New York. Has the monster woke up now?
Well, at least Edmonton got its second straight win last night – crushing Anaheim 8-2.
– Yes, I hope and believe that this has been achieved now. “Not only are we scoring a lot of goals, we are also playing well,” top scorer Mattias Ekholm told Sportbladet.
The Edmonton Oilers have been the biggest disappointment of the NHL season so far.
By all the usual trends, they should be competing for a Stanley Cup title this spring — but they’ve long languished as San Jose’s worst team on the schedule.
But now it seems that something has happened. They swept Washington 5-0 a few days ago and followed that up with a blowout win over Anaheim 8-2 at home at Rogers Place last night.
– Yes, of course it feels good. I won’t try to explain what happened before, we didn’t play well enough. But there were also many strange losses, when we fired more than 40 shots and still didn’t get any reward. So he felt like he was going to explode. But it should too, says Matthias Ekholm by phone from Alberta.
– But now, I hope and believe that this has happened. The last two games they have no confidence. Not only are we scoring a lot of goals, but we are also playing well, especially defensively.
Most hopeful: Connor McDavid is starting to look like himself again. He had five points — one goal and four assists — against the Ducks.
– He was injured at the beginning and is still in very good condition, and the criticism he received is completely undeserved, continues Matthias.
– But when he recovers now, you can really see that he is the best in the world. There is a bite to everything he does, it all has a different spark.
Ike scored an own goal in the end as well – his third of the season.
– I made one that was initially ruled out, but I’m 98 percent sure the disc is there. So I guess the hockey gods felt like I should do something important too, hehe.
Jakob Silfverberg had an assist for Anaheim while Leo Karlsson was rested.
1/2Photograph: Jason Franson/AP