December 3, 2022 by Ryan Lotsberg

Oilers Send Habs Fans Home Sad After 5-3 Win

One of my favourite games of the year is always when the Montreal Canadiens come to town. I love the atmosphere with all the Canadiens fans in attendance doing competing chants with the hometown fans. There’s always an elevated level of anticipation and excitement for these games! You could say the same for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the Canadiens are FAR more likable than the Leafs are in my opinion.

Anyway, the Canadiens and the Edmonton Oilers treated fans to a great game on Saturday night. It was a back and forth tilt, but the Oilers came away victorious by a score of 5-3.

Special teams were a big story in this game. The Oilers went up 3-1 after the Canadiens took five penalties from the last minute of the first period until the 8:55 mark of the second period. That sequence included three five-on-three advantages for the Oilers!

However, Connor McDavid took his second penalty of the game later in the period, and Darnell Nurse took a puck over glass penalty to give the Habs a five-on-three of their own, and the teams came out tied after all the penalties had been served. I thought that both calls on McDavid were buttery soft and that neither one should’ve been a penalty, but I digress.

Call Outs:

Cody Ceci got burned in the neutral zone on the only five-on-five goal allowed by the Oilers. Evgeni Dadonov got the puck on the right side in the neutral zone. Ceci was indecisive, and he decided to challenge Dadonov too late. He didn’t end up being any kind of obstacle for Dadonov as he passed the puck across the ice and went to the net. The rebound came to Dadonov in the slot, and he made no mistake.

The Oilers only took 22 shots in this game. The Canadiens allow the seventh most shots per game in the league (33.4). The Oilers had 7:24 of powerplay time in this game, most of which was consecutive, and they could only muster 22 shots. They got enough goals to win the game, but there’s something not right about being outshot 33-22 in this game.

Once again, the penalty kill was terrible. Two goals against on the penalty kill would mean defeat on most nights, but Montreal’s own penalty killing issues killed them in this one.

Standouts:

Both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were sublime tonight. They each four points on the night, as McDavid tallied two goals and two assists, and Draisaitl had a goal and three assists. The former scoring champions each scored on different five-on-three man advantages, and they both earned assists on a power-play goal by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Draisaitl sent McDavid in on a breakaway, and McDavid did McDavid things with it. Draisaitl also got an assist on a play where he passed the puck to Nurse in the slot for a goal. There are some nights where McDavid and Draisaitl just take control of the game, and that’s what they did tonight.

With his fifth four-point game of the season, McDavid sits atop the NHL scoring race with 47 points in just 25 games. The Oilers captain is also just one goal behind Jason Robertson for the league-lead with 21. Draisaitl matched a career-high five-game goal streak and pulled ahead of Robertson for sole possession of second in the league in points with 42.

Shout Outs:

Nurse scored a huge goal with four seconds left in the second period. He saw a chance to jump into the play, and he took it knowing that time was about to expire in the period. Draisaitl hit him with the pass, and he was able to lift it over Jake Allen’s pads. That was a huge goal because the Canadiens had just tied the game after falling behind because of their second period penalty trouble, and Nurse’s goal stopped any momentum that the Canadiens had. His xGF was 58.58% and the scoring chances were 9-4 (69.23%) at five-on-five when Nurse was on the ice. 

Related: Call Outs, Standouts, and Shout Outs: Oilers Hold on for 5-4 Victory in Chicago

Jesse Puljujarvi was clearly under the Canadiens’ skin. He was involved in some verbal jousting with Arber Xhekaj, and he got into a wrestling match with an opossing defenceman in the third period. His eight hits paced the Oilers. He might not be putting up points, but the increased physicality has certainly not gone unnoticed.

Derek Ryan blocked a shot as all five Oilers skaters collapsed into the low slot while Montreal had the extra man out with an empty net. The thing I loved about this play was that Stuart Skinner went all the way out to the faceoff dot to give Ryan a tap on the shin pads to say “good job”. That’s the kind of thing I love to see from a teammate. The goalie should always get some love after he makes a big save, and it was nice to see Skinner return the favour when a teammate made a big block in the closing moments of the game.

The Oilers continue their four-game homestand when Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals visit Rogers Place on Monday night.