If there’s one word you never want to hear in preseason hockey, it’s overtime. Neither the Winnipeg Jets nor the host Edmonton Oilers got that memo on Sunday. Mercifully, it only lasted 77 seconds.
Oilers hopeful Cam Dineen ended it with a tight-angled wrister with 1:17 gone in the extra frame, giving Edmonton a 3-2 win at Rogers Place. The game seemed destined to last forever after both teams traded early goals. David Gustafsson tipped home a Logan Stanley point shot 17 seconds into the game before Sam O’Reilly tied it just over three minutes later.
Excitement slowed to a crawl until Raphael Lavoie broke the deadlock on the power play at 9:07 of the third period. The lead lasted just 10 seconds, with Dominic Toninato tying the game from the slot after a pass from below the goal line from Kevin He. Dineen’s winner came after the Jets controlled the first minute of overtime.
Jets prospect Parker Ford tried to take the puck down low but was met with a crunching hit along the end boards, sending the Oilers down the ice on a 2-on-1. Dineen cut across the width of the ice before tucking one past Eric Comrie. Comrie finished with 25 saves, and made a couple of beauties during regulation in his first preseason action.
Winnipeg went 0-for-1 on the power play. Blue-line hopefuls Stanley and Dylan Coghlan reached played north of 24 minutes while paired together for the game. Elias Salomonsson, playing his second game in as many nights, played 20:24.
• Salomonsson will benefit considerably from a year in the American Hockey League this season. He’s a top prospect, likely Josh Morrissey’s future partner on Winnipeg’s top pairing. But you can see the rawness in his game.
There are flashes, as you’d expect from a skilled defenceman. The farm team can help him develop better positioning and tighten up his gap. It is important to remember that this will be Salomonsson’s first season playing on North American ice.
The timing is different, as is the pace of play. It did well for Brad Lambert, who learned what he needed to improve on playing against AHLers. The hope is he’d adapt as quickly as Lambert did.
• Kevin He is exciting to watch. Has a great burst, good top-end. He moves well with the puck and plays responsible defensively.
He’s going to be a fun one to watch develop. He’ll be back in the OHL this season, and his training camp experience should give him some confidence heading into his third season with the Niagara IceDogs. I’d put money on a strong statistical season after scoring 31 goals in his draft year.
• I’m still of the opinion that Kaapo Kahkonen is the frontrunner for the role of Connor Hellebuyck’s understudy, even after eating all five goals Minnesota scored in a 5-2 win back at Canada Life Centre on Saturday. Neither goalie had their best in their respective starts. Comrie just offers a lot to a guy like Thomas Milic in a mentoring role.
Kahkonen’s numbers as a backup are pretty good, especially when you subtract his time on a floundering San Jose Sharks team (and even then, his analytics were fairly good). • Stanley did well. He was expected to.
He was a man among boys in that game. He did well in getting pucks on net, including his first shot of the game, which Gustafsson tipped for the opening goal. It’s hard to say who is ahead of who when it comes to Stanley and summer signing Haydn Fleury.
Both are first-round draft picks who haven’t yet lived up to that designation. Fleury and Colin Miller, who laid claim to the right side job on the third pairing on Saturday, played remarkably well together against Minnesota. • With Ville Heinola out indefinitely with an ankle infection, both Stanley and Fleury are likely to see time this season, with Arniel suggesting that he’d like to carry seven defencemen and rotate the seventh guy in.
We’ll see where that leaves Dylan Coghlan, who had a good but not remarkable outing on Sunday. scott.billeck@kleinmedia.
ca X: @scottbilleck.
