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Oilers 2, Blackhawks 1 – Fourteen Seconds Is All You Need

By Jeffrey Chapman

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Edmonton turns the tide in Chicago on a pair of third period goals that occurred in fourteen seconds, and Jim Vandermeer broke stuff.

Come for the game review, stay for stuff breaking.  A one and-a-two…

Meet Chicago’s Achilles Heel – your Edmonton Oilers.  I can’t imagine how much Chicago wanted to level the score against Edmonton after Edmonton’s last visit to the United Center.  I’m sure there was some chest pounding and some inspirational speech given in Chicago’s locker room before the opening face off.  You’re not going to let them come in here and do it to us again, are you?

Edmonton does just enough this game in order to get a couple of points in Chicago, and all of the tough stuff was done in a quarter of a minute.   A first period goal scored by former Oiler yet still fan-favourite Fernando Pisani held through until the middle of the third period, when Edmonton scored two quirky goals in fourteen seconds.

Kurtis Foster scored a powerplay talley with just over seven minutes remaining in the third period to knot the game up on a really bad angle shot.  Two blinks later and Gagner’s got one behind a bewildered Corey Crawford.  What happened?

It happened.

What happened?  You know, it. It happened.  What is it?  I dunno.  Can you see it?  It happened on TV.  What?

Former NFL coach and current football analyst Herm Edwards is famous for his over-simple one-liners.  The one that comes to mind at the end of this game is “You Play, to win the game”. The Oilers played, and they won the game.  Two points is definitely the optimum outcome in this game, and that’s what the Oilers got after a vibrant third period in a game that could’ve been all sorts of trouble.

If this isn’t your first visit here, you know that lots of the posts here end with a some bullet points where I try my best not to crap all over the game finding fault with every little thing that went wrong during the contest.   You’re in luck, because that time is now.  Let’s get to it.

  • File this one under the Goals from Unlikely Sources category:  Kurtis Foster got lucky on his all-sorts-of-wacky goal from Crawford’s extreme left, but how about a send-up for the power play?  Special Teams is going to be a necessary factor if Edmonton is going to entertain thoughts on coming out on the happy side of .500 during the month of November.  We’re going to sidestep a good chunk of the penalty kill part of this conversation due to bloodletting, but a the Oilers were three for three in PK ops.  Small fist pump.
  • Shawn Horcoff is day-to-day after being injuring his leg on a collision with Jack Skille.  If Horc is out for any length of time, I’d be somewhat surprised not to at least see Linus Omark on the big squad, what with him scoring five goals and a shootout tally down in OKC last night versus the Marlies.  There’s a link for that.  The video looks a bit like I may have shot it with a shoe-cam, but video is video.

    • Nikolai Khabibulin earned the W in last night’s performance,  but he had a lot of help from something last night.  You can pick it, angels, leprechauns, God, Ralph Intranuovo…anything that’ll get you through the night.  Guy was moving like Dominik Hasek at some points, and that worked out great if you were Dominik Hasek.  I can count at least two or three circumstances (at least two yawning nets were completely flubbed last night) where the biscuit could’ve been buried in Edmonton’s net but was not.  With all that being said, Edmonton got the W, and it’s not like Khabibulin didn’t have almost thirty other saves.

    Zack Stortini had a fight with John Scott last night that wasn’t much fun at all for Stortini.  And because you’re here, ugh.

    • Taylor Hall didn’t score any goals last night, but his play is looking about six to eleven times better on the ice compared to ten games ago.  The season is but twelve games old, and he’s settled in just fine.  The goals will come.

    Did I miss anything?  Probably.  Oh, yes.  I almost forgot.  For your viewing pleasure,  Jim Vandermeer.

    The Oilers are in Raleigh, North Carolina and will take on the Hurricanes tomorrow night in a game that I’d badly like for them to win. Join us tomorrow for the game preview, and hopefully a wave of celebratory shots after the game is over.

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