Canucks 4, Oilers 2 post-game Oil Spills: Poor penalty kill costs the Oilers in Vancouver
By Cam Lewis
5 years agoSpecial teams can make you sink or swim. The Oilers’ penalty kill got torn apart by the Canucks on Sunday night which was ultimately the difference in a frustrating loss.
What happened…
The Oilers grabbed the lead early in the second period. JJ Khaira won a loose puck battle in the offensive zone and fed Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with a beautiful no-look, behind-the-back pass in the slot.
Things went downhill from there. The Canucks would take a 3-1 lead after scoring three power play goals, some of which came on questionable penalties. Caleb Jones was handed a pretty weak holding call and Alex Edler scored nine seconds into the man advantage. Kevin Gravel was given a delay of game penalty despite having only one hand on his stick when the puck went over the glass and Brock Boeser scored the go-ahead goal. Adam Larsson took another delay of game penalty in the third period and Elias Pettersson scored to make it 3-1.
The Oilers turned on the jets with about five minutes left to go in the game. Connor McDavid carried the puck into the zone and found Alex Chiasson alone in the slot. He buried his 15th of the year to bring the game to 3-2, but the Canucks would ice the game on an empty net goal soon after.
By the numbers…
The Oilers were the better team in the first and third periods but they had a massive letdown in a sluggish second. Of course, it doesn’t help that they had three different penalties that period, but the Canucks carried the play. The Canucks also did a good job playing stingy defence in the third period with the lead as they allowed only two high danger chances in the final frame.
Thoughts…
- Your special teams need to be special, as corny as that sounds. Edmonton has had a poor penalty kill for a year-and-a-half now and it’s made life extremely difficult for them. They didn’t play a great game last night by any stretch of the imagination but the Canucks didn’t outplay them at even strength. The game really came down to them allowing three goals on five penalty kills.
- In the same vein, the Oilers power play didn’t really have a chance to do anything last night. Vancouver only took one penalty, which seems a little odd. Connor McDavid took his usual bumps all nights and the refs turned a blind eye. I really, really don’t think that Edmonton deserved to have five infractions while the Canucks had only one. I mean, Elias Pettersson, a rookie, drew a call when he just toppled on to the ice when he got mixed up with Jesse Puljujarvi. We’ve been told countless times that McDavid doesn’t earn calls because he’s still young yet somebody 20 games into their career is given the benefit of the doubt. I hate to complain about reffing, but that wasn’t a great showing last night.
- Mikko Koskinen didn’t have a great game last night but the team needs to score more than two goals against Vancouver. The Canucks are one of the worst teams in the league at keeping the puck out of the net and the Oilers only managed two goals and six even strength high danger chances last night. The offence looked sluggish and low-energy.
- In terms of positives, the Caleb Jones and Kevin Gravel pair was insanely effective last night. In 16 minutes of even strength ice time together, the Oilers had 22 shot attempts while conceding just two. That’s amazing. Jones has been impressive in his first two games and Gravel has looked like a very solid and competent defender all year.
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