The Edmonton Oilers looked dead in the water Thursday night. Down 3-0 after two periods against the San Jose Sharks, they had no business winning this game.
And yet somehow, they did. A wild third period erased the deficit entirely, and Zach Hyman finished things off in overtime to give Edmonton a 4-3 victory and their third straight win.
Look, nobody’s pretending this was some masterpiece of hockey. The Oilers were flat-out bad for 40 minutes against one of the youngest, least experienced teams in the league. San Jose wanted it more, worked harder, and had every reason to feel confident heading into the final period with a three-goal cushion.
“I like that we stuck with it,” Hyman said afterward, “but obviously we can clean up lots. That’s just what comes with being more urgent and competitive. They outworked us for two periods.”
He’s not wrong. This shouldn’t have been close. But when you have McDavid and Draisaitl, you start to feel like you can play by different rules.
Draisaitl started the rally, making it 3-1 and giving Edmonton something to build on. McDavid followed with another to make it 3-2, and suddenly Rogers Place was buzzing. Evan Bouchard tied it up, forcing overtime, and Hyman capped off the comeback in the extra frame.
All four goals from the core group. All four from guys you’d expect to deliver in that situation. Which is great, except — where was everyone else?
“We have a lot of great players in the room and we’re never out of a game,” Hyman said. “There is a sense of belief that we can do it.”
That belief is earned when you have two of the best players in the league. But leaning on them to rescue you from a terrible start against a bottom-feeder isn’t exactly a recipe for long-term success.
Kris Knoblauch said after the game that “good teams find ways to win hockey games,” and sure, that’s true. The Oilers have now won three straight — back-to-back hat tricks, and now this improbable comeback. It’s been entertaining, if nothing else. Three boring, stress-free wins would’ve been fine too, but where's the spice in that?
Here’s the thing though: wins are wins, and Edmonton needed these. But they can’t feel great about how this one went down. Being in a 3-0 hole against San Jose isn’t a sign of character — it’s a red flag.
“I’ve kind of figured it out around here, you just have to be good," Connor Ingram said. "You don’t have to steal games — you’ve just got to make the saves you’re supposed to.”
It’s a practical philosophy, and one that acknowledges what everyone already knows: when your team decides to show up, the rest takes care of itself.
“When you’ve got some of the best players in the world (and) you get behind at the start of the game, you’re just thinking, ‘Shut it down. We’ve still got a chance at this. We can score goals. We can come back on anybody',” Ingram added.
He’s right. That goal scoring power buys a lot of margin for error.
For the Oilers, three wins in a row is progress. They’re building something, even if the path there has been messy. But this game exposed the same issues that have plagued them all season. The depth isn’t contributing. The effort level takes too long to show up. And they’re asking their stars to do way too much heavy lifting.
That works sometimes. It worked on Thursday. But counting on McDavid and Draisaitl to stage a third-period comeback every time things go sideways? That’s not sustainable, especially when playoff hockey rolls around.
So yeah, enjoy the win streak. But the Oilers need to be better from the start next time, because not every team is going to let them off the hook like San Jose did.
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