Our preview asked whether Utah's power play could outscore Edmonton's top line. Both of those things showed up on Thursday, and the Mammoth's power play scored twice to the top line's once. The more useful finding is what happened in between. When Connor McDavid was on the ice at five-on-five, Edmonton was the better team by a lot. When he wasn't, Utah was, and that's how the Mammoth handed the Oilers their first regulation loss of the season, 4-2 at Rogers Place.
The top line did what it does
McDavid played 20.3 minutes at five-on-five by our count of the NHL's shift charts. In those minutes Edmonton out-attempted Utah 27-14 and outshot it 12-7. Every one of Edmonton's seven shots on goal from inside 25 feet came with McDavid on the ice, at any strength. That includes two Vasily Podkolzin chances from about nine and six feet a second apart, and Leon Draisaitl's goal at 13:54 of the second, a give-and-go with McDavid that went through Karel Vejmelka's legs.
So we'd push back on The Hockey News, which wrote that the Mammoth "held McDavid's top line to few shots for nearly half of the game," and gently on the team's own story, which said Utah held McDavid to one assist and Draisaitl to one goal. The scoresheet is right. The shot data says the Oilers' top line controlled its shifts, and Oilers Nation read it the same way: "the top line was great, dominating play and chipping in with an even-strength goal." Vejmelka, who came in 2-6-1 against Edmonton in his career according to the Oilers' site, stopped 22 of 24 and handled the in-close looks that line created.
Tourigny also didn't match it the way we expected. Oilers Nation's pre-scout thought Utah would send out Anders Lee, Barrett Hayton and Kailer Yamamoto against McDavid, and we passed that along. Instead Mikhail Sergachev and MacKenzie Weegar drew him most, about 15 and 12 of his 20 minutes, and the Keller, Schmaltz and Crouse line took around nine and a half. Lee, Hayton and Yamamoto saw him for under three minutes.
The other 29 minutes
Edmonton played about 29 minutes of five-on-five without McDavid, and Utah out-attempted the Oilers 31-23 in them, outshot them 10-8, and scored the only goal. That goal was Logan Cooley's, 23 seconds after Draisaitl's, when Vincent Trocheck got around Ty Emberson and put it to the back post. Oilers coach Mike Babcock called it "a freebie." "Yeah, that one was ugly, can't let him get to the net," he said.
Babcock knew where the game went. "We needed our big boys. Obviously, I played them too much," he said, and later, "They have a deep team and we're going to have a deep team, too, but right now we're not as deep and I thought that showed tonight." McDavid played 25:52 and Evan Bouchard 27:03. The Canadian Press noted Edmonton was missing five starting forwards and a defenceman, and Oilers Nation's numbers had the "second" line of Filip Hallander, Trent Frederic and Kasperi Kapanen at 4.5 percent of the expected-goal share.
That's a real caveat, and we'll come back to it. But beating the depth of a short-handed team is still the job, and Utah did it with its own depth. The Trocheck, Guenther and Cooley line was the best of Utah's four at five-on-five, 14 attempts to 12 and the only even-strength goal. Tourigny on Cooley: "Goal or no goal, Cooley played hockey."
The power play settled it
Josh Samanski's high-sticking double minor in the first gave Utah four minutes, and Hayton scored 75 seconds in, on the rebound of a Yamamoto shot. Samanski also served the bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct in the second, and Clayton Keller scored 31 seconds into that one off a between-the-legs pass from Cooley. That's 2-for-3 by the NHL's count, and the team says Utah's 12 power-play goals lead the league. Edmonton went 0-for-2 and managed two shots on goal with the man advantage.
McDavid put it plainly: "it came down to special teams, they found a way to get a couple and we didn't."
Right winner, wrong count
We picked Utah 4-3 and said the penalty count would decide it. The winner was right, and so was the mechanism, though not the way we framed it. We expected four or more Utah power plays; it got three and needed only two to score twice. We also expected McDavid's line to score at least a couple, and it scored one. Levi wasn't the problem for Edmonton (20 saves on 23 shots).
The third period is the part to be honest about. Utah led the whole way and got out-attempted 26-15. Shakir Mukhamadullin's goal at 1:40 was a 57-foot point shot that went in off Andrew Peeke's skate during a delayed penalty, with Edmonton's net empty. A fan on the postgame thread called it the "fluke goal" and added that "it didn’t feel like Edmonton actually generated all that much offense in the third." The data mostly agrees: Edmonton's inside-25 chances in the third were Draisaitl from about 24 feet, McDavid from eight, and Kapanen from nine. Keller's empty-netter with 28 seconds left closed it.
Saturday is a different test
Oilers Nation reports Tristan Jarry starts Saturday in Salt Lake City, and, citing Frank Seravalli, lists Zach Hyman first in line to return from injury. If Edmonton gets even one healthy middle-six forward back, the 29 minutes Utah won on Thursday get harder. The top line will get its share again. Utah's job is to keep winning the rest of the ice and stay ahead on special teams, and Thursday showed that's enough against this lineup. We'll find out on Saturday whether it holds against a healthier one.
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), Utah Mammoth game story, NHL.com recap, The Hockey News via Yahoo Sports, Oilers Nation instant reaction, Oilers Nation: The Day After, The Canadian Press via The Globe and Mail, r/Utah_Hockey postgame thread.