Despite being somewhat decimated by injuries, the Canucks outworked the visiting Oilers to pull off a 4-3 overtime victory at Rogers Arena on Sunday night. It snapped Vancouver’s three game losing streak.
Superstar-laden Edmonton is known to start seasons slowly. On Sunday evening they tried to win the game by working their hardest in the final ten minutes of regulation. As is so often the case for any team, that formula didn’t pay off.
Get used to it. With the Winter Olympic-compressed schedule and countless back-to-backs for all of the NHL teams, 3rd period efforts of desperation and inspiration, following two periods of turnovers and lackadaisical effort, will be commonplace this season. And it’s still only October.
Forwards Kiefer Sherwood, Conor Garland, Brock Boeser and Elias Pettersson carried the team to victory, along with goalie Thatcher Demko’s 26 saves.
Sherwood scored two goals, including the OT game winner with a tip-in, and had another called back following an offside review. Garland was his usual energetic self, stealing pucks and setting up two goals while leading the forwards in ice time. Boeser finished with a goal and two helpers, while Pettersson won 55% of his draws, including some key ones against Connor McDavid, blocked four shots, and scored a power play goal.
The win improved Vancouver’s record to .500 on the season, at 5-and-5, with another team in a funk headed to town on Tuesday; the New York Rangers.
Of course that match will be fun to watch with the return of former Canucks center J.T. Miller to Rogers Arena for the first time since being traded by Vancouver at the end of January. This will be the fiery forward’s first game as an NHL visitor since December of 2018 when he played with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Miller and his new mates hosted the Canucks back on March 22nd at Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers are at the very bottom of the Eastern Conference standings with a 3-5-and-2 record.
After losing a back-to-back set, which included a 3-2 setback in Seattle to the Kraken on Saturday, the Oilers are now 4-4-and-2 on the season.
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