On one level, Edmonton Oilers deserved a better fate on Sunday. They dominated play for large stretches and connected for 3 beautiful goals, among them Zach Hyman‘s 50th of the season. Moreover, they held their opponents, Ottawa Senators, to just 16 shots.
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Now the bad news: the penalty kill couldn’t make a stop, and neither could the goaltender.
Henry is a physical marvel that can break tackles and create yards after contact, making him an ideal player to hand off to on early downs.
The Oilers held a 3-1 lead after Hyman drilled home a perfect Connor McDavid pass on the powerplay early in the second, and it seemed they were on their way. But Ottawa netminder Joonas Korpisalo built a wall in front of his net the rest of the way with a number of excellent stops. Meanwhile the Senators chipped away at the lead, tying the game on their second powerplay goal of the contest late in the second, and winning it on another late powerplay in a third period in which the puck had rarely crossed the Edmonton blueline. The seemingly-inevitable empty netter followed for a 5-3 Ottawa victory.
In a game that featured more than a few, shall we say “marginal” penalty calls, the Sens’ 26th-ranked powerplay was money, twice scoring within 10 seconds and a third time after just 22 ticks. Meanwhile, the Oilers 14th-ranked PK unit dropped to 17th by allowing 3 goals in just 2:38 of PP time, the 2 minutes accounted for by one lonely successful kill and the 38 seconds representing the combined time it took Ottawa to score thrice.
Hard to square that the Senators got the majority of the powerplays given how infrequently they had the puck. All the shot and scoring chance statistics, including our own here at the Cult of Hockey (running count), had Edmonton in the 60-70% range. Except the only one that matters.
