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‘Hopefully we can run with it’: Oilers grab Pacific lead with win over Sabres
Edmonton somehow beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 Saturday afternoon to launch themselves past Vegas and into first place in the Pacific, the first time they have sat atop the Pacific standings since Dec. 1, 2001.
EDMONTON — Take a guess. When was the last time the Edmonton Oilers won their division in the regular season?
Well, here’s a hint: They’ve never won the Pacific Division regular season title, nor have they won the Northwest Division flag.
In fact, the Oilers have never finished first in their division after 82 games. Because the last time they won it — the 1986-87 Smythe Division crown — teams only played 80 regular season games.
No kidding. Eighty-six, eighty-seven.
The Oilers have won two Stanley Cups and played in four since.
Edmonton somehow beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 Saturday afternoon to launch themselves past Vegas and into first place in the Pacific, the first time they have sat atop the Pacific standings since Dec. 1, 2001. Back then, Dave Tippett was their head coach and Mikko Koskinen their No. 1 goalie.
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“There’s a lot more mountain to go. What do we have, a third of the year left?” Zach Hyman asked after the game. “You can’t really look at the standings yet.”
Oh yeah?
Tell that to a hockey writer who just watched the first-place Oilers nearly lose to the last-place team in the Eastern Conference, the stumbling, bumbling Buffalo Sabres.
Buffalo went without a shot for almost the first nine minutes of the game — “I thought it was going to be a low shot game again,” said goalie Stuart Skinner — before peppering Skinner with 41 shots in the final 51 minutes of hockey.
The Oilers were hanging on in the third period after Nugent-Hopkins’ second of the game gave them a 3-2 lead, with Skinner’s heroics the only thing standing between this 3-2 win and a 5-2 Buffalo shellacking.
“We leaned on him heavy tonight. Probably a little too heavy,” Nugent-Hopkins said of Skinner. “We knew coming in that if you give these guys any life they’re going to run with it. They’re a bunch of young, skilled players who can make you pay.
“Stu did a great job; we found a way to win. Obviously, we can be better, but we’ll take those two points.”
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Jiri Kulich put a puck past Skinner late in the third period to tie the game, but to the Sabres’ dismay, the replay made clear that he’d booted it over the goal line.
“I think it was pretty obvious,” lamented Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff. “We’ve seen almost every way of losing a game this year, in a heartbreak. And I think when you look at it, it’s probably the right call.”
Now, the Oilers are off on Sunday and Vegas hosts Florida, so their time atop the Pacific may be shortlived. But in their remaining six games before the 4 Nations Face-Off break, Edmonton plays just two playoff teams — Toronto and Colorado — both on Edmonton’s home ice.
Vegas, meanwhile, plays five playoff teams in their seven remaining games before the break. And while Edmonton is 10-3 in its past 13 games, the Golden Knights are 2-6-1 since Jan. 9, two teams trending in opposite directions.
First place in the Pacific is up for grabs down the stretch this season, and an Oilers team that played two Game 7s on the road last spring can attest to the value of finishing first for a change.
“I know it was a goal of ours to win our division,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Just rewinding back to last year’s playoffs, what a difficult road we had. We started at home, but the next three series we were on the road.
“This is the possibility of making that road a little easier on us, whether it’s shortening a series or having home ice in a Game 7 situation. We were fortunate enough to win one Game 7 on the road, but we didn’t win the other one. It just helps you along the way to finish at the top.”
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This game marked the end of Connor McDavid’s three-game suspension for cross-checking Conor Garland. Edmonton won two of three, and he’ll be back Monday when Seattle visits.
“I thought we probably deserved to win the Washington game (3-2 loss), the Vancouver game (6-2 win), and then this one probably not,” admitted Hyman. “So it all evens out, right? That’s kind of how things work in hockey.”
A couple of weeks ago it was Vegas with the softer schedule while Edmonton was playing contender after contender. The Oilers survived that run pretty well, and now the tables are turned.
Regardless of how Vegas does Sunday, home games this week for Edmonton against Seattle and Detroit — with McDavid back and the team clicking along fairly well — mark a huge opportunity to seize control of the Pacific.
“That’s the goal, right? It’s huge to get first place,” said Skinner, who was nearly impenetrable Saturday, stopping three Sabres breakaways. “We’ve still got a lot of hockey to be played — it’s still anyone’s game, the points are so close. For us the mindset has got to be, it’s great to be in first place.
“Let’s try to get some more points here, keep playing the same way that we’ve been playing, and hopefully we can run with it a little bit.”
