They\u2019ve muddled through 60-plus games in search of a game like this one. A road trip like this one, where something gets built rather than confidence being chipped away.<\/p>\n
A trip that started in Vegas, where the Edmonton Oilers handed the Golden Knights a 4-2 loss. Then on to Denver to slay the dragon that beat you 9-1 when last you met, grabbing a 4-3 regulation win over the Colorado Avalanche that\u2019s going to have some staying power inside the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 collective psyche.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are games that you can look back on next month and really rally behind,\u201d said two-goal man Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. \u201cUnderstand that, if we play like that we can beat anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the bench got roomier, with neither Colton Dach or Ty Emberson coming out for Period 2 due to injuries, the sense of a team being forced to pull together grew stronger. Then goalie Connor Ingram gets clocked out of the game by Nathan MacKinnon late in the second period \u2014 a goalie interference call that earned MacKinnon five-and-a-game \u2014 and suddenly you\u2019re in one of those tilts that you\u2019re going to be talking about for a while.<\/p>\n
A game that\u2019s going to tell you a lot about yourselves. One way or another.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt big too, on the bench,\u201d Nugent-Hopkins said. \u201cI mean, we just understand where we\u2019re at. The time of the year, standings-wise. You\u2019re playing a really good team, there\u2019s lots of adversity tonight, and it would have been easy to pack it in. We did a great job just sticking to it and trusting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a long season full of faceless, forgettable hockey games, hockey players love games like this one: A game where you come together, dig in and rip two points out of the toughest building in the National Hockey League.<\/p>\n
A game where Tristan Jarry showed his teammates he\u2019ll go to battle with them. Where the shot blockers rack up 23 blocks to Colorado\u2019s eight. Where Trent Frederic went toe to toe with Nicolas Roy, before Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl provided the game-winner on a power play that just wasn\u2019t going to be denied.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good one. An important one,\u201d said Zach Hyman. \u201cIt\u2019s an important road trip against really good teams. And we\u2019re off to a good start on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you win games like this it builds belief in the group,\u201d Hyman added. \u201cThe whole way through, we played well. It wasn\u2019t just a fluky win. It was a good team win.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the fragile Jarry, it was an unexpected opportunity to show his teammates what he was made of.<\/p>\n
In a week where there has been some superfluous narrative floating around the internet regarding Jarry and his teammates \u2014 overblown, yes, but out there nonetheless \u2014 Jarry came on in relief and battled right alongside everyone else.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long, rocky road for Jarry since he was traded to Edmonton, devoid of nights where he walked out of a hockey rink feeling the way he did on Wednesday in Denver.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny opportunity you have to step in the net is another chance to be better,\u201d he said. \u201cTonight was another opportunity, and being able to seize that is a whole different moment. It\u2019s just (about) getting traction from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
His teammates won\u2019t make a big deal about it publicly. But had it gone the other way for Jarry, this could have been a real back-breaker for the struggling \u2018tendy vis a vis his tenure in this dressing room.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s big. I mean, it\u2019s important,\u201d Hyman said. \u201cYou come into a game like that \u2014 a big game \u2014 and you\u2019re able to shut the door and help us get a win? It\u2019s got to feel good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need him,\u201d Hyman continued. \u201cWe need him to get back to the level that he\u2019s capable of playing at, because he\u2019s a difference maker.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should feel very good about this,\u201d Knoblauch agreed. \u201cHe gets in there with 30 seconds left in the second period, and he\u2019s tested two times. Then in the third period, he made some big saves, a couple on Colorado\u2019s power play. Yes, he should feel very good about this, and we\u2019re going to definitely need him right away. Once, if not twice, going into this back to back (at Dallas and St. Louis).\u201d<\/p>\n
Knoblauch reports that it was the concussion spotter that took Ingram out of the game, not some other injury after that hellacious run in with MacKinnon. If Ingram wakes up feeling fine, it\u2019s possible he could start Saturday in St. Louis.<\/p>\n
But it will be Jarry\u2019s net in Dallas Friday.<\/p>\n
He earned that start, and a whole lot more, by holding off the mighty Avalanche.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also a very good team,\u201d he points out. \u201cBut being able to size up to a team like that \u2014 play a team game like that \u2014 everyone did a great job, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019ve muddled through 60-plus games in search of a game like this one. A road trip like this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-529473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}