Duncan Keith’s phone started blowing up over the weekend after Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch dropped word to the media that the three-time Stanley Cup champion had spoken to the team.
Specifically, Knoblauch shared, Keith recalled to Oilers players Friday morning how he and the 2011 Chicago Blackhawks team came back from 3-0 down in a first-round series with the Vancouver Canucks in 2011 to force a Game 7 overtime before ultimately falling just short in a rather memorable few days.
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Needless to say, this Oilers team sure would take Game 7 overtime against a Florida Panthers team getting its second chance to hoist the Stanley Cup on Tuesday night in front of its home crowd in Game 5.
Reached in Penticton, B.C., on Monday morning, Keith, now an Oilers player development consultant, wanted to clarify that he didn’t exactly deliver a “speech” to the team but rather spoke with a number of players in separate conversations Friday morning after Game 3.
Which is more suited to Keith’s low-key style.
Duncan Keith played the final 64 of his 1,256 NHL games for the Oilers. (Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)
“I was getting text messages from friends and family saying, ‘You should go back and give them another speech,'” Keith told The Athletic with a bit of an embarrassed chuckle. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?'”
Then he saw what Knoblauch had shared. Which was fine, of course. But it wasn’t a speech in front of the entire team.
“I went over there to see the guys more than anything, you know, but chatted with a few of the players,” the 2015 Conn Smythe Trophy winner said. “I was walking around talking to different guys. I gave them a little bit of the situation I was in back in 2011 against the Canucks.”
Keith did speak to most of the players on the team in different side chats.
“I just shared how we were down 3-0 and pushed it all the way to Game 7 overtime, and the turning point was that we were fed up,” Keith said. “I was embarrassed of the situation knowing we were defending Cup champs, too, on the verge of getting swept next round (after winning the Cup).
“We were all just kind of pissed off and just playing a little bit angry. When we were able to get that win in Game 4, we started to feel really good about that win. And it just built some good momentum and confidence for our group.”
The Oilers sure looked like they played a little angry in Saturday’s 8-1 win, too.
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For Keith and those 2011 Blackhawks, the true belief began to build after a Game 5 win. That’s what the Oilers have to try to pull off Tuesday night.
“We had a really good Game 5 in Vancouver, and now you’re in a series,” Keith said. “And you’ve built that confidence up. Once that momentum can shift, you just start building and building.”
Another win in Game 6 at home in Chicago in 2011 made it bedlam.
“It’s almost a situation where you believe so much that you can’t lose, you know? It goes the other way,” said Keith. “I know that was the case for us. We believed until the very end. When we went to Game 7, I thought it was destiny.”
Obviously, it wasn’t, as Alex Burrows ended things in overtime and the Canucks survived en route to an eventual Stanley Cup Final appearance.
Still, the Hawks put a heck of a scare into the Canucks.
Can the Oilers do the same?
There’s a reason only four teams have come all the way back from a 3-0 series deficit in NHL history. Odds are the Panthers will get the job done, if not Tuesday night (that’s my bet) then certainly over the next three games.
We did reach out to members of the 2014 Cup champion Los Angeles Kings team, however, who last pulled the trick, coming back from 3-0 down to San Jose to beat the Sharks in the opening round of the ’14 playoffs.
“If you’re Edmonton, being down 0-3, nobody expects you to win anymore,” Justin Williams texted Sunday. “You obviously still want to, but nobody expects it anymore so mentally you might be able to play looser and more free and with less stress, and that’s a powerful thing. Florida hasn’t had to deal with any adversity or real pressure to date in this series because of their lead, but if you can just chip away, each game the pressure mounts and gets heavier for them to bear.
“You also have to remember if you’re Edmonton that the team you’re playing hasn’t won anything. … It’s not as if you’re playing a team with multiple winners on it who’ve done it before, so that mentality needs to be used also if you’re going to claw back.”
Justin Williams and the Kings came back from 3-0 down against the Sharks on their way to winning the Stanley Cup in 2014. (Juan Ocampo / NHLI via Getty Images)
Another former 2014 Kings player, Jarret Stoll, remembered how Game 5 was huge for them.
“Obviously, you say one game, one game — that’s how you have to take it. Otherwise, your season is done,” Stoll said. “But Game 5 is such a critical game because especially when you don’t have home-ice advantage, you win Game 5, you have to win in their building which is not going to be easy. We did it in San Jose, and that’s the game I most remember. We played a great game and then had all the momentum in the world and were just not going to lose Game 6 at home. Then you go back for Game 7 and then it is what it is. It’s Game 7.
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“It’s going to be hard for sure. That’s why only four teams have done it. But it’s interesting: Once momentum gets going, you can’t stop it.”
Added Williams: “Game 5 will be the toughest test, and Florida will throw it all out there. Going to need individual players to be great and have a game (likely Stuart Skinner). If they win Game 5, true belief will manifest and then you never know.”
But there’s also this. That 2014 Kings team had championship pedigree, just like that 2011 Blackhawks team.
“You know, that ’14 team, we’d won six rounds before that series with San Jose,” former Kings head coach Darryl Sutter told The Athletic. “Most of the coaches, most of the players, most of the management that had won the Cup in ’12 were still there, and then Chicago beat us in the conference finals (in ’13). So I think that always comes into it. Just that you’ve got that bank there that you know that the fourth game is the toughest to win but when you’ve won the fourth game several times as a group, you still know the pressure’s more on the other group if they have the lead in the series.”
Still, Sutter, like everyone else, is intrigued after the Oilers won 8-1 Saturday night.
“Obviously this puts some interest back in the series,” said Sutter. “Because some people thought it was over. Well, it’s not over.”
But is momentum a real thing in the playoffs? That’s the age-old debate.
“I heard Paul Maurice say last night he doesn’t believe in momentum,” Stoll said. “There’s two ways to look at that. I remember in ’06 (with the Oilers in the Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes) we were down 3-1 in the series and Fernando Pisani scores in overtime in Game 5 in Carolina, so same kind of story. We go back to Edmonton and play our best game of the season for sure. We won 3-0 and gave Carolina like 12 shots or something. We go back to Carolina for Game 7 and we have all the momentum in the world.
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“But they came out like gangbusters in Game 7 and just took it to us in the first period. Right from the first five minutes of that game, they got that momentum. Now, there’s two days between games before Game 5 in Florida. I think that’s great for Florida to get a total reset after that loss.”
Point being, who knows what an 8-1 Oilers win really means heading into Game 5 Tuesday night?
Obviously Keith isn’t neutral on the matter given his work with the Oilers. He hopes Game 4 was something to build off.
“I really believe that game they won a couple of nights ago could be a real catalyst for them in terms of gaining momentum and confidence now,” Keith said. “Now they just have to keep hammering away from that.
“Like Connor (McDavid) said, drag them back to Alberta and let’s see the Panthers try to beat them on Edmonton’s home ice again. It would make for a great story, that’s for sure.”
(Top photos of Connor McDavid, Stuart Skinner and Duncan Keith: Derek Leung and Andy Devlin / Getty Images)
Pierre LeBrun has been a senior NHL columnist for The Athletic since 2017. He has been an NHL Insider for TSN since 2011 following six years as a panelist on Hockey Night In Canada. He also appears regularly on RDS in Montreal. Pierre previously covered the NHL for ESPN.com and The Canadian Press. Follow Pierre on Twitter @PierreVLeBrun
