Some Oiler Goals From Friday’s Wild Ride
Friday’s seven goal outburst is one of two “styles” of Oiler victory that we’ll see this year.
- There’s the kind where Edmonton scores one or two goals, the Oiler goalie puts on a clinic, and the team hangs around long enough for a close call in the end.
- Then, there’s the one where the Oiler kids score a boatload of goals, the defence and the goaltenders play less porous than the other team’s goalie, everybody’s happy because youth is served and the Oilers scored more than the other guys.
Friday night’s game versus the Blackhawks was quite obviously the latter. But, why seven goals in Chicago? Aren’t these guys the Stanley Cup Champs?
Today, we’ll do something different. Let’s take a look at some of these goals with video courtesy of the NHL and see how the Oilers got so many by shooting so few.
The Blackhawks had a night to forget in this one. Chicago managed 41 shots and scored four goals, an effort that likely would win you more games than you lose in this league. As you’ll see in the following clips,
GOAL 1: TAYLOR HALL (1-0 EDM)
The game started with some end-to-end action in both zones, when this happens. You see Hjalmarsson flick it to Kopecky (who has a couple of real zen moments in these clips) who fumbles around long enough for Jordan Eberle to bring it over the Blackhawk blue line. He drops a pass to Hall who takes a fairly pedestrian shot on Turco, and I can’t offer a fair opinion on why Turco missed this other than 999 times out of a thousand, he makes this safe with his eyes closed. There’s no excuse to miss that.
Even if Jassen Cullimore was 6’11”, you’ve got to see a 45 foot wrist shot coming in from the blue. This was the beginning of a bad one for Marty Turco.
GOAL 2 – ALES HEMSKY (2-1 EDM)
Big points go to Magnus Paajarvi for being the handle that turns the crank on this one. Paajarvi is your man who brings this one over the blue line and takes the bump and gets the puck to Hemsky. Hemsky gets the puck to a lone Ryan Whitney, who then gets the puck on net. A giant rebound off of Turco’s right pad leads to Ales Hemsky with a slam dunk. Hemsky doesn’t miss on an open net very often, now add the fact that Turco is out of place after a big juicy rebound, and you’ve got 2-1 Oilers. After this, it gets nuts.
GOAL 3 – JORDAN EBERLE (3-1 EDM)
While the first Oiler goal may have been somewhat fluky, the second goal got legs because no one in the Chicago end played the puck. Nearly the same thing happens on Eberle’s goal, as Hall chips the puck to Horcoff, and not until Horc has already passed the puck does anyone decide that playing the puck is worth any of their time. Once Horcoff gets the puck on Eberle’s tape, the light over Turco’s head is already on.
Goals four and five aren’t available on the Internet, and if you saw goal four, you’d probably want to give a secondary assist to the linesman Stephane Auger. Auger was…uh, way out of position. To say the fourth goal was an even bigger gift than Taylor Hall’s goal at the top of the page is a valued understatement. Edmonton finished the first period up 4-2.
Ryan Jones has goal six.
Again, the play begins in the Oiler end of the rink. Nick Boynton picks up the puck and throws it across to no one in particular where it is picked up by Kurtis Foster. Foster threads it up to a streaking Ryan Jones, and everyone is behind Ryan Jones. Jones breaks in on Crawford and is able to trickle one between the pads. If you’re good at reading lips, you’ll see Ryan Jones exclaim shortly after the goal something that rhymes with “trucking lime pole”. I dunno, you figure it out.
Sam Gagner had himself an empty netter in the end, and the Oilers were victorious by a 7-3 score.
Clearly, you can see that this game wasn’t one of Chicago’s better efforts. Couple this with about a dozen true scoring chances by my count, and Edmonton cashing in on half of those is truly remarkable. Is Chicago having a post-Cup hangover? Is the loss of Byfuglien, Versteeg, Eager, Burish, Madden, Ladd and Colin Fraser too much for the reigning champs to swallow? What about the goaltending? Is Turco that much of a downgrade in goal? Was Niemi that good?
The Oilers had a really good night on offence. Khabibulin had a fairly pedestrian outing in allowing 4 goals in 41 total shots. If the defence is going to surrender 41 shots (as they’re pretty good at doing so far) and if whoever in the net isn’t playing on fire, then the Oilers are going to have to have an offensive output similar to this game.
Although their record is currently one game above .500, I tend to think of this sort of game as an anomaly for a team like the Blackhawks. The Oilers are currently one game below .500, with a chance to bring that number even against Vancouver tonight.