For a while, Monday night at Rogers Place, the Anaheim Ducks were doing exactly what they came here to do. Get under the Oilers’ skin, claw back into a game they had no business being in, and make a series out of this thing right from the jump. They almost pulled it off.
Almost.
Kasperi Kapanen converted in front of Lukas Dostal with 1:54 left in the third period, finishing off a slick backhand feed from Vasily Podkolzin behind the net, to give Edmonton a 4-3 win in Game 1 of their first-round series. It was Kapanen’s second goal of the night, and it came at exactly the right moment. One of those goals that, in May, you’ll still remember.
The Oilers looked like the better team for the bulk of the evening, but this wasn’t clean. Far from it. They built a 2-0 lead in the final minutes of the first and then spent the better part of two periods watching Anaheim chip away until the Ducks had actually taken the lead. That’s not the script Edmonton had in mind.
It started well enough. Jason Dickinson, back in the lineup after missing the final three regular-season games with a lower-body injury, got behind defenseman Tyson Hinds, took a stretch pass from Jake Walman, and beat Dostal on a breakaway to make it 1-0 at 17:21 of the first. One minute later, Kapanen chopped at his own rebound in the low slot and batted it past a diving Dostal to make it 2-0. The Oilers outshot Anaheim 14-4 in the opening frame. It had all the makings of a comfortable night.
Then the second period happened.
Troy Terry, playing in his first career playoff game, scored just 19 seconds into the middle frame, banking a rebound off Leo Carlsson’s shot past Connor Ingram. Carlsson returned the favour a few minutes later, burying a Terry rebound to knot it 2-2. Then Terry struck again on the power play, a wrist shot from the top of the left circle through a screen from Chris Kreider, and just like that Anaheim had a 3-2 lead with under six minutes left in the second. Two goals in the regular season. Three in one playoff period. The kid wasn’t nervous.
Edmonton’s response came early in the third. Radko Gudas, who has 57 career playoff games to his name and should know better, lost an edge at exactly the wrong moment, and Mattias Ekholm waltzed in untouched to put a slapper on Dostal. The rebound landed right on Dickinson’s tape, and he buried it. His second of the night. His second playoff goal ever, and both came Monday.
Then Kapanen won it, and Rogers Place exhaled.
The big story was Leon Draisaitl, back on the ice after missing the final 14 games of the regular season. He looked like a guy who knew he wasn’t fully himself yet, and he said as much afterward, but he still picked up two assists and looked engaged all night. The rust will come off. It usually does.
Connor Ingram made 25 saves and preserved the win with a critical stop in the dying seconds as Anaheim tried to make things even messier than they already were. Dostal stopped 30 for the Ducks.
One number worth sitting with: Connor McDavid had 138 points in the regular season. Anaheim’s leading scorer, Cutter Gauthier, had 69. That’s an exact double, and apparently the third-largest gap between leading scorers in a first-round series over the last 30 years. McDavid was held off the scoresheet Monday, which is a strange wrinkle given how the game unfolded. The Oilers were 0-12-2 this season when he didn’t register a point. They got away with one.
Game 2 is Wednesday in Edmonton. The Ducks showed they’re not going to roll over for anyone, and they have 26 comeback wins from the regular season to back that reputation up. But the Oilers have been here before, twice, all the way to the final, and knowing how to win ugly when the other team makes it uncomfortable is part of what makes this group difficult.
They won ugly Monday. That’ll do for now.
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