I slept like garbage. I woke up feeling like I was going to heave. I’ve got some kind of restless leg syndrome thing going on. I know for a fact that I’m probably going to snap at someone today over nothing. It’s Game Seven.
Edmonton absolutely trounced the Ducks in game 6 to the tune of 7-1. We were barely 9 minutes into the game and the score was 3-0, the Ducks had already used their timeout thus negating any possible challenge, and Gibson was pulled from the game. Then the Oiler scored 4 more goals. Some people, like Don Cherry, think “running up the score… was a bad thing. That it embarrasses the Ducks and galvanizes them for Game 7. Others, I think rightly, say that the team needed to score as many goals as possible since letting their foot off the gas in Game 5 was what allowed the collapse to happen. Plus there’s that thing about the referees spotting the Ducks a few goals every game.
The only concern I have about the Oil scoring 7 in Game 6 is that it might fool them into thinking the goals will come easy. The last thing the Oilers need to do is lose the urgency they played with to start the last game. McLellan’s club needs to come out of the gates and run the Ducks into the ground again. They need to be tougher, faster, and more desperate than the Ducks again.
What they need to do is get rubber in Gibson’s direction. John Gibson has a very brutal .903 save percentage in these playoffs. In THIS SERIES Gibson’s save percentage is actually worse. Versus the Oilers in 6 games he has an .885 save percentage. If the Oilers can generate shots then there’s a pretty good chance that they will get positive results.
Talbot, on the other hand, has a .924 sv% in the post-season and a .921 in the series vs the Ducks. There is no question about which team has the edge in goaltending going into this final game of the series. Given the fact that Gibson has been a sieve, the team just exploded for 7 goals in the last game, and the sword of Damocles is hanging over the heads of the veteran Duck players who have blown 4 consecutive game sevens, there is an opportunity for the Oilers to win this game.
Somehow, deliciously, the Ducks have blown a 3-2 lead in the playoffs four years in a row and lost Game 7 on home-ice each time. Edmonton played very poorly over the majority of this series but the game changed once Draisaitl was moved to feature on his own line. He’s been a Duck killer all year, as we spoke about yesterday, and there probably isn’t another team in the league where moving him to C would create such an advantage for the Oil.
For a lot of Oiler fans this series should already be over if not for the incompetence of the NHLs referees. Regardless of what happened in the past, the Oilers have an opportunity tonight to undo the damage done to them by those bizarre non-interference calls. It’s one last game. Someone is moving on. If Edmonton prevails then we can forget the brutal calls and move on. If the Oilers lose, I doubt anyone in Edmonton will ever forget what happened Between games 4 and 5. Ducks fans will happily tell us all to move on, but I still think Brett Hull’s foot was in the crease and I’m not over it and that was almost 20 years ago and not even my own team.
There’s an incredible amount of pressure tonight but the Oilers will have a large cheering section in the Honda Center, they are technically speaking the underdogs, and the recent changes they’ve made to their lines gives them a solid path to victory. The advantage is to the Oilers in net and they currently have two scoring lines, a defensibly responsible shut-down line, and their 4th line is chipping in on special teams.
Tonight is Game 7.
LINEUP We anticipate that Klefbom returns tonight.
Maroon McDavid Caggiula Lucic Draisaitl Slepyshev Pouliot RNH Eberle Desharnais Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Larsson Russell Benning Nurse Gryba
Talbot Brossoit
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Spread Offense. The Oilers made the switch to have Draisaitl on his own line and they have been rewarded for it so far. The team sped out to a 3-0 lead in Game 5 before sitting on it and experiencing a total collapse. For 56 minutes it looked like a winning strategy until it wasn’t. So they readjusted in Game 6 and destroyed the Ducks. With Nugent-Hopkins and Eberle shooting blanks it was important to establish a scoring threat beyond the McDavid line. Even though 97 was kept off the scoresheet in that 7-1 rout, he was as dangerous as ever and teams have to respect that. If the Ducks try to hard match Getzlaf and Kesler against McDavid and Draisaitl respectively, then the onus falls back on the Nuge line to create something positive. It should leave weaker matchups when possible and any advantage no matter how slight has to be exploited tonight.
2) As Goes Getzlaf. As good as Kesler has been and is capable of being, the story of this series for the Ducks has been the beastly play of Ryan Getzlaf. If the Oilers can keep the big man quiet then there is hope. If he plays another whale of a game then this is going to be a long night. Getzlaf has dominated the boards, but Edmonton tried to establish themselves physically in the last match. Even though he didn’t cause a lot of damage, Edmonton’s Drake Caggiula showed a lot of brass when he took a run at Getzlaff along the boards. Caggiula is a gnat at just 5’10… and 185 lbs compared to the 6’4… 221 lbs of Ryan Getzlaf, but the effort and the willingness was there. It’s the mindset needed to challenge the Ducks. Don’t give them the boards because they’re bigger. Don’t respect Getzlaf’s right to own that space. He doesn’t own it. Take it from him.
3) Here We Go Again. Tonight will mark the 2nd time this week the Oilers will be playing for their playoff lives. They know the stakes. Win and you move on. Lose and you can pack your gear for the last time. The Ducks haven’t played in a game with their own elimination on the line in a year, but they have plenty of experience. In fact, Perry and Getzlaf have lost 4 years in a row on heartbreaking Game 7 failures. With Gibson playing questionably (at best) it is imperative for the Oilers to get a couple early goals in. Why? Because the Oilers need to defeat the Ducks mentally as quickly as humanly possible in this game tonight. They need Getzlaf in particular to feel like the Game 7 loss is an inevitability of fate. Kill their spirit in the first and let them think about how unfair life is for another summer (alternatively that’s what I’ll be doing if this thing goes sideways). Edmonton needs to make the Ducks feel that classic “Here we go again… feeling that chokes the life out of their hopes and dreams.
Puck drops tonight at 8PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet. Game On!
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