A Rare Regulation Win for the Oilers

It’s funny but even when the Oilers were up 5-1 with 2 minutes left I was still holding my breath waiting for them to blow it. Luckily the Oilers were able to hold on and beat the Islanders 5-2.

Highlights

First Period

• 3:01 GOAL - Matt Hendricks gets his stick on the puck to negate a potential icing call against. Jaroslav Halak stops up the puck behind the net but Rob Klinkhammer out muscles him for the puck and puts it right onto Hendricks’ stick. Hedricks buries the puck on the open net.
• 2:13 4v5 - Hall for tripping - Drawn by Josh Bailey
• 0:13 5v5 - Penalty expires

Not a whole lot happened during the first period until the goal. The Islanders didn’t get their first shot on net until close to 8 minutes in.

Second Period

• 19:52 GOAL - Right off of the opening faceoff Jordan Eberle gets the pass from Taylor Hall and he makes no mistake.
• 16:59 4v5 - Andrew Ference for hooking - Drawn by Bailey
• 16:19 GOAL - Johnny Boychuk scores from the point on the power play.
• 5:42 WTF - Teddy Purcell and Derek Roy had a 2 on 0! That’s right a TWO ON NOTHING and couldn’t even get a shot.
• 2:27 5v4 - Anders Lee for hooking - Drawn by Klinkhammer
• 1:23 5v3 - Casey Cizikas for goaltender interference - Drawn by Ben Scrivens
• During the 5v3 the Oilers got some decent chances but were unable to capitalize

The second had a lot more action than the first did. With about 5 minutes left in the second the Oilers really started to go hard. The 3rd, 4th and 1st lines maintained possession for pretty much the remainder of the period. It also helped that the Oilers played the last 2.5 minutes of the second with a power play.

Third Period

• 2:33 GOAL - On what looked like a harmless play, Lubomir Visnovsky made a pass into the slot. Roy picked it off and put it up high on Halak.
• 8:53 - Scrivens comes up with a great save off of John Tavares from point blank range.
• 8:11 5v4 - Ference for hooking - Drawn by Tavares
• 6:11 5v5 - Penalty expires
• 3:05 Empty Net - The Islanders pull Halak in an attempt to tie the game
• 2:30 GOAL - Matt Hendricks fights for the puck and scores on the empty net.
• 2:13 GOAL - Matt Fraser scores (this time with Halak in the net) on a pass from Nikita Nikitin
• 1:04 5v4 - Nail Yakupov for slashing - Drawn by Calvin De Hann
• 0:32 GOAL - Brock Nelson on the power play scores as the puck just trickles past Scrivens

After the Oilers played a well to hold possession for the last 5 minutes of the second and the first few minutes of the third, the Islanders were determined to tie the game. After dominating the third period the Islanders’ pulled Halak but it didn’t help them at all. They allowed a goal against with the empty net and then just seconds later Fraser scored to put the Oilers up 5-1. If it wasn’t for a poor penalty kill by the Oilers at the end of period that would’ve remained the score.

Thoughts

Scrivens played like the goalie we knew last season but don’t think for a minute that this is what we are going to expect night after night. In the first period he looked shaky but was able to get past it.

Oscar Klefbom (23:35) and Jeff Petry (22:38) lead the Oilers in ice time and as we’ve known to happen when Justin Schultz (19:51) isn’t #1 in ice time good things happen.

This has been the best I’ve seen the Oilers play this season. It’s a little bitter sweet because this was of course game 40 so it’s also difficult to get excited about. A win is a win I guess and hopefully they can build on it.