Playoff Hockey Has Returned To The Great Cold North

After waiting a few extra days for Calgary and Vancouver to close out their regular season, we finally have Canadian playoff hockey. And let me tell you…

-they should have started with Toronto and Montreal.

I made it pretty obvious that the Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets series was not the one I was hyped up for. They’re both not exactly the most entertaining teams to watch (excluding McDavid) and there is no deep cutting animosity between them unlike Toronto and Montreal. Because Canada is already without fans in the stands, you would have wanted an extra oomph to really pull attention up from the hot rivalries happening south of the boarder.

Things reaaaaally didn’t play out that way.

The first period was ehh. We had no goals, no penalties, and just 12 shots on net – 6 a piece. Edmonton picked it up in the second a bit. They had a goal from Jesse Puljujarvi 8:24 in but Tucker Poolman of the Jets got the score even 3 minutes later. Winnipeg had another 8 shots while Edmonton managed to put up 16. Things stayed tied and redundant til Dominic Toninato gave the Jets the 2-1 lead 9:14 into the third period. This is where Edmonton went from bad to crumbling like a soggy newspaper in the rain. The Jets scored 2 empty-net goals because Edmonton could barely hold possession. The game ended 4-1 with the Jets taking the W.

I didn’t expect the Oilers to win Game 1 and there is still plenty of hockey left for them to flip the script but man was this game long. Maybe it is because we’ve been spoiled with the US series so far, or the lack of fans really drained the energy, I’m not sure but either way, this was a slog of a start to the Canadian series. The Oilers will continue their series Friday, May 21st, at 8PM CT. As for the other Canadian match up, we can see that Game 1 Thursday, May 20th, at 6:30PM CT.

(I’ll insert the highlights when the NHL uploads them)

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