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Edmonton Oilers know the formula well because it’s the same one teams used against them during the humbling Decade of Darkness.
You take most of the night off against an inferior bottom dweller, teasing them a glimmer of false hope, then show up just long enough to bury them in the third period and walk away with two points like the result was never in doubt.
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And so it was Monday afternoon in Arizona, where the Oilers went through the motions for 40 minutes, falling behind 3-2 to a team that hasn’t won a game in a month, before getting serious with a four-goal third period and a 6-3 decision.
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“We came out ready to play in the third period,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, who had a feeling that might happen. “You can tell you’re playing a young, fragile team on a losing streak and feeling very tight.
“We took advantage of it and our level of urgency was a little higher in the third period and it paid off.”
The Oilers were sleepy and disinterested for most of the game, but when they got down to business it was over in a hurry.
They took the Coyotes out behind the barn and gave them the Old Yeller Special, with Evander Kane scoring at 4:28, Zach Hyman at 4:54 and Kane again at 6:31 to turn Arizona’s vision of an upset into their 10th-straight defeat.
“When things aren’t going our way or we don’t have our best game going it’s about staying composed and not panicking,” said Kane, who has six goals in his last six games.
“It’s knowing that if we hang around long enough and get our game in order we can pull it out and this was a good example of that this afternoon.”
Warren Foegele added an empty netter as Edmonton, once riding a 16-game winning streak, wins two in row for the first time since returning from the bye week seven games ago (4-3-0).
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“We talked about that, how we didn’t have back-to-back wins for about three weeks,” said Knoblauch. “One of those weeks was All Star break, but getting back-to-back wins feels good and we want to build on that.”
You could see this one coming from across the street. After taking down the powerhouse Dallas Stars in a spirited battle last game, there was no way the Oilers were going to stumble against a team on a nine-game losing streak, playing its second of back-to-back games with a guy in net who was making his very first NHL start.
That would be like breaking par at Pebble Beach and then shooting 101 at the pitch and putt behind Crazy Kenny’s Reptile Farm.
Still, the Oilers played down to the level of the hapless Coyotes for 40 minutes (below the level of the hapless Coyotes, actually, since they were trailing 3-2 and only had 14 shots on net at the second intermission).
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But when it mattered, they played like it did.
“We were a little slow in the second period, spent a little too much time win our own end,” said Kane. “In order to win this game we knew we had to come out and play in their end. We did a great job of getting on top of them a little quicker.”
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Knoblauch moved Ryan McLeod to the second line with Kane and Leon Draisaitl for the third period and it paid off — the trio scored twice and McLeod finished a team-high plus three.
“I don’t want to get in the habit of changing things up but we got outplayed in the second period, they carried the play,” said Knoblauch. “We just needed a little something to change things up.”
LEAKING GOALS
After that great run of 14-straight games without allowing more than two goals against, the Oilers have now allowed three or more goal in seven straight games for 26 in total.
The penalty kill continues to wade through the quicksand, too. It allowed its 10th goal against on the last 19 power plays over the last six games. One of their biggest strengths a few weeks ago is now their most glaring weakness.
BROWN SITTING DOWN
After going 44 games without a goal this season and falling from first line right wing with Connor McDavid to single-digit even strength minutes on Edmonton’s fourth line, Connor Brown sat out Monday’s game as a healthy scratch.
The Brown experiment has been an abject failure so far, one that will also haunt the team next season when the $3.25 million in bonus money he earned for playing 10 games this year kicks in.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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2024-02-20 00:38:05Z
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