The Edmonton Oilers went into the holiday break coming off a pair of massive third-period comeback victories.
Now, the trick will be to build on those wins when they resume the schedule by kicking off a three-game road trip against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
The Oilers, who have won 10 of their past 13 games, headed into the hiatus after scoring four third-period goals en route to a 4-3 comeback victory over the New York Rangers on Friday.
The night before, they also tallied four times in the final frame during a comeback 6-3 win over the New Jersey Devils.
The last time Edmonton visited San Jose, the Oilers lost 3-2 on Nov. 9. A few days later, coach Jay Woodcroft was fired and replaced by Kris Knoblauch. Since that loss, the Oilers have produced a 13-6-0 record.
The Oilers are not interested in looking back at that game, however.
“We’re thinking about the hockey we were playing before the break, where we need to get to and where we’re going,” forward Derek Ryan said. “We’re trying to build our game, build consistency in our game.”
The current three-game trip through California is an opportunity to continue the turnaround and climb the standings.
“Even in the three-game losing streak (from Dec. 14-19), I thought we deserved a better fate,” Knoblauch said. “We’ve been able to string together some wins. A lot of it has to do with our defensive structure limiting the goals against, and a lot of that has to be attributed to our goaltending.”
The Sharks are coming off a 5-1 road loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday and are on a six-game losing skid that has them back to the bottom of the league standings.
Making the latest result all the worse for the struggling Sharks: They had a 1-0 lead after the first period but surrendered a pair of early second-period goals 13 seconds apart and never recovered.
“We were playing good,” San Jose forward Mikael Granlund said. “Then they score, and then one right after. We got to be mentally stronger with those kind of situations. After that, our game went down. It wasn’t good enough.”
Sharks coach David Quinn said of the game leaving the team’s grasp, “It’s happened to us too often this year (so) you could just feel it again. And then it just got away from us. We got demoralized.”
Good news has been hard to find of late for the Sharks, but one positive is the play of forward Fabian Zetterlund. He opened the scoring Wednesday with his 10th goal of the season, giving him a three-game point streak.
“He’s been great,” Granlund said of Zetterlund. “Throughout the season, you can tell how much he’s growing, too. He’s establishing that power forward guy in this league. He’s (a) strong dude out there, skates well and can shoot the puck. He’s only going to get better.”
The Sharks have a big question heading into the Edmonton clash: Who will play in net? San Jose is carrying three goaltenders after summoning Magnus Chrona from the minors. He was the backup against the Kings because Mackenzie Blackwood was ill. Kaapo Kahkonen faced 43 shots in the Los Angeles game, and it would be a tall order playing again the next night against the high-octane Oilers.
–Field Level Media
