Oilers 3 – Stars 5 | Glorious evening for Jason Robertson

After just seven minutes of play Monday night, it looked like we were in for a McDavid night. The Edmonton Oilers star already had two points on the clock, including a goal, and the Dallas Stars seemed overwhelmed by the speed of their opponents.

But you don’t beat such a seasoned club by stunning it for a period. The Stars started the second period with a more sustained forecheck, and a greater appetite for puck recoveries overall.

The Stars’ best scorer this season, Jason Robertson, thousands of years behind McDavid in terms of speed, but a fox on the edge of the opposing net, had not scored for ten games. He heard the whispers and, despite the support of his coach before the match, seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

His first goal, at the start of the second period, to allow Dallas to reduce the deficit to 1-2, seemed to relieve him of this enormous pressure. He added two more, including the game-winning goal with just over eight minutes left in the third period, to give the Stars a 5-3 win and a two-game lead in the conference final. from West.

Robertson didn’t score plumber’s goals. The first was scored thanks to a powerful shot from the slot. The second after recovering the puck in front of the net and a nice backhand shot into the top of the net, an art that is being lost these days. This 24-year-old winger, second-round pick in 2017, completed his hat trick, the winning goal, by making goalkeeper Stuart Skinner bite with a skillful feint. Skinner, believing he was going to go around the net, turned to his left to start a slide, before seeing Robertson place the puck in the back numbers…

Roope Hintz for the Stars and Adam Henrique for the Oilers played their first game of the series after nursing injuries. Hintz was eagerly awaited in the first line, with Robertson and Tyler Seguin.

After this catastrophic first period for Dallas, Hintz made two important plays in quick succession to allow Robertson to score his first goal. He first managed to hold a puck in the opponent’s zone at the last minute and then, a few seconds later, recovered it along the boards to pass it to Robertson, ready to shoot on the reception.

Robertson scored his first two goals in less than three minutes. Both times under the nose of Connor McDavid, who did not lack good intentions, but to the rescue of a defense so disorganized that he himself was disorganized…

Henrique does not have the same usefulness in Edmonton. But this forward obtained from the Anaheim Ducks at the trade deadline with Sam Carrick for a first-round pick deflected a puck past goaltender Jake Oettinger with less than a minute remaining in the second period, after seeing his club conceding three consecutive goals. A third Oilers goal scored from the edge of the opposing net, this time on the left side of the goalkeeper, after those of Hyman and McDavid near the left post.

The Oilers had complained about the officiating between the second and third games. They found it unfair to have obtained only three superiorities, compared to seven for their opponents, during the first two meetings of the series.

Edmonton got two on Monday, compared to just one for Dallas. But they failed to take advantage of it. They have scored just once in their last 12 attempts, after posting a success rate of 47% in their first eight playoff games. This problem will have to be resolved.