Oilers Blow Lead; Jets Win 5-4 in OT

The Edmonton Oilers blew a 4-1 lead to lose 5-4 in overtime on Sunday night. The Jets take a stranglehold on the series with a 3-0 lead. Draisaitl had two goals but it wasn’t enough to stave off a hungry Winnipeg team.

It looked really good for the Oilers until it didn’t. I got the details of tonight’s heartbreaker right here...

First Period:

The Edmonton Oilers needed to ramp up their intensity if they wanted to avoid going down 3-0 in the series and that they did in the opening period. The newly-minted second line of RNH-McLeod-Kassian started things off with a nice first shift. From here on Edmonton was running four lines that were relentless on the puck. They couldn’t have looked more different than the first two games.

The early pressure would pay off with Leon Draisaitl getting Edmonton on the board after fishing a puck from a scrum and tucking it past Connor Hellebuyck. The Oilers would then get 43 seconds of 5-on-3 where Draisaitl would swoop in once again to beat Hellebuyck. The Oilers were shut out in Game Two but had a 2-0 lead in the first 10 minutes of Game 3!

That wasn’t to say that it was complete Oilers dominance. The Jets were hungry for some goals and had more than a few really good chances on the net. Mike Smith was fabulous in the first.

We headed to the second period with a 2-0 Edmonton lead.

Second Period:

Winnipeg came out with some renewed energy for the second. McDavid got the period’s first chance less than a minute in but the Jets came back hard. Dubois had a chance on a two-on-one that went wide and then Smith had to fight off a breakaway chance from Appleton. They would get an early PP chance after Khaira got caught shooting the puck out, but Edmonton’s solid PK was able to kill it off.

They wouldn’t be able to stop the Jet’s power-play forever. They would get an opportunity late in the period and Nik Ehlers would label one over the shoulder of Smith. 2-1 game.

Don’t hold your breath, Draisaitl would feed Zack Kassian on the rush and beats Hellebuyck on the blocker side! Just a minute later the Oilers regain their two-goal lead. 3-1 Oilers. That’s how we would end the period.

Edmonton just 20 minutes away from getting right back into this series.

Third Period:

The Jets came out with a chip on their shoulder once again but the Oilers would quiet things up soon enough. Four minutes into the frame Jujhar Khaira tipped home an Adam Larsson point shot to open up a three-goal lead for Edmonton. It was the type of depth goal the Oilers had been lacking and it gave them some insurance. 4-1 Oilers.

The Jets would get one back as Mathieu Perreault bashed in a PP marker with about 8 minutes remaining in the game. Winnipeg’s power-play was dangerous all night long. Blake Wheeler would then respond quickly to make it a 4-3 game with five left to play. Josh Morrissey then scores a few seconds later. Tie game. 4-4.

The Oilers blow the lead and we are getting our second straight OT game.

OT:

Ehlers in OT. 3-0 series lead for Winnipeg.

God hates Oiler fans.

Takeaways:

• Absolutely cannot give this Winnipeg team life. The Oilers held a 4-1 lead with under 10 minutes to go in the game and the Jets were able to tie things up at the five-minute mark. A good playoff team finds a way to lock that lead down. You cannot rest on your laurels in the playoffs and that is exactly what Edmonton did.
• What a difference having Ennis and Haas does for that bottom-six. Each of those guys can absolutely skate and looked really good all night long. Yamamoto was a good compliment to both of those guys and proved that these small guys can play just as hard as Winnipeg’s big boys. They should have been in both games one and two.
• Jesse Puljujarvi was causing chaos in front of the Winnipeg net. He once again looked solid and should have been on the PP a long long long time ago. He has been Edmonton’s most consistently good player in this series so far.
• I liked Josh Archibald’s game tonight...all the way up until that penalty in the third. Absolutely undisciplined and it gave the Jets something to rally around. Unacceptable.
• For the first time in a long time, I didn’t wanna tear my eyes out watching Barrie play defense. He was pretty solid in a sheltered third pairing role. Should be his spot going forward in this series.
• Tomorrow could be the last game of the season. Let’s hope not.