Klingberg had the puck at the Edmonton goal line, fired a snap pass to Leon Draisaitl at the center-ice line that caught the Vegas forecheck in deep. Draisaitl connected with Connor McDavid on a cross-ice pass at the attacking blue line and McDavid found Perry for a life-giving goal for the Oilers.
Bing. Bang. Boom. Those are the scoring plays Klingberg had grown used to starting when he was a mainstay with the Dallas Stars.
“In Dallas, he was a game-changing, No. 1 defenseman the whole time,” Edmonton forward Adam Henrique said.
It took the 32-year-old four seasons after he was drafted by the Stars in the fifth round (No. 131) of the 2010 NHL Draft before arriving in the League. But in the 2014-15 season, he had 40 points (11 goals, 29 assists) in 65 games and was named to the NHL’s All-Rookie team. Three seasons later, he had a career-best 67 points (eight goals, 59 assists) in 82 regular-season games and the future seemed limitless.
Then it wasn’t. Injuries started cropping up and his production waned.
He made it four more seasons with the Stars, never scoring 50 points again. In the past four seasons, he has played for four different teams, never playing more than 50 games.
Klingberg only managed to play in 11 games for Edmonton this regular season after signing in January.
Tyler Seguin, his teammate throughout Klingberg’s tenure in Dallas, is watching from afar as the Stars are involved in their own second-round series against the Winnipeg Jets.
He has had his own injury woes and can feel for Klingberg and appreciate his long road back.
“It’s hard, especially the adjustment part,” Seguin said Wednesday. “I think deep down you’re always going to have a voice just wanting you to judge yourself based on when you were 24, right? So, those are the things you fight. Then if you can’t do certain things you try to re-evaluate your game.
“I mean, we all just love the game. So we just want to be a part of it and be a part of the emotions, being a part of having a coach yell, anything. That’s just what you miss when you’re out and what you appreciate when you’re back.”
But there are flashes of the old Klingberg -- on and off the ice -- coming to the surface.
Henrique played with Klingberg with the Anaheim Ducks in 2022-23. It was obvious then that Klingberg was gutting through it, playing through pain that couldn’t help but limit his game.
“You can just see it in his face that that pressure is a little bit off his shoulders [now], he’s just been playing, and he’s been so good since coming back in,” Henrique said.
It’s been on the ice this postseason where it is most noticeable.
Klingberg was inserted into the lineup for Game 2 of the first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings. He has stabilized the defense, and the Oilers have cashed in their insurance policy to maximum benefit.
Said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch: “We knew we could get some good things out of him, but not necessarily at the level he is now because he has been helping our team quite a bit since he came into the lineup.”
For Edmonton forward Zach Hyman, it all comes back to the hips. Hyman, then with the Toronto Maple Leafs, joined the NHL the year after Klingberg. They have gone head to head for close to a decade.
He knows Klingberg is better because there is, as Elvis once crooned, a “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” in the defenseman’s game.
“He’s moving, his hips are moving,” Hyman said. “When ‘Klingy’ is at his best, playing against him, it was always hard to read because his hips are going millions of different directions and you don’t know which way his feet are moving because his hips are opening and turning.”
And that makes Klingberg smile.
“Like I said from the start, it’s going to be a process,” he said. “The thing I’m very excited about is just getting better and better.”
