Vancouver gets stellar performance from Markstrom in critical win over Oilers
March 29th, 2018 -
With five games remaining on the schedule and the Canucks and Oilers tied at 78 points each in the battle for third in the Pacific and the final playoff spot available to either team Edmonton rolled into Vancouver. Both teams brought losing streaks into the key matchup - Vancouver had dropped three straight while Edmonton had lost two in a row.
The first period opened with Vancouver controlling most of the play, and they scored two goals (from Hischier and Koivu) as well as outshooting the Oilers 12-5. The second saw much more even play, with the shots for the period ending up at Vancouver 14, Edmonton 11, but the Canucks were finishing incredibly, with goals from Tanev, Filatov (promoted to the second line for this game) and Sergachev, while Markstrom stood tall in Vancouver's end.
In the third a desperate Oilers team ramped up their efforts and only 32 seconds in Jordan Eberle snuck his 20th of the year past Markstrom. The attack was relentless for most of the period but Markstrom held up, facing a total of twenty shots on goal in the third and thirty six all together while only allowing a single goal. Svechnikov notched his 8th of the year for Vancouver in garbage time to seal it, a 6-1 victory at home for the Canucks. Their fate is in their own hands, but they can't afford to slip with four more games to play.