Edmonton Oilers bounce back with 5-3 win over Calgary Flames to tie Battle of Alberta

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Playoff battles such as the one that unfolded at Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday were precisely the reason that Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland made it his mission to bring Duncan Keith to the Alberta capital last July.

Down 2-0 early to the Calgary Flames for the second straight game, and in danger of falling into a 2-0 series hole that the Oilers have only ever climbed out of once before in team history, the veteran blueliner began to make his presence felt.

He got Edmonton on the board with six minutes and 22 seconds remaining in the first period, powering home a feed from Connor McDavid to halve the deficit.

Keith returned the favour in the second period, floating a pass down the middle to McDavid, who scored the prettiest goal of the night with a perfect deke to freeze Jacob Markstrom before simply sliding the puck home. And the former Chicago Blackhawk turned provider once again with a little under five minutes remaining in the second, teeing up Evan Bouchard to fire home a power-play marker to send the game into the final 20 minutes all tied up at 3-3.

That set the stage for Zach Hyman to score the first post-season short-handed goal in the Battle of Alberta since Wayne Gretzky famously arrowed a puck over Mike Vernon’s shoulder in Game 2 of the 1988 second round. Then Leon Draisaitl put an exclamation mark on a 5-3 win that has this second-round series all square heading back to Edmonton for Sunday’s Game 3.

While McDavid finished with a goal and an assist to boost his postseason-leading totals to 20 points in nine games, the fastest anyone has reached the 20-point mark since Mario Lemieux had 22 in his first nine games 20 years ago, much of the postgame chatter revolved around Keith.

“Just unfazed,” was how Hyman described his teammate. “That’s a guy when you talk about somebody who has seen it all, done it all, whatever defenceman award you want to say, he’s won it.

“He’s a future Hall of Famer and that’s a guy who I think was brought in to calm the group in times that things aren’t going well. He’s a big voice in the locker room in settling us down and obviously stepping up today with a huge goal and just making plays, being strong defensively, he’s got a lot to give.”

That Keith is still doing it all at 38, seven years after winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs while helping guide the Chicago Blackhawks to their most recent of the three Stanley Cups they won with him on the blueline is remarkable.

Keith’s goal, his first of the playoffs, wrote his name into the Oilers record book as the oldest player in team history to score a playoff goal at 38 years and 305 days, besting Jaroslav Pouzar, who was 35 years, 105 days old when he scored in 1987.

In addition, his three-point haul brought his total to four in this year’s playoffs, making him the third-oldest defenceman to have a three-plus-point game in the post-season, joining Chris Chelios and Nicklas Lidstrom, who did it at 40 and 39 years of age respectively.

Having now played 144 career playoff games, with his 90 points now tied with Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang for second among active players behind Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman, Edmonton head coach Jay Woodcroft certainly appreciates having Keith on the ice.

“His personhood or his presence comes through in big moments,” he said. “Sometimes it’s as simple as going by the bench during a TV timeout just saying, ‘Hey, we got this, take a deep breath, and we’re good to go here.’ Sometimes it’s making the big play at the right moment.

“I can’t say enough about Duncs, his resume is Hall-of-Fame-worthy and he’ll be there one day, but his ability to pass on his experiences to our group, can’t say enough about it.”

That group now heads north to Edmonton to prepare to play host to the Flames for a pivotal Game 3 at Rogers Place on Sunday night. Having battled back from conceding a couple of goals on broken-stick plays, to having a couple of goals disallowed, the Oilers were able to showcase some of the resiliency that they displayed in coming from behind to win their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings.

“Obviously we didn’t get that start we wanted, didn’t make it easy on ourselves, but obviously responded well,” McDavid said.

Equally as pleasing was the bounceback game from Mike Smith in goal, coming 48 hours after he was pulled from the opener with barely six minutes gone on the clock. The 40-year-old outdueled the Vezina Trophy finalist in the other net with 37 saves and even tacked on an assist on Draisaitl’s late insurance goal.

“Just a battler,” McDavid said. “Played great in there, made some big saves, makes a big play to Leo to spring him there. [He] played great tonight.”