Our preview asked whether Thursday's formula would hold up once Utah had the last change. On the shot clock, it did. The Mammoth broke even with Connor McDavid at five-on-five and won the rest of the ice again. Edmonton still won 6-2 at the Delta Center, because every shot the Oilers put on goal from in close with McDavid on the ice went in, and most of those chances were breakaways. Utah fans spent the night arguing over whether Karel Vejmelka should have started, or stayed in as long as he did. We'd drop that one. One fan on X had it about right: "there had better be 18 heartfelt apologies on Karel Vejmelka's desk by 8 o'clock tomorrow morning."
The matchup worked, on paper
On Thursday, Edmonton out-attempted Utah nearly two to one with McDavid on the ice at five-on-five, by our count of the NHL's shift charts. On Saturday Tourigny had the home bench and put Mikhail Sergachev and MacKenzie Weegar on him again, for about 10 and 11 of his 17:41 at five-on-five. Up front he spread it around. The Keller, Schmaltz and Crouse line, Trocheck's line and Hayton's line each drew McDavid for roughly four and a half to five and a half minutes, and Stenlund, McBain and But saw him for under three.
McDavid's five-on-five minutes ended 14-14 in attempts and 8-8 in shots on goal. Over the first two periods, which ended 5-0 for Edmonton, the Oilers led those minutes only 12-10 in attempts. With McDavid on the bench at five-on-five, Utah out-attempted Edmonton 42-30, outshot it 17-12 and outscored it 2-1, which is the part of the ice we said Utah should win.
Four shots, four goals
Edmonton put four shots on goal from inside 25 feet with McDavid on the ice at five-on-five, and all four went in. McDavid scored or assisted on each, on his way to two goals and three assists.
Three of the four were breakaways, by the NHL.com recap's description. Leon Draisaitl sent McDavid in 40 seconds into the game for a backhand from about 4 feet. McDavid sent Draisaitl in after a Nate Schmidt giveaway in Edmonton's zone, and Draisaitl scored from about 18 feet at 13:48 of the second. McDavid poked the puck off John Marino in the neutral zone and scored from about 9 feet at 10:17 of the third. The fourth, Kasperi Kapanen's from about 24 feet, came off a Bouchard point shot that glanced off McDavid. Add Mathieu Joseph's breakaway at 13:53 of the first, after Dmitri Simashev misplayed a puck off a faceoff in Edmonton's zone, and by NHL.com's account four of Edmonton's six goals were breakaways. Brogan Houston of the Deseret News counted three breakaway goals and a breakaway stop by each Utah goalie.
A shot-attempt count treats a breakaway like a point shot through traffic, so the matchup numbers can be even while the chances aren't. Lawson Crouse told the Deseret News the breakaways weren't only on the defensemen: "When you look at the breakaways, it's always a (defense) man getting burnt, but it's not the (fault of the) D-man in every situation. The forwards need to do a better job of making sure that that D-man can feel comfortable, and it was all over the ice." Sergachev said much the same to NHL.com: "I'm not playing alone against him, we had five guys tonight."
So we'd push back on Chase Beardsley of The Hockey News, who wrote: "The Sergachev and MacKenzie Weegar tandem had a rough game, nearly directly causing the first goal and then having some questionable defense that allowed some breakaway opportunities for the Oilers." Weegar was on the ice for that one, and both were on for Hyman's and Kapanen's. But the pair broke even with McDavid on shots, and the three breakaway goals that followed a Utah turnover (Joseph's, Draisaitl's and McDavid's second) came with Simashev, Schmidt or Marino on the ice and neither Sergachev nor Weegar, per the shift charts. Tourigny, per the Deseret News, said the common thread on the breakaways was his team taking risks to tie the score. That fits the ones that came while Utah was behind. It doesn't fit the first, 40 seconds into a 0-0 game.
The goalie argument
Away from McDavid, the same two Utah goalies held up fine. Edmonton's other six five-on-five shots from inside 25 feet produced one goal, Joseph's. Vejmelka stopped Colton Dach twice and Joseph on a second breakaway, and Sebastian Cossa stopped Alex Formenton from about 14 feet in the third.
The other side of the fan argument started after McDavid's opener, with a post saying "Cossa should've been the move tonight." Vejmelka made 12 saves on 17 shots before he left after Draisaitl's goal. Four of the five goals against him came from 18 feet or closer, including Zach Hyman's 6-foot power-play goal, which NHL.com says came off a McDavid feed that bounced off Sergachev's skate. He stopped all eight shots he faced from outside 25 feet. If there's one to ask him about, it's Kapanen's. Beardsley got there too: "The loss can't solely be pinned on the goaltender." Cossa stopped three of four, and the one that beat him was McDavid alone. Starting him would have put a different goalie in front of the same breakaways.
The fair counterpoint is at the other end. Tristan Jarry stopped all 12 of Utah's shots from inside 25 feet, and by the NHL's shot data, both Utah goals came from about 45 feet out: Marino's slap shot through a screen at 4:25 of the third and Sergachev's shot that landed on top of the net and bounced in off Jarry's back at 6:00. Edmonton's goalie won the goalie matchup. Tourigny gave the reason for both ends himself, to the Deseret News: "They owned the net front in our zone and in their zone."
Where the preview missed
We picked Utah 4-3, and it wasn't close. We said we'd be wrong if Hyman came back and gave Edmonton another scorer; he came back and scored, though on the power play. We called the special-teams gap the biggest edge on the card. Utah came in first in the league at 37.5 percent and went 0-for-2 with three shots on goal, and Edmonton scored on its only chance. "I thought our penalty kill was outstanding tonight," Oilers coach Mike Babcock told NHL.com. Our worry about Utah sitting on a lead never came up, because Utah never had one.
The third period looked better than it was. Utah outshot Edmonton 13-2 and scored twice in 1:35, but at 5-0 that's what trailing teams usually get, and McDavid's second goal ended any idea of a comeback.
The home-and-home ends split, and Utah is 6-3-0 and still first in the Central. Pittsburgh comes to the Delta Center on Monday at 3-5-1, and the Oilers don't come up again until Dec. 19 in Edmonton. Whoever starts in goal Monday, watch the breakaways: Utah allowed 11 shots on goal from inside 25 feet on Saturday, and six of them went in. Thursday it allowed seven. Getting back to that number would make Monday's goalie choice a lot less interesting.
Tusks up.
Sources: NHL.com box score, play-by-play and shift charts (on-ice splits, shot locations and strength splits are our analysis of the NHL's data, so treat distances as approximate), Mammoth PR game notes, NHL.com recap, Deseret News, The Hockey News, fan posts on X, our preview, our recap of the Oct. 15 game.