We all had a pretty similar idea of what the Edmonton Oilers needed heading into Game 5 of their first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks.
Get out fast, build a lead early enough that if Connor McDavid needed to be managed for the last half of the game, he could be. And for two periods, that's more or less what happened.
Vasily Podkolzin opened the scoring in the first, Zach Hyman and Leon Draisaitl followed. Draisaitl struck again in the second to make it 4-1 after Alex Killorn scored a lone goal for Anaheim. The third period came and went without a goal, and a 4-1 final sends this series back to Anaheim for Game 6.
Sounds like a successful game right? Not according to head coach Kris Knoblauch.
The Oilers sat back in the third, according to the coach. They played safe, got a little passive, and the Ducks pushed without ever really facing the threat of more goals against.
"I thought we sat back too much," said Knoblauch. "Which can happen when the other team is pushing. I felt the last two periods we were playing safe."
Perhaps worth keeping an eye on because a team that spends the third period on its heels in Game 6, on the road, still down 3-2 in the series, probably doesn't escape as cleanly.
Of course, the questions regarding McDavid's availability got answered pretty quickly. Knoblauch had him listed as a game-time decision before puck drop, which could have been a formality by the time warmups ended. He played 8:38 in the first, eight minutes in the second, 7:71 in the third, and looked fine doing it.
"There was never a doubt," said McDavid on if he would play or not.
Good enough.
Connor Ingram was excellent behind all of it. He didn't face a heavy workload; the Oilers were good in front of him for most of the night, but the saves he made landed at the right times, which is really the whole job.
"Ingo was timely, and he didn't face many in the first," said McDavid. "Goaltending, as I've said before, is not about saving them all. It's just about saving the right ones."
Ingram, when asked how he stays sharp through stretches where he isn't seeing much, kept it simple.
"My game's not that hard, it's not that complicated. I have my own things that I do to stay fresh that not every goalie in the league does."
Knoblauch had made the call to go back to his starter for an elimination game, and he was happy with how it played out.
"His talent is he makes a lot of saves look easy," said Knoblauch. "I thought he was on his game tonight. Before the game, we discussed that during an elimination game, we wanted to go back to who was our starter down the stretch."
If Ingram was the wall behind the Oilers, then Vasily Podkolzin was the wrecking ball in front of them. He opened the scoring, set a physical tone early, and gave the Oilers the kind of presence in the lineup that's hard to quantify but easy to feel.
"He improves every line he goes to," added Knoblauch. "Whether that's the first, second, third line, he always improves it. He brings everything. I think there's a lot of guys who fight to play with Podkolzin because he brings everything."
The series is now 3-2 and looking more competitive tonight than it did this morning, not just because of the final score, but also in how it was achieved. The Oilers found a strong start, and while they played an imperfect third period, they held on enough to keep the Ducks, a team known for coming back from behind, scoreless for the final 20.
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