The Edmonton Oilers Blew A 4-1 Lead. That's The Joke
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.It's hard to hold a team's lack of success against an individual player's legacy. Connor McDavid is the best hockey player on the planet currently, regardless of whether or not the Oilers are an absolute fucking joke. Hockey isn't like basketball where one player can carry an entire team to the championship.
But…I mean…when you have 2 out of the last 3 guys to win the league MVP? Well you at least have to come close. And the closest the Oilers have gotten so far in the McDavid era is getting their asses swept out of the conference finals. This seems like a pretty good year to change that. Zach Hyman is a 50-goal scorer. Goaltending hasn't been alarmingly awful. They made light work out of the Kings in the 1st round. Things are looking pretty good for the Edmonton Oilers finally getting the pieces together to make a legitimate run at this thing. Especially if you went to sleep last night after they gave themselves a 4-1 lead in the 2nd period in game 1 against Vancouver.
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As the late great Lester Averman once said, "Relax. It's over, baby".
As I'm sure you're all well aware, the Eden Hall Warriors JV team then proceeded to blow a 9-0 lead against the Blake Bears in the 3rd period. You can read all about that meltdown right here.
Here's the thing--that was Eden Hall's first game of the season. So while the Oilers may not have blown a 9-0 lead, this was in the playoffs. Every goal means so much more in the playoffs than some meaningless regular season game. Probably at least 3 times as much. So blowing a 4-1 lead in the playoffs is equally as devastating as a 9-0 lead in a JV hockey game. Surely the Oilers wouldn't allow themselves to completely unravel to that extent, right?
Wrong.
Right before the end of the 2nd period, Elias Lindholm gets the Canucks back on the board to give them a little juice heading into the intermission. And in the 3rd period it was all Vancouver.
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2 goals for the Canucks in the 3rd and all of a sudden we have a tie game on our hands here. You'd think that would rattle the Oilers enough to wake them up out of that haze and turn it back on. To really buckle down and get that thing back on track. But instead, they give up another one just 39 seconds later.
What a collapse. What a meltdown. What a pathetic display out of Stuart Skinner. Up 4-1 over halfway through the game, and now they give up game 1 at home. And maybe the most impressive part about that comeback from Vancouver is what they did to Connor McDavid that no team has ever done before.
It's just one game in a seven game series. But at some point you know that doubt that was creeping in the back of Edmonton's mind starts to conquer the entire brain. I guess it's better to get this meltdown out of the way in game 1 as opposed to a game 7, but the Canucks already have their nose locked in on that sweet, sweet scent of blood in the water.