Such A Shame: Oilers 2, Hawks 1 (OT)

Tough one, tonight.  Once we'd reached The Coin Toss Round I felt that The Hawks were in with a shout given that they'd largely dominated The Oilers in the third period and had some wind in their sails.  However, one ill-timed and extremely rare gaffe by Patrick Kane spelled doom in the end.

Matchups Were Vital and, with last change, The Hawks did a good job with this.  When Coach Q was able to get Toews' line out vs. McDavid & Friends The Hawks typically had their measure.  Meanwhile, the Anisimov - Kane - Saad trio were able to neutralize Draisaitl's line for much of the game simply by not letting them touch the puck.  Where things broke down badly was when Kruger's line was opposite McDavid and were trounced soundly.  It wasn't even close.  Even after Q abandoned that idea and went to a Toews vs. McDavid tactic Kruger's line was overmatched even by EDM's third and fourth units.  This was largely down to one guy: Andreas Martinsen, he of the 0.00 Corsi rating on the night.  I know that Q loves to have a Guy around that can intimidate a bit and crush the odd open-ice hit, but Martinsen is simply too poor a skater to play that role, unable to catch anyone to actually lay that inspiring hit.  I don't know what Q's beef is with John Hayden, 'cos it seems to me that he could ably fill that role with his vastly superior skating, and he's at least able to hang onto the puck, somewhat.
The Duelling Cams was a fun sideshow, what with Cam Talbot turning in a near-perfect performance for EDM while, at the other end, our own Cam Ward played his best game so far as a Hawk.  Wardo was blameless on both Oilers goals, really.
Brandon Saad - back to earth?  The effort was certainly there but the results were not, with a couple of good looks fired wide or right into Talbot's center-mass.  Of course I have no idea why this is happening but I wonder....what if Saad were to take an extra fraction of a second to aim his shots?  Maybe he's been snakebitten so long that he's resigned himself to just bashing away and chucking, hoping for the best.
Kaner's Mistake.  Hard to say if he topped the puck while trying to hit Gustafsson, creeping in from the point, or if he just failed to put enough gas on it.  Once Draisaitl had the puck, and with Gus already moving north and suddenly needing to head south, a quality chance for The Oilers was inevitable.  If Kane had made the pass The Hawks would have had an equally good look, with Gus having a fairly clear shot on Talbot, or maybe a sneaky shot-pass to Saad to the right side of the EDM net. Well, errors like that are about as rare as Pope shit where Kane is concerned, which is remarkable considering the number of high-danger and low-percentage plays he successfully executes.  This is just gonna happen once in a long while.

Next: the meatgrinder that is the Western Canada swing, with three games in four nights including a rematch with The Oilers.  Worse even, those games are on late, so look for my wise observations that are so vital to your lives on the following day.  I needs my sleep.

Talk Talk - Such A Shame