EDMONTON — The puck ricocheted off Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ left skate and squirted to center ice, and if you listened close enough, you could hear the anticipation build inside Rogers Place as Zach Hyman entered the race of his life.
The shortest distance is always a straight line, and more often than not, the Edmonton Oilers have taken the long way. Not Hyman, and not on that night.
“He’s like a little bull, you know?” Leon Draisaitl said.
Hyman blew by Aaron Ekblad, then edged a diving Gustav Forsling and tucked a backhand behind a sprawling Sergei Bobrovsky to become the NHL’s one and only 70-goal scorer this season – as all of Edmonton exploded into pure ecstasy.
One week ago, some of even the most diehard believers in Oil Country rolled their eyes when coach Kris Knoblauch said he was “really going to enjoy the next 10 days.”
Hope never died. The 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, the only team in the 106-year history of the Stanley Cup Final to evaporate a 3-0 series deficit and hoist Lord Stanley, may have some company now.
The Edmonton Oilers are on the verge of the greatest comeback in pro sports. If they pull it off on Monday night in Game 7, they’re in the conversation with the 2004 Boston Red Sox and Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, who overcame a 28-3 hole at halftime in Super Bowl LI against the Atlanta Falcons.
“Really, really proud to give ourselves a chance,” Draisaitl said.
In this Stanley Cup Final for the ages, they will be talking about Hyman’s all-important goal for years, but only if they can complete the job.
There’s a reason why no one remembers the 1945 Detroit Red Wings, the last team to draw even in the Stanley Cup Final after trailing 3-0. They lost Game 7.
“We’ve got an opportunity to do something unbelievable,” Hyman said. “But it doesn’t mean anything unless you do it. Nobody is getting ahead of ourselves. It’s one more game left and it’s going to be the hardest one.”
No matter what happens next, no one will be able to forget the scene in Edmonton. If people showed up to work on Friday, little was accomplished in a city so singularly focused on its team. The line to join the Moss Pit stretched five city blocks and fans in blue and orange spilled out of patios and pubs. They honked their horns to the tune of “Let’s Go Oilers” from morning until the wee hours of the next morning, as face-painted fans flew Oilers flags from their car and even rode a Zamboni through downtown.
There was a “Rat Patrol” to keep the Cats at bay and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mocking Matthew Tkachuk from his days with the Calgary Flames. Make no mistake, there will be a population boom in Northern Alberta nine months from now after the civic celebration that followed the final home game of the season that few could’ve imagined a week ago.
“It’s been fun,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “It hasn’t been stressful. I know we may have surprised a lot of people, but we haven’t surprised anyone in the room. We knew we could do this. We’ve been on long winning streaks before. We’ve been written off many times throughout the season, but we’ve been a pretty loose group.”
For a team that likes to make the path as hard as possible, everything is coming up Edmonton now. They’ve outscored the shellshocked Panthers, 18-5, since Game 3. When Aleksander Barkov scored 12 seconds after the Oilers made it 2-0, Knoblauch won an inches-thin coach’s challenge for offside.
It was the ballsy call made at the exact right moment in time, thanks in part to video coach Noah Segall, because it zapped any momentum created by Florida. It was also one Knoblauch could make in confidence because his penalty kill has been flawless.
The Oilers have the best penalty kill in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs since the Expansion Era began in 1967-68, among teams with a minimum of 18 games played. They are now 63-for-67 in the playoffs (94 percent) and with the addition of three shorthanded goals, their net kill rate (98.5 percent) is second only to the 2012 Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings. For perspective, teams that were eliminated in the first round allowed more goals on the penalty kill than the Oilers, who have played more than a quarter of a regular season since.
There was Stuart Skinner, questioned and questioned again, providing the primary assist to Darnell Nurse for the clinching empty-net goal in the beatdown in E-Town. There was oft-criticized GM Ken Holland and his key trade deadline acquisition, Adam Henrique, scoring his second game-winning goal of the Stanley Cup Final.
It isn’t just the Connor and Leon show. The likely Conn Smythe Trophy winner, McDavid, didn’t register a point in Game 6.
“That’s the reason why we’re sitting here,” Draisaitl said. “The league is too good to outscore every team, every single night. You need depth. You need other guys to step up. We’ve had that throughout the run.”
Then there was Hyman, arguably the best free agent signing of all-time. With 16 postseason strikes, Hyman has now scored the most playoff goals in a single season of any active player, passing Sidney Crosby (2009) and Alex Ovechkin (2018). He has the most since Joe Sakic netted 18 in 1996, nearly a decade before the salary cap existed.
“It’s an outrageous number,” Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said.
For a scrawny kid from Toronto who was persecuted this season for his Jewish faith and told by one reporter that he only made it to the NHL because he comes from a family of means, Hyman has been pure money. Like most of his 69 others scored this season, Hyman’s goal on Friday night wasn’t flashy or fancy. Just hard work.
“Every year I’ve tried to get better and better so that when I get those looks, I can make good on them,” Hyman said.
The Florida Panthers have had three cracks at the Stanley Cup and the greatest trophy in sports hasn’t so much as made it out of its trunk. They said all of the right things, but their players, coach Paul Maurice and GM Bill Zito could do little more than stare into the abyss. They were so close they could nearly see their breath on Stanley’s silver. The Oilers are just as close now, unbelievably enough.
“I think a lot of people weren’t so interested in the Final when it was 0-3. Now, I’m sure a lot of people are interested in the Final. They’ll be tuning in,” Hyman said. “Everybody wants to watch games like this, that’s why sports are amazing. You think about what could happen. We thought about what could happen when no one else believed that it could.”
The Panthers are living their nightmare, while Hyman played out a dream that he scripted so many times in road hockey as the oldest of five boys. This is the script that even Hollywood would reject as too hokey.
“Our buddies would come over and we’d set the nets up in the middle of the street,” Hyman said. “Most times we would make up a Game 7 and you’d celebrate and throw your stick up in the air and go crazy as a 10-year-old, and then your brother who lost would come over and punch you in the face.”
We’ll see if the Panthers have any punch left.
