You know that feeling you get when you walk into any room of your house during a power outage and try to turn on the lights? Nope, not back on yet.

You likely felt the same way watching the Edmonton Oilers powerplay last night. It was an exercise in futility.

The Oilers had five man advantages for a total of ten minutes. They didn’t score a goal, and only registered three shots on net, all of them off the stick of Leon Draisaitl.

Through ten games this December the Oilers have only three powerplay goals on 33 opportunities. They scored twice against Colorado and once in Winnipeg. Their PP is an ugly 9.1% this month and last night it cost them the game.

“We lost the game in the second period, we didn’t lose it in the third period and we lost it on special teams on the powerplay,” said head coach Ken Hitchcock.

The Blues second goal had many in Oilersnation upset. I understand the immediate frustration, because Sportsnet never showed a clear angle that had the puck in the goal. However, the Blues broadcast did find one, and that is likely the one the officials watched. The puck was clearly across the line and it looked like it was across before Talbot’s pad was touched/pushed.

A fair question is why did the Blues TV broadcast have that angle and not Sportsnet? The NHL would be much better off if they showed that angle to both fanbases, and do it for every game. It would eliminate a lot of frustration and anger. Transparency is a good thing. Why not have a simple dialogue among off ice officials and the TV producers to ensure they get a copy to show their viewers at home?

The review process likely had you baffled, but the inept powerplay was the root of much of last night’s frustration within Oilersnation.

It cost the Oilers the game. The Blues did their best to hand the Oilers the game.

Their five penalties were:
Too many men
Cross checking
Delay of game-bench (unsuccessful offside challenge)
Slashing
Delay of game-puck over glass

The Oilers got a powerplay right after Jesse Puljujarvi’s third goal of the season, after the Blues unsuccessfully challenged for a potential offside. It was a glorious opportunity to pot two goals in under two minutes, but they couldn’t score. I’m seeing the same issues on the PP now that we saw last season. Too much stationary play. They get caught standing still too often.

“We are too slow on the flanks,” said Hitchcock.

“We don’t have enough movement on the flanks. We’ll get that changed. We are standing still outside the dots and trying to make plays instead of in attack mode. We are not playing near enough downhill. The major thing for me is our movement across the top is too slow, both with our feet and our puck movement and it allows teams to recover. We are in the zone a lot, but not much is going on when we are there.”

The coach sees the same issue you and I see, and now we’ll see how he goes about changing it. The most logical change for me would be to switch out Darnell Nurse for Matt Benning. It gives the Oilers two right shot options. It wouldn’t make sense to me to remove any of their three best forwards, who all shoot left, so that means a right shot at the point. I don’t see any other personnel move that makes sense.

Ryan Rishaug asked Hitchcock if the fix would come through a change in tactics or personnel.

“Really the only change we can make is on the backend. We haven’t even had a hockey practice with them yet. It is what is it right now and we have run cold the past few games. It was helping us before, but now it is probably hurting us. Like I said, we will get two practices in, fix it, and move forward from there,” Hitchcock said.

When he says them, I presume he means the new unit of five including Darnell Nurse.

I don’t believe Hitchcock was remotely suggesting Nurse is the cause of the powerplay’s problems. It struggled prior to his arrival. He, or any D-man on that unit, won’t be the focal point. I believe a right shot will give the Oilers more options, and Benning has the best one-timer from the blueline, so he’d be my choice on the PP, if they are looking to make a change. But ultimately the PP will succeed mainly off the decisions and movement from Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. They touch the puck the most, and set the tone for the PP.

With two days full days of practice scheduled for Thursday and Friday I’m curious to see if Hitchock and Glen Gulutzan stick with the same five or if they experiment with a second right shot in Benning.

I’d make a major overhaul on this unit. Last night Ty Rattie, Milan Lucic and Tobias Rieder were the second unit. Rieder has no goals this season, Lucic has one, but none in the last 34 games, and Rattie has two. Three forwards with three goals on the season won’t have penalty killers on edge. One of Nurse and Benning will be on this unit and I’d strongly consider Caleb Jones here as well. He was running the PP in Bakersfield, so let him show you what he can do in practice.

I’d run the Oilers new line of Puljujarvi-Jujhar Khaira and Drake Caggiula as the second unit forward group. Caggiula is a better net front presence than Lucic, because he gets in the goalie’s vision more consistently and has better hands. Puljujarvi can be the right shot shooter, and Khaira is feeling it offensively with eight points in ten games. I’d much rather see Puljujarvi on a second PP unit than the fourth PK unit. If you are going to develop him in the NHL then try to nurture his offensive confidence. Last season Caggiula had three PP goals in 65 minutes and Puljujarvi had two in 48 minutes. Lucic had three in 148 PP TOI and this season he has one in 76 minutes.

That trio created some good looks last night and Puljujarvi scored and had another good look early in the third.

I think the time has come for the coach to give the young players a chance. The veterans like Rieder and Lucic have had enough chances and they can’t score right now. If they find their offence, then revisit adding them on the PP, but for now I’d try the KPC trio on the second PP unit.

A huge thank you to Michelle Derk for donating her Realtor Fees again and to Karla for the great bid. Also big shout out to Paul for the awesome bid on the Oiler and Oil Kings tickets.

Day 13: Package #1: Fan Cave TV Room from The Brick

Package #2: Train or Rehab like a Pro

You get to train or rehab in Leading Edge Physio’s state-of-art facilities:

Proceeds will help out Santas Anonymous and Alzheimers Society.