People don’t need to wonder about the San Jose Sharks’ scoring ability after Tuesday.
Also not a concern: Cam Talbot being in their heads. And you can probably cross quite a few other things off that list, as you’d expect with the Sharks throttling Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers 7-0 in Game 4.
With that, it’s a “three-game series” as the Sharks tied things up 2-2.
Watch Sharks vs. Oilers: Game 5 on Thursday (10:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, NBC Sports app)
The Sharks set the tone with a franchise-record 1-0 goal just 15 seconds in, with Joe Pavelski ending Cam Talbot’s shutout streak at 120:15. (More on that here.) San Jose would ultimately chase Talbot from the Oilers’ net on a night where their once-struggling power play went 4-for-8.
Part of that special teams dominance came after Leon Draisaitl was tossed from the game for spearing Chris Tierney in the groin. Tierney was able to return to the contest, which might lower the odds of a suspension, but check out more on that ugly bit of violence here.
“Ugly” is a pretty good word to describe the Oilers’ overall effort after grinding out two tough wins. The Sharks seemed to frustrate Connor McDavid, who’s now suffering from an extremely rare two-game pointless streak.
#Oilers not only suffered NHL's worst playoff shutout loss in the past decade, but also the franchise's most lopsided playoff defeat overall pic.twitter.com/T7eFc3oBFO
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) April 19, 2017
Of course, it’s also important to note that you don’t get a single bonus for winning a playoff game by seven goals or by winning an overtime thriller. Really, the Oilers might find themselves galvanized by such a resounding defeat, especially with the series shifting to Edmonton for Game 5.
The young Oilers were shaking off questions about experience and style of play before Tuesday, yet this was the sort of setback people were waiting for, especially against grizzled veterans in San Jose.
Now we get the next narrative wrinkle: how the NHL’s budding superstar and Edmonton’s other fresh faces react to this resounding rout.