It was a 6am start for me to watch the Edmonton Oilers’ game against Nashville before work this morning. That meant I didn’t do a reaction video, although maybe I’ll need to take that approach again so as not to jinx us on Thursday night against the Flyers.
In a 6-1 win with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl scoring, the offense would seem like the part of the team team to focus on, but in some ways the ‘1’ in Nashville’s column was even more important.
There’s no escaping the fact that Jack Campbell had a rough first season in Edmonton. He had looked good in pre-season ahead of his second before Vancouver stuck four past him and he got pulled for Stuart Skinner. He hadn’t done an awful lot wrong, but the top teams don’t just have goalies who can help keep them in a game, they have goalies who can win them games when needed.
The Oilers were out-shot 42-30 by Nashville and Campbell looked sharp from the off. He didn’t just make the routine stops, he pulled off some highlight reel plays, not least a ‘Scorpion’ save when Gustav Nyquist looked certain to score. That came early in the Second Period just after Nashville had got on the board with a Power Play Goal by Tommy Novak. A goal there would have made it 4-2 and given Nashville some momentum with plenty of time left in the game.
Instead, Soup pulled off a superb stop, the Oilers’ penalty kill got the job done (albeit with a scare when Ryan O’Reilly pinged the pipe) and shortly after it was 5-1 courtesy of another Power Play goal by Draisaitl.
Campbell added another unlikely stop in the Third Period, one that left Juuso Pärssinen shaking his head in disbelief, to put an exclamation point on his night. We’ve seen it before from Soup during his time in Toronto that he can go on spells where he performs as an elite goalie. His record tells us not to expect him to be at that level consistently, but if he can be solid and then pull out worldie games like this when needed it will go a long way to the Oilers having a successful season.
Credit for this victory also needs to go to Head Coach Jay Woodcroft.
It was easy to smile when the team’s practice lines were reported. As has so often been the case in Edmonton in recent years, the response to two poor losses was going to be putting McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line again. It’s hard for that to be a bad answer to a problem, yet the twin threat of having them on separate lines always feels like the most potent way to throw two elite talents at the opposition.
However, the most telling part of Woodcroft’s decision to shake up the forward lines was the effect it had on the other three groups. The new second line of Warren Foegele, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman showed excellent chemistry from the start. Nuge’s goal to make it 3-0 in the First Period was the perfect example: Hyman did a great job in causing havoc with his forecheck, Foegele showed a vision and passing touch that he rarely gets credit for, and Nuge flicked the puck home past Juuse Saros.
New recruit Connor Brown performed well working with Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway after showing signs of rust in the first two games on the top line, whilst the fourth line of Derek Ryan, Mattias Janmark and Adam Erne put in the hard yards as needed.
Add on a charming ovation for the returning Mattias Ekholm from the Nashville crowd and it was about as perfect a way to respond to two opening losses as you could get.
