Perry’s breakaway marker highlights Oilers’ workmanlike victory
This win for Edmonton — their 32nd in Game 50 on the season — was workmanlike, with goals from Corey Perry and Mattias Janmark and a fine start from backup goalie Calvin Pickard.
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EDMONTON — Pushing 40 years old, Corey Perry’s goals per 60 is off the charts. If it stays this high, we might be talking about goals at 60.
His 1.08 goals per hour put him in second place (for players with at least 25 games played) on the Oilers behind only Leon Draisaitl. He’s on the first page of NHL.com, while guys like Connor McDavid, Mark Scheifele and David Pastrnak are on the back pages, as this 39-year-old hockey hang-around just keeps on putting NHL pucks past NHL goalies.
“I feel young. I feel great,” he said after notching the game-winner on a breakaway in a 4-2 win over Seattle. “Like I said last year, I want to play five more years. You (media) guys thought I was crazy, but that’s just who I am.”
Perry turns 40 on May 16.
When he broke in with Anaheim a full 20 seasons ago, his teammates were ancients like Teemu Selanne, Sandis Ozolinsh, Todd Marchant and the Niedermayer brothers. Today, he’s taking a 150-foot pass from Darnell Nurse and burying a puck through the pads of goalie Joey Daccord, just one of the many who have fallen prey to those silky mitts, attached to that gangly gait.
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“Came on the ice late, Doc had his eyes up and made a great play,” Perry said of the sweet pass from Nurse. “You’re one-on-one with the goalie, and I wasn’t skating that fast. My head was up, he baited first, and I made (his move).
“I feel good. I feel fresh.”
He “wasn’t skating that fast.” There’s a joke in there somewhere.
This win for Edmonton — their 32nd in Game 50 on the season — was workmanlike, with goals from Perry and Mattias Janmark, and a fine start from backup goalie Calvin Pickard, who found out only Monday morning he would be starting because Stu Skinner’s wife Chloe was in labour. They had a baby boy on Monday, their second.
“I knew it was close to kid time for him,” Pickard said on a 26-save night. “I got a text that he was heading to the hospital last night, so I went to bed preparing to play. It felt like a similar game day to the rest of them.”
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Pickard had two goofy pucks elude him. One when Brett Kulak pushed Seattle’s John Hayden into him, forcing Pickard into the back of his goal while Eeli Tolvanen fired one home.
The other was partially blocked by Connor McDavid, then took a three-foot high hop off the ice as it bounded towards Pickard.
Everything normal, Pickard stopped, running his record to 17-13-4 and pushing his save percentage up to .901.
Hey, any team that sits within four points of the NHL lead — while reclaiming first place in the Pacific in a back-and-forth dance with Vegas — is unlikely to be deterred by a couple of tough breaks. So Pickard set to making his stops, while McDavid celebrated his return from suspension with a goal, and the glue guys did the rest.
“First and foremost, it is nice playing behind such a good team,” Pickard said. “A team that knows how to win and expects to win every single night. I just have to go out there and do my job and trust that my teammates will do theirs, and they’ve been doing that.”
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Head coach Kris Knoblauch went to his big boys right away, and stuck with the line of McDavid between Draisaitl and Zach Hyman throughout the game. But when that trio combined for just a goal and an assist against a game Kraken squad, it was clear that this would be one of those nights when the cavalry would have to arrive in some shape or form.
Cue Janmark, with his first goal in forever (38 games) and Perry, who now has nine on the season — all at even strength. Pretty good for a guy who averages just 11:29 per game of ice time.
“It shows in the playoffs: Depth is key,” Perry said. “Tonight, Janny gets off the schneid, Picks finding out this morning that he’s playing… You know, this is a good hockey team, and that’s what good hockey teams do.”
Truth be told, if Seattle had any finish, they’d at least have dragged this one into overtime. But give a good team a one-goal lead in the third period, and it’s not easy to make that happen.
“It was a lot of north,” Perry said. “When we’re playing north, playing with the puck … cycling the puck well and moving around and getting shots… That’s our game.”
