DownUndaCanuck

So... Hughes - Hronek Zadorov - Myers Cole - Juulsen Got to try and protect that bottom pairing with the Lindholm line. Miller's line try and stick with one of the top-2 pairings. You know we're going to ice the puck a lot and McDavid is going to get out there when Juulsen is on the ice. He better not go hunting for big hits or he'll get caught out of position. The Oilers will surely try and expose this so I for one hope Juulsen just sits back, doesn't try to throw any hits and stay in position all night. Give him 15 minutes and let Myers and Hronek take the bulk of the RD minutes.

Just hope Juulsen doesn't get targeted by their top line and caught out of position throwing a hit. I wonder who we'll play him with. Cole and Juulsen could be real trouble defensively at the rate Cole is playing. Zadorov is one of our best defencemen but can't really put two guys out there who are hunting for hits all the time. I think Cole and Juulsen as our bottom pairing and ride Zadorov and Myers a bit harder. Soucy might only be our 5th defenceman but he's a big part of the PK and depth defence so will be missed.

Hyman cross-checked Zadorov in the face and he had to get stitches after so worse than what McDavid got but nothing there? Not even being looked into?

Do we take a 1 game suspension for Hyman and Soucy and cancel each other out? I'm not sure, I know obviously Hyman is a big goal scorer but Soucy has done well as part of our 6 man defence unit and I worry about Juulsen defending McDavid...

The Oilers are getting frustrated in a series they thought they'd sweep and it's only going to get harder for them, we've got a chance to go up 3-1 and make them panic big time. Beating this team would be so much sweeter now and last night we had the recipe down to a tee - opportune scoring, our PP better than theirs, our goalie better than theirs and our D protecting the middle of the ice whereas theirs gave away pucks to us. If we can frustrate McDavid and wear him down I think he'll just get angry and crack. Draisaitl looks like the angrier he gets the better he gets but I think we're in McDavid's head already.

Wonder if Soucy is going to get a suspension, that cross check to the face looks bad and you know they'll ignore the slash. I think one of Zadorov or Soucy is going to get 1-2 games. Hope they don't, this stuff hasn't been suspension-worthy yet this playoffs but you know it'll happen.

I think the key so far is that our top guys are better defensively than theirs and this is usually the recipe to winning. It's not just Miller or Lindholm. Petey's been good defensively. Boeser has been unreal defensively. Suter very smart with that great steal. Our 3rd line is rock solid defensively. Meanwhile their bottom 9 can't defend and their top line rarely have to.

Bad icing by Cole, that cross check is never a penalty to be fair and the goal against he did a great job boxing out the forward and gets unlucky again. I think a lot of it is bad luck - he's a big body in the crease, but he's got to do a better job of getting out of the crease a bit more, he's too close to Silovs and that's causing all of these own goals. On the whole he's playing a solid safe defensive game and does more good than bad, but when he does bad it looks really bad.

McDavid held without a point on home ice is pretty embarrassing all things considered, but it's not just Silovs who's playing well - the D is giving them nothing really. They had maybe one or two good chances from the slot and even then they were contested.

Perfect road win, gutsy effort. Good to see our PP finally clicking, Boeser and Lindholm were superb tonight. Miller with another strong game. Boeser man on man with McDavid was very impressive too. Our top line crushed theirs. Karlsson and Aman had strong showings and deserved their minutes. Petey and Mikheyev were average but had a couple of chances. Nothing special but not bad from Garland and Joshua either. On defence, a solid couple of assists for Hughes who was moving much better, Hronek has been covering McDavid really well. Our bottom 4 D were solid again all night, let up a lot of perimeter shots but almost nothing from the slot. The Oilers love a cross crease pass and we blocked that all night. Obviously Silovs helped to steal this one, not sure we can change him now. If Demko comes back, it's hard to imagine we take out a goalie who's just stoned the hottest offence in the league like this... Chance to take a stranglehold on the series next game and I think we can. We executed better tonight and defended better and that's all we need to do. We've officially won the goalie duel as well so the tide is turning in our favour.

Mikheyev has looked alright but not great, Hoglander the same. I'd take one of them out and play Karlsson or Hoglander. Aman will get destroyed defensively. Juulsen can't come in for Cole, I get it if Myers is injured but surely not. Juulsen will cost us far more goals playing against McDavid than Cole has. He'll try and throw a big hit and will get feasted on defensively. We're not far off to be honest, stick with the game plan but Petey's linemates have been absolute trash - he could use some help. Another wild option if they want to load up their top line is to load up our defence: Miller - Lindholm - Suter Hoglander - Petey - Boeser Garland - Blueger - Joshua Mikheyev - Aman - Karlsson Try and get that top defensive line out there against McDavid and hope our middle 2 lines can feast on their bottom 9 which is very likely.

Simply put a must win game, if they win they'll have a lot of momentum whereas I'm not sure how much adversity and duration their stars can last. We have to grind this down, the longer it goes the better chance we have. They'll have a lot of chances against our bottom guys with the matchup game but hopefully that means we can target theirs. 6-4 Canucks in a wild one

All this about Juulsen - the boy will get EATEN ALIVE by McDavid. He's slow and often tries to throw big hits and gets caught out of position. I'll take the few bad luck goals Cole has caused and hope he bounces back and moves on but Juulsen out their with the Edmonton second change on home ice for 15 minutes against two 2PPG players will be a goal against on every other Juulsen shift. As bad as these mistakes by Cole has been, he does a lot of good as well. Soucy made some dumb plays which lead to goals - particularly throwing a blueline hit and letting McDavid go off on a breakaway, but no one mentions this. Their speed is making our D make mistakes, we've got to be more composed everywhere. Juulsen is the least composed of the 7 we have.

Can't start running them and getting ugly or you know we'll end up with 5 PPs against us and Edmonton probably scores on 3-4 of them and the game's done. Our best hope is that we wear down McDavid and Draisaitl. They're playing almost 30 minutes, Draisaitl with maybe an injury, we've got to play them harder and wear them down and then let our depth outscore them. We sat back and gifted the Oilers the puck far too many times. Looks like their top line's going to take every 2nd or 3rd shift and tonight we just let them come back in waves whereas we should be running the play and make McDavid start his shift without the puck defending. Sounds like Tocchet knows what needs to be done. We crushed them in game 1 with our depth, they respond by killing us with their top guys, now let's see how we respond and defend against that. Boy Demko arriving in game 5 would be exactly what we need to stone them.

Good to hear Tocchet's post game interview echo the same sentiments - we didn't pressure their stars enough, gave them too much respect and just flipped pucks out instead of making plays. We looked scared and the pressure got to everyone when they saw the two stars together. Have to go into next game and treat them with less respect and almost just like any other top line. We've dominated other team's top lines by playing confidently and have to do the same next game. There's going to be a lot of bad matchups in the next game, you know they'll target our 4th line and Petey as well any chance they get so can't just flip pucks out. Everyone's probably scared they'll get stripped of the puck moving up ice.