After a tough loss in L.A. on Saturday afternoon, the injury-riddled Edmonton Oilers were back to work against the lowly Anaheim Ducks for the fourth and final game of their road trip. And while Edmonton certainly played well enough to win, they couldn’t beat Lukas Dostal more than twice despite firing 48 shots on net. The Oilers get goalie’d again en route to a 3-2 loss.

I’d be lying if I pretended to have Olivier Rodrigue getting starts on my Bingo card for the 2024-25 season, but that was the case Monday night in Anaheim as the second-round pick from 2018 made his first NHL start. With Stuart Skinner still sidelined — he is practicing, though – Rodrigue got the call against a Ducks team that beat the Oilers by a 6-2 score only a few weeks ago. This would be our first glimpse at what the kid could do after waiting for years to see if he could make the leap to the NHL. The 24-year-old goaltender got his first taste of NHL action against Seattle in relief of Calvin Pickard 12 days ago, but this was the first time he was tasked with bringing home the win.

And while he’ll have to wait for that first NHL win, I find it hard to fault Rodrigue on any of the three goals he allowed. There were breakdowns, poor puck management, and breakaways that led to his allowing three more so than any mistakes made by the goaltender. I mean, of course, you would have liked to see him pull a rabbit out of his hat on any of those plays, but I’d also be more inclined to blame the veterans for making mistakes in front of the rookie. But to his credit, Rodrigue made all of the saves you would expect your goaltender to make, and it’s a shame that the .857 save percentage on 21 shots will hang on his stats line instead of the guys who put him in tough spots in the first place.

As much as I think the referees did a generally poor job on Monday night, it drives me nuts how ineffective the Oilers looked on their six power play chances. Not only did they not score a single goal, but there were times when they struggled to even establish themselves in the offensive zone. It fascinates me that the coaching staff hasn’t developed a Plan B on the drop pass break-in option that usually works fine when Connor McDavid is flying around at 2000 mph. But when No. 97 isn’t on the ice, and Leon Draisaitl isn’t there to throw people around with one arm like some kind of handsome German God, that play is nowhere close to being as effective. So, why haven’t we figured out another option?

While no one at the Oilers is asking my opinion, and understandably so, it’s still confusing why they’re trying to force that play on man advantage even with plenty of examples where it didn’t go close to plan. I get that the PP won’t ever be as good without the two best players on the team there to make magic happen, but wouldn’t this be the perfect time to try and work out some other options ahead of the playoffs? Who knows when they’ll need options when the playoffs roll around, and the teams are way better prepared for the standards the special teams have to offer? Am I right here? I think I am.

This season has a mighty dark cloud hanging overhead lately, and I would love to know what sacrifice can be made to the Hockey Gords to end the madness. Vasily Podkolzin was the latest in a long line of Oilers forwards to go down after an awkward fall late in the second period that basically bent his leg backward. When they showed the reverse angle on the replay, I almost felt every tendon and muscle ripping clean off the bone. If that same thing happened to me, I’d never walk again. I’d still be lying on the ice crying, and it would have taken a forklift and a rescue agency to get me off the ice. But then, a miracle seemed to happen.

By my count, Podkolzin would have been the sixth everyday player on the shelf for the Oilers had he stayed on the ice. Yet, despite looking like he may never walk again when he hobbled down the tunnel, Podkolzin was back on the ice early in the third period in some kind of ‘strong like tractor’ situation. Frankly, I was stunned to see him back out there. Usually, I wouldn’t single out a guy returning from injury for these post-game articles, but how could I not when our boys have been dropping like flies over the last few weeks? Russian machine never breaks, I suppose.

1.  How many times has Lukas Dostal done this to the Oilers now? Has to be two, three, or four times now, right? Has to be.

2. At least we got an Adam Henrique revenge goal. Henrique hasn’t had the easiest go offensively this year, but it seems like his goals have come at a time when the team needed it most. After sputtering through an early power play chance that couldn’t even muster a shot on goal, Henrique’s line followed it up with a strong shift in the offensive zone that resulted in the first goal of the game. A deflection through traffic, Rico’s 11th goal of the year came on a perfectly timed tip (accidental?) between his legs as he jumped to avoid the shot. As much as I want to be skeptical that he meant to do that, he’s so handsome that I’m willing to assume it was his plan all along. As a bonus point for Henrique, he was 76.2% in the faceoff circle.

3. With the tipped goal he scored in the third period, Jeff Skinner has chipped in with five goals in his last nine games. That’s a 45-goal pace over a full season. Like Arvidsson before him, no one expects Skinner to score at this clip forever, but it would be very nice if he could stay how as he heads into the playoffs.

4. I would love to know how the refs missed the clear hit to the head by Radko Gudas on Corey Perry midway through the second period. Not only did Gudas land his shoulder right on the button, but he even extended outward to make sure he didn’t miss Perry on the way by. Unless we’re back in 1994 again, it seems to me that was the exact type of play the NHL has been trying to get rid of for years now. Just a horrible miss by the officials.

5. Getting a dose of reality about what a power play can look like without Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl is something I can do without for a while. I miss our boys. I could almost feel my brain doing a factory reset when the first PP attempt didn’t even result in a single shot on goal against a team that’s been bleeding goals on the PK for weeks now.

6. Just because our top two centres weren’t in the lineup doesn’t mean that I’m not still pleased to tell you that the Oilers won 53.6% of the faceoffs.

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