Warts return as Oilers salvage points vs. Sabres

EDMONTON – The hapless Buffalo Sabers are on a back-to-back. Against an Edmonton Oilers team that is resting and finding its groove.

Talk about a wasted point.

“Yes, yes, that’s what I think,” said Vasily Podkolzen. “We have to win it.”

On a night where the worst franchise in hockey walked into Edmonton’s barn and finished them off, the miraculous finish softened some of the blow for the home side. A Connor McDavid six-for-five goal at 19:58 of the third gave everyone something to talk about, another Evan Bouchard defensive mess and an Oilers attack that runs a “four corner offense” better than Duke.

It is not fatal. But a performance like this — as Edmonton got a more straight-forward game that marked a turning point in their season — is a mystery at best, a minor tragedy at worst.

“I don’t think it was a bad game for us. It was just a matter of finding a way to break them,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, after a 4-3 overtime loss to the Sabers. “Finally we did it, but you want to get it a little earlier.”

Shouldn’t they beat this Sabers team for fun?

“That’s not the case in this league anymore,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “They’ve lost three in a row, they’re one behind. They gave up seven last night to Calgary, so you know they’re going to want to defend hard, play hard in front of their goalie.”

Here’s the reality of it all: Edmonton opened this five-game homestand with a well-played, hard-fought, 1-0 loss to Minnesota. If they recover and get two points in Thursday’s finale against Detroit, they’ll make it seven of the last eight.

This is not the time to be mad at Bouchard, or criticize a good power play that went 0-for-4 tonight.

We are 30 games in, and Edmonton played 20 minutes and got a point. You take it, and you move on.

“You want to play the full 60, especially the way we’ve trended in the right direction,” Zach Hyman said. “The first 40 wasn’t the best, but I liked the pushback of the group. It’s easy to get down 3-0 and just go away and finish the game. But we didn’t do that.

“We scored on the first shift (of the third period) and then another in the next two minutes, and you’re right back in the game. You’re able to take yourself out of a game where you put yourself in a hole. So, I think that’s a positive.”

Edmonton’s Warts were invisible in a pair of blowouts over Seattle (9-4) and Winnipeg (6-2). They showed up again in this one, as Edmonton had the puck for most of the opening frame but stubbornly refused to get it to the Sabres’ net.

“I can think of 10 times we had the puck in the slot and we didn’t take the shot,” head coach Chris Knobloch said. “Any time you get into that dangerous snow, you have to shoot.”

“Very rarely should you pass if you can get the puck in the middle of the ice, and I thought we did that way, a lot of times.”

A nasty little habit of the Oilers when they start to realize that their game is perfect: they go all Harlem Globetrotters, circulating in the zone “Wave Offense”, while the opposition only protects the middle of the ice.

It comes naturally. Highly skilled players find the elegant, back-door tap in, until things get as desperate as they did on Tuesday, 3-0 down after 40 minutes.

Then Edmonton reverted to desperate, drive-the-net hockey. Connor McDavid shifts into shoot mode, players go to the net, and pucks tend to find their way.

It’s a game they can play, and play effectively. But for whatever reason, they avoid it like a child avoids math homework – unless it’s absolutely necessary and can no longer be put off.

“We need to work,” Podkolzen said. “We have a lot of good habits and we have the best players in the world here, so we have to bring it more.”

If Bouchard “brings it” a little more — either doesn’t give Tage Thompson a puck for free, doesn’t lose a battle with Alex Tuch to open overtime, or doesn’t mess up the read and leave Tuch open to score the OT winner — Edmonton gets two points on Tuesday.

In the end, he played a game-high 28:01. It’s taken for granted here, we guess, that he’ll hand over to the opposition every now and again.

What is Knobloch’s approach when a player makes a gaffe as big as Bouchard Thompson’s on goal?

“Mostly a conversation the next day about what happened on the game,” the coach said. “Breaking a streak between periods or on the bench, I don’t think is productive. He knows he made a mistake. He knows it’s not the right game.”

And as a team, they know they can play better. Or, at least, closer to 50 minutes, rather than the 20-ish the Oilers went out on Tuesday.

Hey, people, because they play 82.