Canucks have Oilers on the brink of elimination after last-minute goal
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The Vancouver Canucks are one win away from eliminating the Edmonton Oilers.
J.T. Miller scored with 33 seconds left, giving the Canucks a 3-2 win in Game 5.
“I’m just glad we didn’t have to go to overtime,” Miller said postgame. “I thought we deserved to win the game today.”
The Canucks outshot Edmonton 35-23 and controlled the final 40 minutes of the game.
That had Miller feeling confident that the Canucks were walking away with a victory.
“It was just a matter of time,” Miller said. “There’s resiliency in this group.”
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet echoed those thoughts.
“The guys were terrific tonight, they really came to play,” Tocchet told reporters following the win. “That was one of our best games of the playoffs.”
Miller outduels McDavid
It’s been Miller versus Connor McDavid all series long.
And, the two of them were on the ice in the final minute.
Miller was able to sneak behind both McDavid and Zach Hyman, while Elias Lindholm held the puck on the right wing.
Elias Pettersson made a crafty play, tipping Lindholm’s shot with his skate. That redirect hit the post and landed right in Miller’s lap.
The Canucks superstar made no mistake, burying the game-winning goal with McDavid chasing.
Coming into this series, Miller was destined to be in this position: battling against McDavid shift after shift on a nightly basis.
The Oilers captain has had his looks, but at even strength, the Canucks have outscored McDavid 3-0 with Miller on the ice.
“Without being disrespectful, the last couple of games, our line [with Brock Boeser and Pius Suter], we’ve been giving Connor too much respect,” Miller said. “We were playing not to get scored on a little bit and when you do that, he just gets more time with the puck.”
“I thought we were a little more aggressive and we were able to extend some O-zone time. We didn’t let them get across our red line very often.”
After a 103-point season and this performance against the best player in the world, Miller is proving he belongs in the NHL’s superstar club.
Big dad energy
The Canucks made three lineup changes heading into Game 5. Ilya Mikheyev, Sam Lafferty, and Linus Karlsson came out. Vasily Podkolzin, Nils Höglander, and Phil Di Giuseppe came in.
Di Giuseppe missed Games 3 and 4 for the Canucks for personal reasons, which he revealed was because his wife gave birth to their second child on Sunday (the day of Game 3).
He didn’t show any signs of fatigue. In fact, he was one of the Canucks’ most tenacious forwards in this contest.
With the Oilers leading in the second period even though the Canucks were controlling the run of play, the Canucks new-look fourth line of Di Giuseppe, Nils Åman and Podkolzin stepped up.
Åman checked Evan Bouchard’s stick behind the net, and the puck landed right on the stick of Di Giuseppe, who buried a beautiful spin-o-rama goal past Calvin Pickard.
“I was telling Ams and Podzy that they played unbelievable. Such an easy game for me to play. They won their battles, I was able to keep speed, and they got me the puck a bunch of times.”
The Canucks now have a chance to eliminate the Oilers in Game 6 Saturday at Rogers Place in Edmonton.