Since the Christmas break, the Edmonton Oilers have been out of sorts.
Suffering back-to-back losses with blown leads against the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks, the team just hasn’t found the form they’ve had since before the Christmas break. Sure, they had a four-game winning streak in mid-January, but in all but one of those games, they were down at least 2-0 early.
February has been even more of a disaster. After losing 4-3 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb.1, the team barely scrapped by the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks before losing their next three games, the first time they’ve lost three consecutive games since their first three games this season.
On Sunday afternoon, after an embarrassing loss to the Philadelphia Flyers the previous day, the Oilers lost 7-3 to the Washington Capitals.
Things actually started well for the Oilers, as Leon Draisaitl scored his league-leading 42nd goal of the season early in the game from his spot on the power play. It feels like he’s the only Oiler that cares at this point.
With just under three minutes left in the first period, a fortuitous bounce landed on the stick of Tom Wilson, who made no mistake in burying it to tie the game. With 23 seconds left in the first period, Jakob Chychrun beat Calvin Pickard from the point on the power play through a screen to put the Capitals up heading into the first intermission.
Midway through the second period on a zone entry, the puck was dropped to Alex Ovechkin and he beat Pickard below the blocker for his 880th career goal, 15 back of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894.
Late in the second period on another power play, Ovechkin scored his second of the game from his spot, moving him to 14 more goals to break the record. To make matters worse, the Capitals scored a goal in the final minute of the second period to make it a 5-1 game heading into the third period.
About six and a half minutes into the third period, Viktor Arvidsson and Zach Hyman got in on the forecheck and forced a turnover. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was the recipient of the turnover, scoring his 16th of the season. Any hope for an Oilers comeback was dashed though, as Dylan Strome scored with 9:22 left in the third to restore the four-goal lead.
With just under five minutes left in the game, Jeff Skinner picked off a pass behind the net, took it to the front of the net, and scored his 11th of the season. All this did though was make the Oilers pull their netminder, with Ovechkin picking up a hat trick to move him even closer to Gretzky’s record.
Takeaways…
Calvin Pickard didn’t fare much better than Stuart Skinner did Saturday afternoon; in fact, he did worse. However, the Oilers’ issues run far deeper than goaltending these past two games as their defence has been horrendous. There are far too many odd-man rushes and mental lapses in their defensive zone.
On top of goaltending, another need before March 7’s trade deadline is a second-pair right-shot defenceman as John Klingberg is not the answer. It wasn’t a bad signing as he’s a useful depth piece for a hopefully long playoff run, but he’s not the guy to fill the need.
Matthew Savoie saw limited time on the ice in this game, taking 12 shifts for 10:38 minutes of ice time, the fewest minutes for any Oiler player. His final shift in the second period was played with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl where he was caught coasting on the backcheck. Not great.
Simply put, the Oilers need to lock in as soon as possible. This is a tough road trip with the two Florida teams and the Carolina Hurricanes remaining. If their defensive effort and goaltending don’t improve over the next three games, this slide will cost them heavily in terms of postseason position.
As it stands, the Oilers are two points back of the Vegas Golden Knights with an equal number of games played. The Golden Knights also have the second tiebreaker, as they have six more regulation wins.
The Oilers are back in action on Tuesday as they head to sunny Florida to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning. A loss would put the team on their longest losing streak of the season.
If you enjoy my content, you can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.
