May 9, 2024 by Raghu Sharma

The Battle to be the last Canadian team kicked off on Wednesday after an extended break for both clubs. The two teams came out with plenty of enthusiasm after a great anthem performance by the crowd. The Edmonton Oilers got a powerplay in the first couple minutes of the game, and that week off did not seem to impact them at all as Zach Hyman scored his first of the series and league-leading eighth goal of the playoffs already. After that, both teams settled down and the physicality started to ramp up in what was a fast moving first period. Stuart Skinner looked steady in the first period with a key save on Connor Garland. In the final five minutes of the period, Leon Draisaitl made a beautiful dish to Mattias Ekholm who scored his first goal of the 2024 playoffs by blasting a shot past Arturs Silovs to make it 2-0. Safe to say the rest seemed to have benefitted the Oilers for the first 20 minutes of the game outside of a dicey final 90 seconds of the period.

However, the Oilers came out flat in the second period and Dakota Joshua scored an early goal to cut the lead in half to make it 2-1 off a nice pass banking off the boards. Stuart Skinner took a penalty for mishandling the puck in the non playable area, an awful mistake, that fortunately did not cost the Oilers. The Oilers were thoroughly outworked in that period with only two shots on net at the halfway point of the mark where the Canucks thoroughly dominated the game. Derek Ryan with a rush and drop pass to Cody Ceci gave the Oilers a much needed 3-1 lead followed by an amazing goal by Hyman to make it 4-1 in the span of 45 seconds. The Oilers penalty killed went a perfect two-for-two in the period and remains perfect in the playoffs thus far. The Canucks made it 4-2 and the Oilers were fortunate to escape the period with a lead after only getting two shots on net. The Darnell Nurse-Ceci pair really struggled this game with five high danger chances against. The experiment has not worked with this duo in their entire tenure. A major turn of events was Draisaitl getting hurt and missing the final eight minutes of the period. Hopefully it isn’t a bad injury.

The third period was fast moving and pretty uneventful for the first half of the period. Fortunately, Draisaitl returned to the game; but he was definitely skating very gingerly and trying to keep his movements slow. The Nurse-Ceci pair was on the ice for yet another goal bringing Vancouver back within 4-3, and with momentum on their side they drew another PP. The refs missed a clear penalty, and the Canucks came back to make it 4-4 on a shot from Zadorov. Once the Oilers started reeling, there was nowhere to go but down when the Canucks made it 5-4 off a goal from Connor Garland. Despite getting completely screwed by that missed call, you aren’t winning games when you only had sixteen shots. The boys will have to be better in the next game to force at least a split in Vancouver.

Call Outs: The Nurse-Ceci pair was on for four of the five Canucks goals. Skinner had a goal bounce in off of his stick, and he overplayed Garland and bit on his shot fake on the game winning goal.

Stand Outs: The penaly kill remained perfect for the postseason.

Shout Outs: The only thing I can think after a crushing defeat is Draisaitl coming back on the ice for the third period