The Day After: Red hot Oilers enter a rut
By Zach Laing
3 years agoWell that’s simply some of the… worst? hockey the Oilers have played all year. After leading the league in scoring, they played host to the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday getting shutout 4-0.
No problem. The Oilers have been on a heater recently and their five-game win streak was due to end at some point.
The expectation was that they would come in reinvigorated Monday night seeking to exact revenge against the Leafs, who had to dress their third string goalie due to injuries. But Edmonton didn’t come close to doing so, being bested 3-0 and shutout for a second straight game.
Early goals were truly the killer for the Oilers as the Leafs scored on their first two shots of the game.
“Both these games we’re down 2-0 early in a game and it allows any team to play strong defence,” said head coach Dave Tippett after the game. “First two shots of the game you’re down 2-0 and you’re chasing the game. It allows the other team to play strong defence.
“We’re in a little rut. Teams get in a little rut. Seems like nothing you’re shooting is going in the net. Point shots, deflections, usually you’ll find one or two of those. There’s not a lot of juice in our group right now., that happens during times of the season where you’re down on some energy, down on some emotion. Unfortunately it’s come in a tough time for us when this should be a big series. We just haven’t played very well.”
Coming into this three-game set against the Leafs, Edmonton was riding high off a five-game win streak shooting 13.38% in all situations while getting Oilers goalies stopped 95.76 percent of the shots they faced. Those numbers weren’t bound to stick around, and Edmonton is seeing some regression in their games.
Like they did Saturday, Edmonton just seemed to be missing that jump, or the juice, as Tippett mentioned.
We’ve seen the Oilers get down in games and come back to win this year, so even through the last two there were moments of “if they could just get one.” But it didn’t happen, and now the Oilers need to reset and get ready for round three Wednesday.
“We’re not going to get ourselves down in this room,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse after the game. “The two games didn’t go how we wanted them to go.
What are we going to do, kick ourselves and mope around for the next few days? We still have another game against them. We know we’re a good team here.”
And Nurse, who has stepped up as a leader for this Oilers team, feels there’s another level they need to reach
“I think there’s another level we need to get to,” he said. “They’re a good team, they come out and play hard each and every night. We’re a good team too, we have confidence in ourselves. I think we know the level we need to play at.”
For the Oilers, it might come from continuing to play a more physical game. They laid a total of 63 hits against the Leafs in the last two games and towards the end of the game Monday, things got testy.
Mike Smith didn’t like getting clipped by Zach Hyman and took a swing at the nearest Leaf, an innocent Ilya Mikheyev. On the next shift down at the other end, Darnell Nurse nudged into Michael Hutchinton leading to a scuffle at the Leafs net. And with donuts on the timeclock, Alex Chiasson did something to necessitate a five-minute major for cross checking and a game misconduct.
Nonetheless, Edmonton is going to need to come out with fire in their bellies to start game three Wednesday and get the first goal if they want a shot at victory.
Backhanders…
- More on this today, but Alex Stalock is heading to Edmonton today meaning he will have 14 days to quarantine before joining the Oilers. The more I think about it, the more I like this acquisition off waivers for the Oilers.
- Even when accounting for score effects, the Oilers drove play all night long against a team that looked content in playing as defensive as possible. It led to some boring hockey, but Edmonton needs to find a way to break through that.
- Darnell Nurse continues to munch minutes hitting 29:22 last night while driving play all night. He lost the battle in terms of expected goals and real goals, but he continues to develop nicely for the Oilers averaging well over three and a half minutes more than his career average.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.
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