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The golden rule of entertainment is to give the people what they want.
And hockey fans in Edmonton, Colorado and around the NHL, for that matter, have been wanting this game for a long time: a late-season head-to-head between the Oilers and Avalanche.
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The contest delivered on its promise, with the two heavyweight contenders going toe-to-toe in a hotly-contested thriller that came down to the final two seconds of overtime, where Artturi Lehkonen broke Edmonton’s hearts with the 3-2 winner.
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For the Oilers, it is an excellent barometer of where they are as a team as they prepare for the most important post-season in a very long time. Both sides were coming in on three days’ rest. Both sides were 7-2-1 in their previous 10. Both sides were looking to see how they stack up against another Western Conference power team.
The answer for Edmonton is that, yes, they are right there. But the road to post-season elimination is paved with gritty one-goal losses, so there will be no moral victories celebrated after this one.
Edmonton’s goaltending stood up to the challenge. Stuart Skinner was red hot in the net, with his glove hand in peak playoff form. Among Skinner’s highlights on a 41-save night was stopping Jonathan Drouin on a second-period penalty shot.
The lockdown defensive game the Oilers have been trying all season to perfect also served them well, at the start, anyway. They got their sticks on almost every seam pass Colorado attempted, they blocked 18 shots in the first period alone and didn’t give up their 10th shot of the game until the midway mark of the second period.
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The worm turned in the middle frame, however, with Colorado taking control of the play and taking a 1-0 lead on Sean Walker’s goal at 10:39 to lead 1-0 heading into the third period. Those 10 Colorado shots at the midway mark of the second period turned into 35 by the midway mark of the third.
But Skinner held the fort and the Oilers, who’ve been a third-period force all year, got themselves back into the fight on Warren Foegele’s 16th of the season at 5:44 and took the lead on Sam Carrick’s first goal as an Oiler at 11:48.
Alas, Walker’s second of the night with 5:20 left sent the game to overtime.
The side angle of Nathan McKinnon (first in NHL scoring) and Connor McDavid (nine points back in third) going head to head didn’t amount to much, with McDavid’s 26-game home-ice scoring streak coming to an end and McKinnon getting one assist on the OT winner.
LATE HITS — Vincent Desharnais and Josh Manson had a decent second-period scrap after the Avs defenceman ran his Edmonton counterpart into Skinner. But Desharnais didn’t play a shift in the third period. … Zach Hyman had his 47th goal of the season taken off the board 2:05 into the third period for a pretty obvious kick. … Corey Perry picked up the 900th point of his career on Edmonton’s 2-1 goal.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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