DENVER | Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and JT Compher essentially repeated the same speech. They said they were happy with this win, but they will need to clean up several facets of their game.
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“The Oilers have a dangerous team,” MacKinnon said. They have depth too. Both [Connor McDavid et Leon Draisaitl] also did their thing. They were amazing as always. We have things to correct, but we are happy with the victory. »
“It’s a good win for us,” added Compher, who scored two goals. We will have things to fix defensively if we want to win more games in this series. »
Before the start of this confrontation, several analysts had predicted high-scoring encounters. The first game was in this line with an 8-6 win for the Avalanche against the Oilers.
“I didn’t hear what people could say before our series started. I have no idea, assured MacKinnon. I’m just happy with the win. We can play better defensively. There is cleaning to be done everywhere. We don’t want to play like that. »
Makar also hit the nail on the head with cleaning.
“I feel like we did some good things. But we gave them too many chances to score. They have talented players. We have to play better defensively. We will learn from this meeting. We don’t want to play like that against them. We will need to clean up our game in our territory. »
Some indications
In addition, Jared Bednar remained quite silent about the injury of his starting goalkeeper, Darcy Kuemper.
“He injured his lower body,” said the coach. We will see later. »
Called in relief, Pavel Francouz finished with the win by yielding three times on 21 shots.
“I had two or three presences to stretch myself, admitted the Czech. I didn’t have to jump on the ice immediately when cold. I had time to prepare myself a little mentally. A healer had told me to get ready. »
A little bit of luck
Makar scored a superb goal late in the first period, responding nine seconds after an Edmonton goal from Zach Hyman. Coach Jay Woodcroft lost an offside challenge on Makar’s goal. On the restart, we notice that the Colorado defender waited before touching the puck to give Valeri Nichushkin one more second to get out of the zone.
“For my goal, I had an instinct to give him as much time as possible to get out of the zone,” explained Makar. I didn’t have time to watch the replay. Maybe it was a bit of luck. »