With a rare drought, Edmonton’s renowned powerplay team is running out of time to have an effect.
The power play has been the one constant the Edmonton Oilers have had over the past four years. The power play remained their North Star regardless of everything else, good or bad, happened around it.
It has to shine immediately for them.
With a record of 0 for 7 in the Stanley Cup Final and 8 shut out in the previous 11 playoff games, Edmonton’s renowned five-man unit is rapidly running out of time to make an impression.
But Connor McDavid is convinced they will.
“We need to convert because it’s tough to generate offence at this time of year,” said the Oilers captain. “Our power play has always been there for us, it’s always been a weapon and it needs to be the rest of the series.”
McDavid tips his hat to the Panthers’ penalty killing, which he says is the most aggressive they’ve seen in the post-season.
“They’re challenging the puck, they’re jumping to wherever your next play is going,” he said. “Wherever the puck goes they’re ready to jump on that.
“What do we need to do to be more successful? Just using instinct, we call it playing road hockey. We have to be elite at that. They’re doing a great job of making it tough on us.
That being said, the Power Play has a long history together and a stellar performance history. We typically work out penalty kills, so I’m sure we’ll figure this one out too.
With just one goal in their last two games, Edmonton’s offense has to pick up speed quickly. Furthermore, head coach Kris Knoblauch asserts that there is no magic trick to improving their chances of scoring. He wants them to return to the tactics that helped them defeat Florida 32–18.
“The simplicity of our game is winning battles, playing faster, using our legs,” he said. “If you take care of those little details it allows us to showcase our skills. If we’re not playing fast and winning battles then nothing else matters because that’s where the games starts and that’s usually where the game finishes.”
Feeling his pain
Everybody is beaten up by the fourth round of the NHL playoffs, but watching veteran defenceman Darnell Nurse trying to play through the pain in Game 2 stuck a nerve on the Edmonton Oilers bench.
After taking an awkward hit along the end boards, Nurse was pretty much done for the evening and left the game in considerable discomfort. His body refused to let him push through it, despite his best efforts.
Defenseman Mattias Ekholm of the Oilers stated, “He still tried to give it three or four shifts; that’s just who he is and how he conducts himself.”
“Every time there was a break, he would try to get moving and skate so that he could maybe play one or two shifts to help us defensemen who have been playing with a shortage of players.”
The 29-year-old defenseman is said to be such an outstanding team leader because of this.
“There are certain narratives out there about him but I don’t believe a lot of them,” said Ekholm. “He’s a big part of this team and I don’t think we’d be here without him. Sometimes with defencemen, you really notice when they’re not there anymore. We miss him, he’s a huge part of this team.”
McDavid was too wrapped up in the game to focus on the drama going on behind the scenes with Nurse, but he’s not surprised that his longtime friend did everything he could to get back into the action. And still is.
“I definitely knew he was going through whatever he was going through there, but we were also playing a game so I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. But, looking back, he wants to be out there, everybody wants to be out there. It’s special to play at this time of year. He’s as tough as they come and wanted to be out there.”
If Nurse is sitting out a Stanley Cup Final game you know it’s pretty bad (he played just 4:40), but Knoblauch says he hasn’t even considered that Nurse won’t be in the lineup for Game 3.
That’s good news for the rest of the defencemen, who rely on him.
“He’s going to eat pucks, he skates very well, he’s physical. He was my partner, you want to play with him,” said Vincent Desharnais. “He wants to play. He’s a warrior out there. Hopefully he’ll be ready.”
