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Oilers refuse to take Randy Carlyle’s bait in white-glove test

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The verbal sparring between the Ducks’ Randy Carlyle and Edmonton’s Todd McLellan has not tempered as their teams’ second-round playoff has gone on.

Before the best-of-seven series even started, Carlyle predicted the Oilers would whine about the Ducks cheating on faceoffs. Then, during the break between Games 3 and 4, Carlyle opened a new offensive in the war of words, saying that Edmonton star Connor McDavid gets “white-glove treatment” from protective referees — a charge McLellan and his team answered Wednesday, hours before Game 4 was scheduled to begin.

“I heard that and I was surprised. Because I thought we were supposed to be the team that was whining,” said McLellan, whose team leads the series 2-1. “So that threw me off a little bit.”

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But, he added: “The white glove part of it, I think that’s questioning the integrity of the officiating. So I’m going to stay out of that.”

McDavid, who led the NHL in scoring during the regular season, also refused to take Carlyle’s bait.

“It doesn’t affect me. Everyone’s going to have their opinions,” he said. “That’s his opinion. If that’s the way he thinks, that’s the way he thinks.”

Asked if he believes he receives preferential treatment, McDavid said no.

“I think the ref is going to call the game how he sees it,” he said. “That’s what every ref would do. That’s how they’re taught to ref. That’s what they’re supposed to do. That’s their job.”

Bouncing back

Edmonton goalie Cam Talbot stopped just 22 of 28 shots in the Ducks’ 6-3 win in Game 3 on Sunday, which may actually be a good thing for the Oilers heading into Game 4, since Talbot is unbeaten in five games following ones in which he’s allowed five or more goals.

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“He’s bounced back all season long,” forward Drake Caggiula said. “And so has the team. Any time we’ve had a tough game, we’ve always been able to find a way to bounce back.”

That includes Game 4 of their first-round series with San Jose, which the Sharks won, 7-0. The Oilers then captured the next two to close out the series.

“That’s that young competitive edge in us,” Caggiula said.

The atmosphere in Edmonton is also on the Oilers’ side. Signs and banners supporting the team are ubiquitous around Edmonton, as are orange Oiler jerseys, which were everywhere Wednesday.

“They kind of get us going,” Caggiula said. “We feed off them as much as they feed off us. Any time you can kind of rely on your crowd to give you that little extra boost of energy, it’s a pretty big thing.”

Taking the crowd out of the game, then, will be a goal for the Ducks — even though center Andrew Cogliano admitted the visitors get almost as pumped up by the fans as the home team.

“Whenever you play in front of a crowd like this, you always want to put on a show and play well,” he said. “These are atmospheres you like playing in. It’s a great building, a great city to play playoff hockey in.

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“It’s great to be a part of it.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

Twitter: kbaxter11

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