“Play ‘La Bamba,’ baby.”
The familiar strains of the Edmonton Oilers’ celebration song echoed into the hall outside the visitors dressing room at Rogers Arena on Saturday night.
After enduring their fair share of challenges through the early part of the 2024-25 season, the 7-3 road win over the Vancouver Canucks for last spring’s Stanley Cup Finalists could be just what’s needed to get the group back on track.
Coming into Saturday’s action averaging just 2.36 goals per game, Edmonton beat Kevin Lankinen seven times on just 27 shots, ultimately chasing him from the game with 8:55 remaining in the third period.
Back ahead of schedule from his ankle injury, Connor McDavid resumed his path to 1,000 career points with his first three-point night of the year. He danced down the middle of the ice multiple times during the game, and his third-period power-play rebound conversion came just 10 seconds after Filip Hronek was sent to the penalty box. With assists to Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, it was just like old times, and effectively sealed the win at 5-2.
Aye aye, Captain 🫡 #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/dGNhIpphG3
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) November 10, 2024
Plenty of Northern Albertans have relocated to Canada’s west coast over the years, so it’s not unusual to see large numbers of orange-and-blue jerseys in the stands for a Canucks/Oilers clash.
The Remembrance Day long weekend may also have brought in some out-of-towners. Whatever the reason, Edmonton’s fans were even louder and prouder than usual with their ‘Let’s Go Oilers’ chants — from the opening faceoff through to the dying minutes, after most of Canuck Nation had already headed out into the drizzly November night.
The Oilers fans had plenty to cheer about. Their side first got onto the scoreboard with Leon Draisaitl’s 10th of the year at just 2:48 of the opening period, four seconds after the end of an early Quinn Hughes penalty.
Early in the second, Corey Perry picked up a greasy goal before Viktor Arvidsson wired a wrist shot off a Draisaitl feed for his second as an Oiler.
viktor arvidsson makes it 3-0. pic.twitter.com/6JfKeqPjva
— zach (@zjlaing) November 10, 2024
Then, the Canucks started to channel their performance from Hockey Night in Canada two weeks ago, when Elias Pettersson kicked off a four-goal, second-period explosion that turned a 2-0 deficit against the Pittsburgh Penguins into a 4-3 win.
Just 18 seconds after Arvidsson’s goal, Pettersson beat Skinner for his third of the year, lifting a weight off his own shoulders and energizing his teammates and the home fans.
After Hronek made the score 3-2 less than two minutes later, Kris Knoblauch elected to call his 30-second timeout.
“It’s tough to decide when to use it,” Knoblauch said. “Next whistle, there’s going to be a two-minute timeout. So you’re not sure you want to (spend) that timeout, because you might need it later. But I think way things have been going, we just needed to reset, refocus. Have a little message for the players and get back to work.”
Mission accomplished. The timeout settled the crowd a bit, and then just 57 seconds of inconsequential game action ticked off before the scheduled advertising break. The game slowed down and the Canucks managed just two shots for the rest of the middle frame. In the third, the Oilers took over.
“We’ve been in that situation in this building before — give up two quick ones and a timeout, and get back at it,” McDavid recalled. He was thinking back to Game 7 of last spring’s playoff series, which went from 3-0 to 3-2 for Edmonton during less than four minutes of the third period.
“I thought it was a well-used timeout,” McDavid continued. “A lot of momentum, a lot of energy in the building. Just gave us a chance to get our breath and get back at it.”
Reminded of the playoff moment, Knoblauch smiled. “There was a lot more stress on that one,” he said. “There was a lot more going on in that timeout than there was in this one.”
After the game, both McDavid and Connor Brown said they thought the win should be something that the 7-7-1 Oilers can build on as they strive to return to their elite form from last season.
Knoblauch cautioned against reading too much into it.
“We got seven goals, and you think ‘Oh, everything went really well. We won by four. We must have dominated,'” he said. “I don’t see it that way. Tonight, we were able to execute around the net, score some goals. Maybe some of them, they wanted back, It feels good, but I’m not sure it was our best.”
On Tuesday, Knoblauch will celebrate the one-year anniversary of his hiring in Edmonton with a record of 53-25-6 over 84 games. That’s a winning percentage of .667. He also has that 15-10 record in the playoffs on his NHL resume.
Tuesday night, the Oilers will kick off a two-game homestand against the same team Knoblauch faced in his NHL debut, the New York Islanders.
The story has not been edited by 24x7sportshub and is published from a syndicated feed.