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This isn’t the first time the Edmonton Oilers have found themselves in this position. And therein lies the problem.
Two and a half weeks ago, Conor McDavid’s club took the ice under the Rogers Place lights against the Colorado Avalanche, found themselves down the middle of a 5-0 rout, and ended the evening on the wrong end of a brutal 9-1 loss.
“I definitely hope it’s rock bottom for us,” head coach Chris Knobloch said that night. “I hope that this many people wake up, and we understand that we have a lot to do to become a good hockey team.”
Nine games later, the Oils are back at it again, watching Knobloch’s gang endure an 8-3 shellacking at the hands of the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night that saw all the same demons haunting Edmonton’s efforts.
If it’s possible to lose a game by five goals, the final score might make the Oilers happy. In fact, the night was over after 20 minutes, with Dallas adding four doubles in the first period, adding two more in each of the next two frames, and allowing the Oilers to score just a few goals of their own when it became clear the tilt was already all but won. Not to mention that Star actually scored a ninth goal of the night, but saw it disallowed by a high stick.
Perhaps most troubling for the Oilers faithful, though, is the fact that they’ve seen this game before. The same issues that hampered Edmonton’s efforts against Colorado appeared to creep into their game again Tuesday night, undoing the good built on a two-week, seven-game road trip in which the Oilers were seemingly headed in the right direction.
Instead, in this one, it gave the same defense-zone, the same lack of fight, the same annoying goal-scoring problems.
Stewart Skinner made four of Dallas’ first eight shots before he was fouled on the first break. His counterpart didn’t fare much better, with Calvin Pickard taking over and allowing himself four goals, on 22 shots, through the rest of the tie.
It’s a situation Oilers fans are all too familiar with, one that seems to be scrutinized by the hockey world season after season. Still, while a game-stealing performance from any goaltender would have been appreciated on a night like this, in the eyes of their captain, the loss is not on their shoulders.
“I really feel like scoring is a team thing,” McDavid told the media after Tuesday’s game. “It’s hard for goalies to look good when the group in front of them isn’t playing well. I don’t care who it is – when the team in front of them isn’t playing up to their standards, it’s hard for a goalie to look good. I feel bad for both of them tonight.”
“I mean, what are they supposed to do?” The German Axis asked the post game. “They’re part of the team, and I’m sure they’ll tell you themselves that they can get better at some point. … But they can’t do much. We’re getting Grade-A look after Grade-A look.
“You can’t expect one goal to stop each of them and win the game 3-1. It doesn’t work. We just have to be a lot better for them.”
That said, there’s no denying that the Oilers find themselves in a tough spot when it comes to their confidence in who will man the cage for them. With a quarter of the season in the books, Pickard’s .847 save percentage ranks fourth among any netminder who has played an NHL game this season. Skinner’s .878 is 15th-lowest league-wide, and sixth-lowest among regular starters.
Disjointed defensive play continues to sink the Oilers
As illustrated by Nos. 97 and 29, Skinner and Pickard had little support from the group in front of them in this regard. Go back through the film on each of Dallas’ goals, and you’ll see familiar trends emerging — missed tackles, untimely giveaways and a defensive group that looks disjointed overall.
It started with Dallas’ first night, when Wyatt Johnston drove behind the Oilers’ cage, stole the puck from Evan Bouchard, and wrapped it around the net to set up Jamie Benn for goal No. 1. The Stars’ second layup came from Heintz, who grabbed a rebound in his place and nobody fired around him. Goal #3 saw Brett Kulik lose a battle with the wall in the neutral zone, sending Dallas flying to Skinner on a 2-on-1. The Star’s fourth saw veteran Mattias Ekholm throw the puck over the wall, straight to the opposition, sparking a sequence that saw Dallas bounce back and put another on the board — again by drawing Edmonton’s defenders in and around the net front.
It was only the first round.
You can excuse the 5-on-3 goal from Jason Robertson — who extended his goal streak to seven games and 11 snipes — and the best power-play unit in the league. But before the night was over, the Stars scored three more goals to finish off Edmonton in front of the Oilers’ cage.
“I think it stems from the whole thing,” McDavid said postgame when asked about the club’s continued defensive struggles. “We’re definitely not good enough, and that’s leading to consistent time in our D-Zone. That’s all. We’re not getting ice, we’re not predicting puck returns, and we’re playing too much in the D-Zone.”
“There aren’t many d-zone systems that after 30, 40 (seconds), a minute in your d-zone. It’s hard to defend.”
More than the details, it’s the overall lack of consistency that’s sinking them, in Draisaitl’s view.
“We’re obviously not on the same page, as a group,” Senterman assessed Tuesday. “And then all of a sudden a lot of things get exposed, when you’re on the same page, don’t get exposed. We’re just not in sync as a group, and we have to figure that part out.
“We’re almost 30 games in and it still doesn’t feel like what we are, or know what we are. I don’t know what to say. It just wasn’t good enough.”
The veteran ball is the only bright spot for the home side
The Ottawa product entered the lineup for his second NHL game, with the Oils still without injured Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kaspari Kapnen. And the six-foot-two, 215-pound Viking Ball made his presence known throughout the night, throwing his body around and showing some much-needed jumps amid a largely lackluster performance by the Oilers.
Klattenberg’s best moment came early in the second, as Edmonton clawed its way back from a 4-0 first-period deficit. With the crowd quiet, save for a few mock cheers for Pickard as he made his first of two saves of the night, Klattenberg barreled into the Stars’ defense behind Jake Oettinger’s net. Chicken was thrown into the corner, so he continued to fight there as well.
Before his shift was over, the puck found its way to Ty Emberson at the point — the Oilers defenseman filtered it to the net as Klattenberg jockeyed for position up front. As the rebound bounced to the edge of the crease, Klattenberg stood his ground, found it in the chaos, and fired it into the net.
The 2024 fifth-round pick finished the night with his first NHL goal and seven hits to his name — more than anyone else on the team — showing his club desperately needs more right now.
