Edmonton Oilers stay alive, shove Game 4 right down Florida’s throat

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Not today. Not here.

If the Edmonton Oilers are going to lose the Stanley Cup Final, as every expert and every piece of historical information suggests, it wasn’t going to be on home ice.

It wasn’t going to be in a sweep.

Maybe the Oilers are just delaying the inevitable and making everyone fly back out to Florida to have the Florida Panthers win it there, or maybe this really is the birth of something the NHL hasn’t witnessed in nearly 100 years, it didn’t seem to matter.

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All that mattered in a sold out Rogers Place that roared its way through a savage 8-1 Game 4 beat down is that the song is true: Saturday night really is all right for fighting.

The Oilers began the impossible task of fighting their way back from a 3-0 series deficit with the one win they needed to stay alive and maybe nudge the momentum a littler closer to their side.

And, in doing so, they brought their blurry vision into a slightly crisper focus. Yes, they can hang with Florida. Yes, they can get to Florida’s goalie. And, yes, one win does kind of change the narrative.

“It’s one win closer,” said Oilers winger Zach Hyman. “The mentality is the same, the belief is the same, but it’s nice to go out and do it, get a win, get a couple past the goalie and show we can do it. And put a little doubt on the other side. It’s a good win.”

Two absolute truths about the Oilers are that they play their very best hockey when there’s a knife to their throat and that their very best hockey is good enough to beat anyone.

The math checked out in Game 4.

It was all Oilers from sudden start to deafening finish. They chased Florida goal Sergei Bobrovsky from the net after five goals in 25 minutes, dominated play for the second time in four games and served notice the rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated.

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In a nutshell, they shoved Game 4 down Florida’s throat.

“It’s a fun game to play at home, score a couple of goals, give the fans something to cheer about and it’s nice to break through, finally,” said winger Mattias Janmark, who set the stage for the evening with a brilliant first period. “Now we have to show up in Florida and play the same way for 60 minutes.

“We’re going to have to play a really good game to have a chance there and that’s what we intend to do.”

Saturday night answered the question of what would happen if Florida didn’t get superhuman goaltending. What would happen if Bobrovsky’s unsustainable save percentage came back to earth and the Oilers started to catch a few breaks?

Well, it happened quick.

You want breaks? The Oilers dodged a major penalty two minutes into the game when Darnell Nurse struck the knee out on Sam Bennett, watched Florida hit the goal post twice on the ensuing power play and then made it 1-0 when Janmark scored shorthanded.

And the flood gates were open. Janmark set up Adam Henrique for the 2-0 goal at 7:48 and Dylan Holloway made it 3-1 at 14:48.

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And when Connor McDavid scored 1:13 into the second period, it was four goals on 11 shots after four goals in the previous 86 — a seismic change in what was happening in Florida’s net.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins made it 5-1, Darnell Nurse made it 6-1 at the second intermission, and after that it was pretty much a party at Rogers Place. Holloway’s second of the night and one from Ryan McLeod rounded out the rout.

What happened? Did the Oilers just unlock something?

“Just scoring, to be honest,” said Hyman. “There are no moral victories in hockey. You’re down 3-0 even though you think you played pretty well. The key is just to stick with it. People see the series score but in the room we feel we’ve been right there and that’s fuelled the belief. Every win, that belief grows. We bought ourselves another couple of days here.”


If this is the last time they see the Oilers, and after what happened Saturday it certainly doesn’t look that way, it was a pretty great way to say goodbye. But this doesn’t look like a team that’s ready to go away quietly.

And, hey, losing the first three games and making the situation look as bleak and hopeless and possible before rising from the dead would be classic Oilers.

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“It would just make sense with the way the season has gone,” grinned Connor Brown. “It would just make sense. This has been a really unique season and we’re a really unique group. I don’t think there are a lot of situations where you can be down three games in the Stanley Cup Final and have that sense of belief, but we’re a unique team and we genuinely do.”

But nobody is kidding themselves about why lies ahead.

“It’s just one win, that’s all it is,” said McDavid, who had a four-point night, with his 32nd assist moving him past Wayne Gretzky for most in a single playoff season in NHL history.

“We have to go to Florida and do a job and drag them back to Alberta.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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