A Night That Summed Up Two Seasons
Recently, there has been a plethora of young talent spread across the league. It makes everything more exciting. Last night the Edmonton Oilers played the Toronto Maple Leafs. There are few matchups that provide a better indicator of the compelling era we live in now.
Not only was it two Canadian teams squaring off, but two of the NHL’s next big stars. Sure, there is Laine, Tarasenko, Eichel, and many others; but McDavid and Matthews seem to be the leaders of the league that we have come to know today and will know for the next decade-plus. It’s the next big Canadian powerhouse against the next big American beast. Also, anytime two Canadian clubs face-off against one another, it’s bound to produce a playoff type of showing.
These are teams that like to score a lot and try and catch up on the defensive front. The result is a boat-load of goals. McDavid and Matthews always seem to show up against each other. For Matthews, it didn’t take long as he scored the first goal of the game just inside the first couple minutes. McDavid scored his later on in the contest.
One of the best parts of the night, aside from all the scoring, was the atmosphere. You’ll get one in Canadian hockey that is second to none anywhere else. The trading chants of “let’s go Oilers,” and “go Leafs go,” seemed to go on for minutes on end for certain spells towards the end of the game.
Although the Oilers played host to their cross-country rivals, the home advantage seemed disabled as their defense was just not good enough to match. It didn’t help that half of Toronto migrated to Edmonton to show up for their Leafs. Having Talbot out of the net and Brossoit replacing him, could have been a deciding factor as well — even though Brossoit made solid stops every now and then, you can’t really have that good of a game when you let in five goals.
Once it was clear Toronto would win, it really summed up both team’s quality of play so far this season. After getting off to a rough start, Edmonton found a scoring touch again, while still having trouble keeping the puck out of their net. Toronto has faced similar problems, but have gotten better net-minding and average even more scoring than the Oils. So the real differentiator lies in the back end. The Oilers have been looking like the less threatening team so far and need to get their, ya know, stuff together, otherwise they can kiss a repeat of a playoff run goodbye.
Given each of these Canadian team’s records, last night’s result is not surprising and was a deserved final scoreline. With monsters such as McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nurse, the Oilers must sport a better record than their below .500 one that they currently have now.
With that said, The Maple Leafs are on track for what should be a better go at the playoffs this year. However, they also need to sort out defensive issues that have been plaguing them since long before the young talent arrived.
Source photo credit: Mark Blinch / NHLI via Getty Images | thestar.com
