Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 7: Canadiens, Oilers, Devils respond with thrilling home-ice wins

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop exciting action in the NHL as we witness history in another team looking to win a championship. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop of everything that happened in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.

Habs bounce back in violent Game 3 in Montreal

To quote the late, great Bob Cole: “everything is happening!” Game 3 between the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens already had some storylines entering the game with Patrik Laine out with an upper-body injury. Then of course, you got to watch some playoff hockey in Montreal, one of the best crowds in the sport. And that factor was only improved by the Habs winning 6-3, with 12 of 18 Canadiens players getting a point. But you know the game was hectic when we barely have time to touch on the actual goals.

First off, we got to watch all four goalies play at some point tonight, as both Sam Montembeault and Logan Thompson got hurt in the game. Then to top it all off, we got one of the best line brawls we’ve seen in a while, led by each team’s usual suspect for these types of shenanigans in Tom Wilson and Josh Anderson scrapping on the bench. Not to mention we got some hilarious trolling from Wilson during the affair. It’s safe to say that the Canadiens have shown that they can stick around in this series, and it’s certainly going to be interesting.

Devils stave off Canes comeback with 2OT winner from Nemec

The New Jersey Devils didn’t have a whole lot of life on the road in their first two games against the Carolina Hurricanes, and they needed a big performance in Game 3 before they found themselves already with the threat of elimination. They got off to a good start in that regard, as Nico Hischier opened the scoring late in the first, and then the Devils looked to have built on that lead early in the third with another from Dawson Mercer to possibly put the game away.

But the Canes had other ideas. Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho both scored on the power play in the third period to get the game tied, and we needed overtime to decide this one. And we got lucky, as we were given not just one overtime period, but the first double overtime of the season. We didn’t get too much of double overtime though, as Simon Nemec scored just 2:36 into the frame to end the game, and give the Devils their first win of the series, although the Canes still had a 2-1 series lead.

Oilers score twice in 10 seconds in third to take Game 3

It’ll be hard to get a boring game in this series between the Los Angeles Kings and Edmonton Oilers. After all the fun in the two games in L.A., the series shifted to Edmonton as the Oilers looked to get back in the series. It started out very well with the Oilers jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first nine minutes of the game. But the Kings rallied back to take a 3-2 lead, and after both teams exchanged goals in nine seconds late in the second, the Kings had a 4-3 lead going into the third.

The Kings played their usual brand of shutdown hockey to hold the lead for the first 13 minutes of the period, but then a crease-crashing goal from Evander Kane (his first in almost a calendar year) tied the game. However, Los Angeles thought that there was goalie interference on the play. Their challenge failed, and the Oilers got a chance to get another one on the power play as a result, with it taking just 10 seconds for Evan Bouchard to give Edmonton the lead. Connor McDavid and Connor Brown secured the 7-4 win with empty net goals, and the Oilers have cut the Kings series lead to just 2-1.