The Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers are both coming off a solid outing that helped them snap a skid, and each will look to keep it going when the two squads square off in Edmonton on Thursday.
Trailing 2-0 after the first period against the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday, the Oilers took control in the second. They scored twice in three minutes early in the frame to tie it before Utah regained the lead midway through. But then three goals in five minutes late in the period gave Edmonton a lead it would never relinquish in a 6-3 victory.
“You don’t want to put yourselves in these situations too often,” forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. “This league is so good. Every team can make you pay for that. But the way we responded is obviously a great sign, and it’s something we’ve excelled at over the past few years. … To be able to show up after a poor first period like that is a good sign for our team.”
The win halted a two-game skid for the Oilers, who have had a bit of a bumpy first month of the season with a 5-4-2 record thus far. They haven’t been able to string together more than two wins in a row. They’ve scored first in only four of their first 11 games, winning three of them. Slow starts have been an issue, with only five of their 35 goals on the season coming in the first period.
“I think that there is a quiet confidence in here,” defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. “I don’t necessarily think it was nervousness or panicking or anything like that just because we had a .500 start after 10 games, but you never know, right? And to be honest with you, this was one game. We need to follow this up on Thursday, so that’s where I’ll leave it.”
The Rangers, meanwhile, arrive in Edmonton after a 2-0 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday to snap a three-game losing streak. They returned to the defensive structure that coach Mike Sullivan has preached in the win, after allowing a combined 14 goals over the course of their slide.
“That’s the game that we put on the ice for most of this year,” Sullivan said. “When we play that way, we’re going to give ourselves a chance to win every night. And I thought the guys played really hard. I thought their intentions and our mindset was in the right place.”
At the other end of the ice, offense remains a concern for the Rangers. They’ve managed just 24 goals through 11 games, tied for the fewest in the NHL. It’s an average of 2.18 per game, which ranks 31st in the league.
A woeful power play hasn’t helped. New York has scored on only four of its 28 opportunities with the man advantage, a mere 14.3 percent clip that puts them 28th in the NHL.
“We had a lot of good looks (against Vancouver),” Sullivan said. “J.T. had one on the back door, for example, on the power play that he just missed on. (Artemi Panarin) had two of them on the power play. … Usually those guys get in those circumstances, more often than not, they’re going to score. So, I believe they’re going to score.”
