“It will take a big effort. A really, really big effort,” McDavid said. “We’re still in a tough, tough spot. A really tough spot. We’ve got to find a way to win in a tough building.
“I thought we were right there in Game 4 and will have another great opportunity in Game 6.”
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