Oilers know they need to be better despite taking two points from Habs

The Edmonton Oilers know they didn’t fully deserve to win Thursday night’s game against the Montreal Canadiens.

They were sloppy, disorganized, and looked disinterested at times for the first 50 minutes of the game, but they woke up in the final 10 minutes, erased a two-goal deficit, and won 6-5. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t how they wanted to play, but they won, and now they head out to Seattle and Vancouver with an opportunity to have a really good record through their first 10 games.

The players weren’t shy about discussing their performance.

“We found a way to get a lead in the second, but then we stopped playing for a bit,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “That is a high-powered team if you give them looks, and let them feel good, they will capitalize. It (our effort) just wasn’t good enough. We took advantage, we got some power plays at the end that we scored on, and then a really big goal by Pods (Podkolzin). I thought we started to push at the end, but for most of the game it wasn’t up to our standard.”

Nugent-Hopkins has been the Oilers’ most consistent skater through eight games. He’s tied his career-best start in goals with five through eight games.

They’ve needed him while Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have yet to find their dominant games — although McDavid did have his first three-point game of the season, and the PP looked very good in the final 10 minutes.

Vasily Podkolzin scored his first goal of the season on a beautiful backhand top shelf with 69 seconds remaining to give the Oilers the win. It was an emotional goal for him. It was his first goal since his father unexpectedly passed away during preseason.

“First of all, thank you for all the support I got on social media. Thank you, Oilers, for allowing me to be with my family during this tough time. I was in touch with the guys from the team every day, and they asked about me and cared about me. I felt a heck of a lot of support from them.

“Thank you guys (media) and thank you, fans. It is a pretty sad and huge loss for me and for my family. Right now, I’m just playing in good memory of him, making him proud every day. He always wanted me to win a Cup. Unfortunately, he won’t see it, but he will see it on the other side. That was a tough month. I didn’t feel very good, but you guys and my teammates made it easier with the support. I can’t be more thankful. It wasn’t our best game, and we have to play much better, but it was good to find a way to win,” continued Podkolzin.

His father would be incredibly proud of his son, and he’d be quite pumped about how great a goal it was. Podkolzin joked about his goal.

“I’m not like Malkin. I saw him, about 10 years ago, score a goal backhand top shelf against the Oilers. I’m not like him, but it was a nice goal (smiles).”

It sure was, and it was meaningful for him and impactful for his team. Anyone who’s lost a parent in their 20s (or at any age) knows how difficult the first month can be as you try to keep living and find a new normal. Podkolzin has played quite well with 1-3-4 in eight games, considering the loss of his father and the fact that his younger sister and brother, and his mom live so far away in Russia. It is tough, but he’s shown great strength.

Head coach Krs Knoblauch gave this assessment of the game.

“Maybe the last 10 minutes of the game looked like we were a team, but the first 50 minutes it was disorganized,” Knoblauch said. “It was a lack of work. It didn’t look very good. We have a lot of things to clean up. We are very happy we came out with two points — the power play came up huge. We can only get better right now.

Hard to argue with anything he said.

Knobluach switched up his lines in the third period. He said he liked what he saw in the final 10 minutes of the game.

“We are searching for combinations. The last 10 minutes, it looked like we found something, but that might change next game. I was trying to reward the guys who were playing well. I thought (Isaac) Howard was one of those guys. The way he is skating, he is figuring things out very quickly in the NHL. I’m very happy with his game and where he is at right now. I just needed to change things up. Splitting up Connor and Leon just gave us a little more balanced attack. Those two weren’t really being as forceful as expected. I liked how we finished, and we will continue going that way.”

He plans to start the game in Seattle on Saturday with these combinations:

Howard-McDavid-Mangiapane
Podkolzin-Draisaitl-Savoie
Henrique-RNH-Roslovic
Frederic-Philp-Tomášek

Knoblauch added this when I asked about all the missed/errant passes and giveaways we’ve seen to start the season.

“Just a simple execution of a pass isn’t happening. Maybe it is overconfidence and holding onto the puck too long, then the play closes, and you are forced to make a hope play. We just aren’t connected, and it is up to the coaching staff to get that organized and have them play well together. We need to execute plays better.”

RANDOM THOUGHTS….

— It was an entertaining game. There were loads of giveaways and scoring chances both ways. It led to multiple lead changes, sloppy plays, bad decisions, and some really nice plays as well.

— Cole Caufield looked great. He has always been quick, but he showed me how fast he was when he and Darnell Nurse raced down the ice. Nurse can usually close ground on most forwards, but didn’t on Caufield. His first goal was an incredible display of quick hands and vision.

— Nurse had an up-and-down night. He fanned on a tap-in goal, but stuck with the play and then made arguably the best pass of his career with a between-the-legs backhand right to Andrew Mangiapane in front. A few shifts later, he made a brutal pass attempt that led directly to Josh Anderson’s first goal of the season. Nurse had a few other bad pass attempts/giveaways. But he also made a very nice one-touch pass quickly to Podkolzin on the game-winner. Two great passes and multiple bad giveaways — no shortage of entertainment, both exciting and frustrating.

— Adam Henrique has quietly had a solid start to the season. He has two goals, has been solid 5×5 and on the PK, and he is fourth in the NHL, going 62% in faceoffs (minimum 20 faceoffs).

— McDavid registered his 137th three-point game of his career in only the 720th game. He ranks 21st all-time and is one back of Peter Stastny (138 in 977 GP) and three back of Alex Ovechkin (140 in 1498 GP).

— Trent Frederic needs to get more involved. He knows it. The coach knows it. The fans know it. We all know it. Points are one aspect, but it’s more about being more engaged. If I were him, I’d try to get in a scrap and hope it jump-starts my season. It is only eight games, but he’s yet to show a physical presence in a game.