Two of Edmonton's veteran leaders on the back end, Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom, echoed their coach's sentiments that the team has made a conscious commitment to defence.
"A lot of that goes into the buy-in that our group has had," Nurse said of the goals-against statistic. "We're a team that, for a long time now, has had a lot of great offensive weapons, but the buy-in to the defensive and checking side of the game hasn't been enough. We've been buying in and it shows. When you're keeping pucks out of your own net, it gives your offence an opportunity to capitalize."
"Both our goalies have been playing really good for us," Klefbom added. "When you have two goalies playing really good, you get confidence on the back end and I think we've been playing some really good defence overall. It's just the first quarter of a long season and we're off to a really good start, but we want to continue doing what we're doing."
IF IT AIN'T BROKE…
Of note on Sunday, the Ducks did not have a morning skate and have not played a game since they dropped a 4-2 decision to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday. Conversely, the Oilers opted for an up-tempo morning session that included some three-on-three and two-on-two battle drills.
"It's the mindset of where you have to be," Tippett said. "Support in our own end is one of the staples of our game that we have to continue to work at every day, it doesn't matter if it's a game day."
With an earlier game time today and an impressive performance against the Devils to build upon, Tippett and his staff could have potentially opted for a lighter morning skate, but the bench boss shared his philosophy on keeping their noses to the grindstone.
"There's an old saying that if it's not broke, don't fix it, but I go by if it's not broke, you haven't looked hard enough," Tippett smiled. "There's lots to improve on here yet."
