How Oilers held on in Game 7 to eliminate Canucks

VANCOUVER — The Edmonton Oilers brought it on Monday night.

In Game 7, the Oilers punched their ticket to the Western Conference finals and bested the Vancouver Canucks with the sort of conviction they lacked earlier on in this series.

It was, in truth, more of a mauling than a typical Game 7. Until the game got late, and Edmonton made a couple of unforced errors, and the Canucks got back to doing that thing they do — which is make every game far closer than it deserves to be.

The final score read 3-2, but the Oilers’ form was far more commanding than that narrow scoreline indicates.

From the drop of the puck in the first period, Edmonton broke out of its own end cleanly. They stacked withering heavy shifts one on top of the other. They won the special teams battle decisively. They finally solved a Vancouver team that, until the series turned in Game 6, gave them more trouble in this second-round series than most experts expected.

The Canucks, for their part, were poor. Until they weren’t. That’s the magic of this team.

Even after Vancouver wasted a four-minute power-play opportunity late in the first period, failing to generate a single shot on goal on that sequence (and surrendering a shorthanded breakaway against). Even after they generated almost no shots, as Edmonton built a commanding lead.

They still found their way into the game late, aided by unforced Oilers errors and the supreme confidence that has powered a remarkable playoff run.

This one, in truth, could’ve been even more lopsided going into the third period, if not for Arturs Silovs making massive stops to foil Brett Kulak off of a 10-bell opportunity off of a rebound and another five-alarm stop on Leon Draisaitl from his office below the right circle.

By the time the game was firmly in Edmonton’s control, the shot counter read 26 for the Oilers and just four for Canucks. It was the 10th time in 13 playoff games that Vancouver failed to register as many as 21 shots on net despite trailing throughout the game.

Ultimately this Vancouver dream campaign, which exceeded every reasonable expectation and was chalk full of incredible moments, came to an end because the Canucks just couldn’t trouble Stuart Skinner with a high enough volume of quality looks until it was too late.

Particularly in the absence of top goal scorer Brock Boeser, Vancouver didn’t have enough creativity and didn’t control the puck often enough to hang with Edmonton in Game 6 and Game 7. They made it interesting. There’s no doubting this teams guts.

The Canucks are a hard team to kill, no matter what kind of wounds they sustain.

The Oilers will advance to the Western Conference finals to face the Dallas Stars, leaving Vancouver to lick its wounds and weigh some exceptionally difficult decisions about how to maintain this impressive, overachieving group, while finding ways to level it up offensively.

Here are five takeaways from the decisive Game 7 of this epic second-round playoff series.

The power outage

Vancouver’s power play started the season as an elite unit, but faded in a major way down the stretch and has mostly been a non-factor in the playoffs.

Until Monday night, the Canucks’ lack of success five-on-four hadn’t too significantly dinged them on this playoff run to this point — mostly because of how their penalty killing suddenly levelled up come playoff time, dominating the Nashville Predators and giving even the Oilers’ spectacular PP1 trouble as this series went along.

Late in the first period of Game 7, however, on one of Vancouver’s first sustained heavy shifts of the game late in the frame, Ryan McLeod caught Elias Pettersson up high with a careless high stick. His stick drew blood, and the call was a double minor in Vancouver’s favour with 3:46 to play in the period.

The Canucks power play opportunity that ensued was a horror show. With an opportunity to gain real traction in a game that had started in nightmare fashion for Vancouver, the Canucks didn’t manage a shot on goal.

They struggled to get set up, turned the puck over up high with alarming frequency and got outnumbered down low on more than one occasion, despite the presence of an extra skater. They even surrendered a breakaway opportunity the other way, which Connor Brown shot into Arturs Silovs’ pads while attempting to go five-hole.

It was a huge chance squandered, made more painful when Cody Ceci scored on a long range slap shot that Silovs never saw within a minute of the McLeod penalty expiring.

The distance looks

The Oilers are used to attacking teams down low.

With superstars like Leon Draisaitl and McDavid, and a 50-goal scorer in Zach Hyman who specializes at the net front, the tip of the spear for Edmonton exists in and round the blue paint.

Against Silovs, however, an athletic, calm young goaltender with a big frame and exceptional explosiveness, the Oilers’ preferred method of attacking played into the hands of Vancouver’s starter.

Silovs is immensely talented and can stop NHL shooters in tight. Where his inexperience at the NHL level can show a bit, however, like for most young netminders, is when it comes to battling through NHL-level screens set by bigger-bodied, faster, cagier players than anything you’ll find at the American League level.

Facing elimination following Game 5, Edmonton had to adjust. And so they began to test Silovs through screens and layered traffic from distance, at five-on-five and on the power play. That approach paid major dividends in Game 7.

Silovs was Vancouver’s best player on this night, and acquitted himself exceptionally in this postseason. Make no mistake, Vancouver didn’t lose Game 7 because of their goaltending.

As the Oilers looked to create offense, however, there were three sequences that came off of point shots with traffic — a clean Cody Ceci shot that was partially screened by Nils Åman, an Evan Bouchard blast that Hyman deflected, and a wide shot off of the end boards that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put up and over Silovs — that turned this game, and this series, in Edmonton’s favour.

Cody Ceci: Mr. Game 7

Cody Ceci gets a lot of criticism. It’s not exactly unwarranted. He struggled mightily in the early going of this series to the point where he was demoted to the third pair alongside Brett Kulak to start Game 4.

But just like he did the last time the Oilers played a Game 7, Ceci stepped up by scoring an opening goal in the second period to get his team off and running.

Two years ago, Ceci sniped home a pass from Connor McDavid at 13:15 of the middle frame of the winner-take-all contest against the Los Angeles Kings. Edmonton eventually won 2-0.

On Monday, Dylan Holloway got to a loose puck off an offensive-zone faceoff and got it back to Kulak at the point. Kulak slid it over to Ceci, who unleashed a howitzer over the left shoulder of Canucks goaltender Arturs Silovs.

Ceci’s goal 1:16 into the second ignited the Oilers’ offence. Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins then scored before the intermission to pad their lead.

They don’t get to that point, though, without the blast from Mr. Game 7.

Bouchard’s dominance

When Jay Woodcroft was asked about Evan Bouchard when he was going through a rough spell, the former Edmonton coach often noted the defenceman plays better when the spotlight gets brighter. Bouchard ups his game in the playoffs, Woodcroft would say.

Well, Bouchard has done it again.

Bouchard had an excellent first round but increased his level in this series against the Canucks. He was simply outstanding, scoring four times – including the winning goals in Games 2 and 4. Monday was the cherry on top.

Bouchard recorded two assists, the first nicking off Hyman in front. Those two helpers gave him 11 points in the series. He has 20 points in the 12 games, leading all blueliners – just as he did in the 2023 playoffs.

The 24-year-old might have been the Oilers’ best player against Vancouver. If not for Leon Draisaitl, he might be their best player of the playoffs.

The Oilers power play wins it

Edmonton’s power play was in a funk coming into the contest. It hadn’t scored since the first period of Game 4, a span of nine failed attempts. They hit double digits with another goalless try early in the second Monday.

Though the Oilers’ power play was a mess in Game 5 by going 0-for-5, it had been showing signs of life since then. That was clear when Draisaitl was robbed on a one-timer in the dying seconds of their first opportunity in Game 7.

They finally broke through. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins grabbed a rebound off the end boards and whipped a shot past a scrambling Silovs.

That made it 3-0 and proved to be a much-needed goal given Vancouver’s third-period comeback.

Edmonton always says the time it scores its power-play goals is more important than the number of them. Nugent-Hopkins’ marker sure fits that theory.

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(Photo: Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)