In Vancouver, the Edmonton Oilers did the seemingly impossible on Wednesday night.
The Oilers held a 2-0 lead after the first period, and then a 4-1 advantage at 13:11 of the middle frame.
That’s when the house started to crumble and fall in on them.
The Canucks trimmed the deficit to 4-2 when Elias Lindholm attempted a pass from the top of the crease to Dakota Joshua, but it ended up bounding over sticks into the net to start the rally at 17:01.
In the third period, Vancouver shut down the Oilers’ offense, and scored three goals.
Midway through the third, the Canucks forced a turnover as the Oilers tried to escape their zone. J.T. Miller took a pass from Brock Boeser and tipped in the puck from below the goal line to close the gap to 4-3.
At 13:47, Nikita Zadorov let a blast go from the left point that found daylight through a screen to tie the game, 4-4.
Just 49 seconds later, Conor Garland took a pass from Joshua at the Oilers blue line and raced down the right wing for a contested shot that went five hole for a 5-4 lead.
The three goals goals came in a span of less than five minutes.
“The belief is always there,” Joshua said. “Just to know that you got to keep playing to the end, anything can happen and in the third, once the crowd gets behind us and gives us a little bit more confidence, you could see it spread throughout the team.”
Arturs Silovs made 14 saves in the win.
“They’re a good team and they were doing everything they could to come back and we were doing everything we could to hold onto the lead,” the Oilers’ Connor McDavid said. “That happens in the playoffs, you try to hold onto a lead and sometimes you’re maybe a little too passive. We were doing a good job of holding onto the lead, but they find a way to get two and find a way to get a third to win.”
The Oilers had a total of 18 shots on goal.
“Up until 10 minutes left in the third, I thought we controlled the action,” the Oilers’ Mattias Ekholm said. “Sometimes that happens, that’s the emotional ups and downs of the playoffs, they get three quick ones and that’s the game right there. We can be encouraged by the way we played for the first 50 minutes. A little bit of a disappointing ending, but at the end of the day, when we’re at our best and to a certain point, I didn’t think we maybe earned it in the third.”
With a total of eight shots over the final two periods, you were not in control.
The Oilers did control the first period, heading into the middle frame with a 2-0 lead.
Zach Hyman, who hit for a double, staked the Oilers to a 1-0 lead on a power play strike at 2:11, scoring on a shot from the right circle.
Ekholm extended the Oilers lead to 2-0 following a turnover by the Canucks. He scored off a shot from above the left circle.
Joshua closed the gap to 2-1 with 58 seconds gone in the second period. He scored off a shot/pass that came off the backboards to him at the right side of the cage for an easy tap in and a 2-1 score.
Game 2 is set for Vancouver on Friday.
The Oilers replied with a p;air of goals to seemingly take control of the game.
Cody Ceci pushed the lead back to two at 3-1, at 12:26, he scored off a shot from out near the right point.
Hym
an collected his double 45 seconds later to extend the lead to 4-1.
“Goals happen right? Nothing is perfect but I just tried to stay cool,” Silovs said when asked how he stayed focused after that. “I was like battling for guys. They did a such amazing job today and, in my mind, I couldn’t let them down.”
That’s when the Oilers stopped playing.
“There’s a lot of belief in this group,” Zadorov said. “I don’t think anybody is giving up even when we were down 4-1. We were staying positive because we’re liked our five-on-five game. … You got to give the credit to every guy in this room and Arturs stood with us at the end too.”
Stuart Skinner made 19 saves in the loss.
Hyman has none goals in the playoffs so far.
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