On a night marked by milestones, the game started out looking like more of the same of what had plagued the team to start the season. The Edmonton Oilers held the Pittsburgh Penguins shotless for nearly an entire period from 11 minutes remaining in the first to 13 minutes remaining in the second, outshooting their opponents 26–5 at one point.
Given how the season started, that seemed like the perfect recipe for an untimely Penguins goal and an eventual loss despite heavily outplaying their opponent.
Watching them play, it was chance after chance after high danger chance that just would not go in. Even Zach Hyman‘s parents couldn’t buy him a goal with how snakebitten he is right now. Which is representative of what is holding the team as a whole back in another difficult start to the season.
But in the latter half of the second period, things started to shift. Edmonton scored first. And then they scored again. It was even upheld after a controversial offside challenge by the Penguins that could have easily been overturned.
This shift turned a milestone night for some players into a much better experience than another disappointing loss. The game ended with a 50–27 shot differential as Stuart Skinner earned his fifth career shutout in a 4–0 Oilers victory.
Oilers milestones
A handful of past and present Oilers hit career milestones and honours in this Friday night affair with the Penguins.
Troy Stecher played his 500th career game, a wonderful achievement for him in his travels around the league.
Both Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin recorded their first points as Oilers. Notably, both players played with Leon Draisaitl on the second line for the first time as a trio. With how much line shuffling there has been early on, this seems poised to be a regular line moving forward.
And, after the game, Randy Gregg and Craig MacTavish were honoured as the newest members of the Oilers Hall of Fame, commemorating their careers and impact on the Oilers and the city of Edmonton.
Has the puck luck started to shift?
Maybe it is premature, but sometimes you just get a gut instinct that something has shifted. After a rough start mirroring the 2023–24 season, things were looking grim at times. The Oilers were, heading into this game, ranked 32nd in the league in shooting percentage and PDO and 31st in save percentage according to Natural Stat Trick.
They weren’t playing great, they had completely lost their mojo, their confidence, and the swagger that helped propel them all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final last season.
Players were holding onto the puck just a second too long instead of shooting, not wanting to be the one to take that shot. And even if they did shoot, its not like it was going in anyway.
There was a lack of aggression, and coincidentally the only games the Oilers were energized how we would expect of them were the two that someone got into a fight.
The chemistry just was not there. The lines were being shuffled every game it seemed and no one knew where their linemates were going to be. Passes were going to no one.
But all this time, they’ve been positioning themselves well to indicate it was only a matter of time until things turned around. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. The underlying numbers suggest there was a vast mismatch between performance and results.
We would see glimpses of this being the case in some games. Such as when the Oilers held the Dallas Stars to just four shots on goal through 32 minutes of their game last Saturday. But after Edmonton just couldn’t capitalize on that play, it only took one chance against to burst that bubble. The remainder of the game, Edmonton was flat and gave up more goals they shouldn’t have.
But once that first goal went in, the swagger came back a bit. The players looked quicker, more engaged, and more agile—even more so when they finally won a goal review after finding themselves on the bad end of multiple calls and goal reviews earlier this season.
All of these begin to point toward the start of a shift in the right direction. Except for Hyman, that is. He is apparently needing some more time to shake whatever is cursing him to start this season.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
2 Comments