BURSTEDMONTON — Newsflash: There was only one Game 8 that ever mattered, and they played it already.
In Moscow, in 1972.
There was this Henderson guy, who “SCORED FOR CANADA!” You might recall…
So as the Florida Panthers arrive in Edmonton for the first meeting between these two teams since Game 7 of last spring’s Stanley Cup Final, know one thing: the only people who care, who harbour ill will and want to make this game worth more than two points on a Monday night in December are Oilers fans.
After 35 years on the beat, we’re pretty sure the Oilers players want nothing to do with the ol’ revenge angle.
Because there is no revenge to be had.
Florida’s names are on the Cup. Edmonton’s are not.
It’s a sad fact in these parts, one that no game on Dec. 16 is going to change.
“It’s a new season,” said Darnell Nurse. “They’re a team that’s played really well throughout the start of the year, so … we come in with the mindset that we want to play our game and worry about ourselves.”
Stunning quote, that.
But don’t blame Nurse.
He can’t say what he was likely thinking, on the heels of a win over a division rival in Vegas that meant so much more than a game against the Panthers.
So we’ll say it for him: We spent an entire summer trying to move on from that series. It was devastating, losing 2-1 in Game 7 after crawling all the way back from a 3-0 series deficit. Then, it took almost two months of spinning our wheels through October and November, trying to find our ‘A’ game again.
Now, we’ve found our legs, won five straight, and we look like a legit threat to win a Cup. And you want to talk about last year?
You wanna talk about losing to Florida again?
If you injected the Oilers players with truth serum, they’d say they never want to talk about the Florida Panthers again — until they play them again in truly important games and beat them.
The best example we can recall was in Vancouver, where “Game 8” at the TD Garden in Boston — the first Canucks-Bruins meeting after that seven-game final in 2011 — took on a life of its own over the years.
That was a Canucks team that had been pushed out of the ’11 final by the big, bad Bruins. Vancouver lost to a Boston team that had successfully imposed its will as much as it had found a way to score more goals in Game 7.
Where the Oilers look back and rue losing those first three games, they came up one goal short in Game 7. Florida won, fair and square. But in the end, there was nothing to choose between the teams.
The Canucks rightly felt they had something to prove in that next meeting in Boston — that they wouldn’t be pushed around again — and a 4-3 Vancouver win didn’t bring out the engraver, but it did win back some pride.
The teams combined for 107 PIMs and four fighting majors. Milan Lucic got tossed for leaving the penalty box to get at a Canuck, one of four 10-minute misconducts.
Vancouver had played Boston’s game and beat them at it.
“Last year is done. The memories and bad blood carried over,” goalie Cory Schneider told my colleague Iain MacIntyre that day. “But in the scheme of things … it’s a big statement win for our team. It’s a bit of a statement to the rest of the league that we’re back where we were last year.”
Today, Edmonton is exactly that: back where it was last year. But the Oilers have made that statement already, regardless of what happens in the game against Florida tonight.
An Oilers team that had the best winning percentage in the league (.703) last season after Nov. 12, when Kris Knoblauch became the head coach, today ranks third since Nov. 18 at .731. The slow start is in the rear-view mirror — they’ve won five straight and are 12-3-1 in their last 16 games — and whether or not they beat the Panthers, the Oilers are confidently building towards another legit run at Stanley.
Coming off of wins over Pacific-leading Vegas and (at the time) league-leading Minnesota, the Panthers are simply another good opponent rolling into town. One, we will allow, that comes with a few crappy memories.
“It is going to be another really good test,” Leon Draisaitl said blandly. “They are a good team. I think they’ve been playing really good hockey.”
That’s it, folks. That’s all.
No Game 8. Nothing to prove.
It’s business as usual, even if the other uniform does give an Oilers fan a nightmare or two.
