RECAP: Sharks Dismiss Oilers 5-2

Joe Pavelski had a four poitn night, and Evander Kane scored two assists in his first game with the San Jose Sharks. Five different Sharks scored goals. The Sharks put a stop to their three game skid, while Edmonton suffered their first loss in four games.

These next 19 games are likely going to be near insufferable to watch.

SOME GOOD

This club struggled to cobble together an NHL line last night. Milan Lucic hasn’t scored a goal since before Christmas, and he’s still on the top line with Connor McDavid. Nevertheless, Connor McDavid scored a very nice goal to put the Oilers up 1-0 early on in the first period.

Connor McDavid is worth the price of admission. He needs 25 more points in 19 games for 100 point back-to-back seasons. The Oilers took a 1-0 lead to the dressing room after one. Everything’s great, yeah? Unfortunately for everyone, the second and third periods had to be played. That’s where the wallpaper starts to fall off.

The Sharks scored four goals in the second period to put this one out of reach. By the time the second period had ended, the game was in ‘run-the-clock’ mode. 4-1 for the Sharks by the end of the second period, the game couldn’t run out any faster.

I didn’t think this line would do very much, but Pontus Aberg gets his first assist as a member of the Oilers. If Aberg can do this with any sense of regularity, he’ll almost certainly find a spot on the roster. Having a 650K cap hit is also a major plus for the club going forward.

The Sharks added one more late in the third. The Oilers scored two goals with an AHL roster. The Sharks scored five.

ETC

• One of the cool things about having Milan Lucic on your team is that even though he plays top minutes and doesn’t score, he’s definitely there to make sure people pay when they do shady things like what happened to Matthew Benning here. Having a six million dollar deterrent with power play time who hasn’t scored a goal since Christmas on your top line really makes a difference. Just one second, I’m being told that nothing happened at all after this play. My bad, y’all.
• It can’t be understated how much the Oilers are going to depend on players like Pontus Aberg. Aberg had just one point in 13 minutes of ice time. If he can finish these 19 games with something like 7 or 8 points, that’ll give the Oilers some breathing room as they try to cobble together a roster next year.
• Power play went 0/2. Nothing really new here. Sharks failed to do much of anything while they were a man up.
• The fun keeps rolling in Nashville on Thursday. Join us for another rockin’ time.