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McDavid and Smith lead Oilers to the second round of Stanley Cup Playoffs

In terms of Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers against the underdog Los Angeles Kings Saturday night, they absolutely had to win Game 7

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Go big or go home, right?

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In terms of Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers against the underdog Los Angeles Kings Saturday night, they absolutely had to win Game 7 so they could avoid the ‘yeah buts’ and ‘what ifs’ and having to say ‘sorry’ once again. But, hey, they were already home at Rogers Place so the fiery mantra was only half applicable.

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So before a raucous, but very nervous 18,347 fans, McDavid played a staggering 27 minutes of the 60-minute game. He climbed over the boards for 33 shifts as he got the late insurance goal over a dazzling Jonathan Quick and also set up Cody Ceci for the first one to make sure there was no crowning glory from the Kings. In the end, the Oilers beat them 2-0 to get to round two against either Calgary or Dallas.

“Connor’s the best player in the world and he showed that the last two games,” said Leon Draisaitl, who played on one leg (suspected sprained ankle) but still managed 22 1/2 minutes of gut-it-out hockey himself in Game 7.”There’s lots of skill with Connor, that’s a given, but it’s the will. You can see it in his eyes, you can feel it every shift that he’s out there. There was no way he or us were going to be denied. He led the way.”

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It was a series where the Oilers seemed comfortable early until they weren’t. They blasted LA 6-0 and 8-2 in Games 2 and 3 before they had to win the last two under the crushing expectations of getting past the first round against a weaker opponent that had dragged this to Game 7.

While there’s a fine line between being scared to lose and buoyed to win, McDavid tossed off a pre-game fib, “it doesn’t feel much different than a normal game day” before the best player in the world switched to an I cannot tell a lie, “obviously a big game for our group, its do-or-die.”

And the Oilers, led by McDavid, wouldn’t let them go angry into the night, with a virtuoso performance with those 27 minutes as he finished with 14 points in the seven games. As usual, he shrugged off the workload, but in those 27 minutes he had six shots on Quick, and another six that were blocked or went wide, also four hits including a wallop on Sean Durzi early in the game.

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“The minutes? I really don’t think about it. I just go when Woody (coach Jay Woodcroft) calls my name and try not to think too much about it. I feel like I can play big minutes. I can play smaller minutes too, it doesn’t really matter. I am happy wth whatever,” said McDavid, who was sent out until either the ice cracked or he did.

And he didn’t, along with Ceci, who looked like Cale Makar with his perfect second-period snipe short-side on Quick, who was fantastic and the only reason this wasn’t 6-0 with 39 stops. Draisaitl, who laughed softly when asked to detail his medical issue, saying “I’m fine”, was also terrific, along with a defensive effort that kept the Kings away from goalie Mike Smith for long stretches to where he was stretching in the blue-paint to keep warm at times.

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“I can be here for a long time telling you all the things Connor can do,” said Smith, who was cool and calm in his first Game 7 after over 600 NHL games. “He was a determined player and you could see on his face that he wanted it more than any body else on the ice and everybody else jumped on his back and followed his lead.”

“To raise his play after what he’s done in regular-season to see what he’s done in the playoffs? It’s easy to jump on board with a captain and leader like that.”

Same with Draisaitl, who was hurt in a scrum with Mikey Anderson in Game 6, hauled down as his leg bent awkwardly. He missed the morning skate Saturday but was there to play 27 shifts, help on Ceci’s goal and take 19 face-offs.

“Both guys were our horses, our leaders and everyone else followed. It’s not just on Connor and Leon, but they sure did a heckuva job to get us going in the right direction and a lot of other guys filled in the gaps,” said Smith.

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Ceci broke open the game blasting one by Quick from the face-off circle after a perfect McDavid feed. He comes as advertised, as part of the Oilers shutdown pair with Darnell Nurse, who was back after missing Game 6 with a suspension for head-butting Phillip Danault in Game 5. But he’s got some offensive chops.

“Most important goal of my career? Maybe. It was definitely a big one. I was happy to see it go in and have the building go crazy like that. It was a pretty good adrenalin rush and it is one I will remember for awhile,” he said.

They needed McDavid’s magic with four minutes left and he hung in after a close call in the crease to get a 10-footer over the diving Quick. He admitted it was a sense of relief when it gave them some breathing room.

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“We had a lot of chances to make it 2-0 (Kailer Yamamoto hit the post in the third). hey were kind of hanging in around, so it felt good to be able to go up by two and have that bigger cushion,” said McDavid.

Kings’ coach Todd McLellan, who did a bang-up job to get his team to the playoffs, said before Game 6 that there was different, crushing pressure on the Oilers than his club and he was bang-on.

“I’ve lived their bench and I’m living our bench now and the pressure on Edmonton is enormous throughout Oil Country and Canada, on the superstars … where they’ve been and what they want to do,” said McLellan before the Game 6 Oilers win in LA, and offered up much the same about the heat before Game 7.

“We would like to put them in a situation where that does exist,” he said.

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And they did thanks to Quick, who faced a 24-shot barrage in the second period, the most shots in a playoff period ever for the Oilers. But, in the first home Game 7 in 32 years, they got the job done in a series where familiarity maybe didn’t breed contempt but a healthy dislike as the Oilers got through in a series where the team scoring first won every game and there wasn’t a single lead change.

“Sometimes it’s what the other team is doing and they played a hell of a game,” said McLellan.

“It feels good, but we’re not done. This isn’t the end. We haven’t reached anything,” said Draisaitl.

“We’ve been through stuff all season — for a lot of years, even — a lot of ups and downs, a lot of negative stuff. It feels great to have this feeling right now.”

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This ‘n that: Oilers defenceman Brett Kulak missed the morning skate for the birth of his baby girl but was back for the game … Former Oilers captain Jason Smith, who had the ‘C’ the last time the Oilers were in the Cup final in 2006, was at the game and got a huge cheer when they showed his face on the Jumbotron … The Kings had extra motivation in Game 7 to win so Dustin Brown’s career wouldn’t end. He announced he was retiring after the playoffs… Warren Foegele was again a healthy Oilers scratch after starting all 82 league games as they went with seven defencemen and 11 forwards … The Kings were without top six forward Viktor Arvidsson (lower body) for a seventh straight game.

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