Edmonton Oilers head coach Todd McLellan didn’t provide any further details Saturday about Oscar Klefbom’s status except that he expects the defenceman to be back in the lineup for Game 3 on Sunday.
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Up front, Logan Couture, center Tomas Hertl and tip-master Joe Pavelski were on the No. 1 unit, but it hardly resembled the familiar group that includes Thornton and Patrick Marleau. By the end of the second period, the Rogers Place fans were chanting “Kass-ee-ann!” My linemates played well. “But we know in here there’s a lot of hockey to be played”. “We’ve got to create some offense, we’ve got to shoot the puck, we’ve got to score some goals. It was his show tonight”. “San Jose went to the finals past year”.
The shift to San Jose for Game 3 wasn’t the only change to which the Oilers had to adjust.
Despite the Edmonton Oilers losing their first playoff game since Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, one couple went home very, very, very happy. Edmonton responded with 12-4 shot differential in the second period.
Martin Jones finished with 34 saves for the Sharks.
The 2017 iteration of the San Jose Sharks playoff team is one of the most inexplicably poor in terms of execution in recent memory.
“If they’re going to concentrate on shutting down him, somebody else has to get the job done. just like them”, DeBoer said.
More troubling for the Sharks, though, is the fact that they have not punished the Oilers for the minimal contributions of the Connor McDavid line.
Other than that, it was the first evenly-played game of a series that still has not yet taken form. “I definitely felt a little bit of nerves in the first one”.
“It was a tale of two games”, he said. McDavid had his first two shots on goal, both good chances, late in the second. His line with Joe Pavelksi and Melker Karlsson was probably the most effective at producing chances throughout the night but could not convert any of them. He swiped at the puck with this stick, giving it to Edmonton’s Mark Letestu. “I saw he was looking for a long pass and I just tried to get in the way”, Kassian said. He missed the final three games of the regular season and the first two playoff games after injuring his knee at Vancouver on April 2. San Jose trails in the best-of-seven series 2-1.
The Sharks power play was no great shakes in the regular season, ranked 25th at 16.7 per cent. What does it mean for Edmonton if Jumbo Joe skates out of the tunnel Sunday night?
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The only goal came with 9:15 to go in the third period. His confidence is an unwavering product of Olympic selections and all-star teams, yet that seniority at the top of the talent pool also tells him how fast the game has become every time McDavid whizzes past.
