Panthers 7, Oilers 5 post-game Oil Spills: A save, please
By Cam Lewis
6 years agoThe Oilers let the Florida Panthers score seven goals on them last night. You aren’t going to have a good time when that happens.
Highlights
Patrick Maroon tied the game about a minute after the Panthers opened the scoring with a power play goal. He did a good job to slide a rebound past James Reimer, but the real star of this play was Connor McDavid. He took a beating behind the net with slashes and cross checks but still managed to get the puck out to the point before Yohann Auvitu got it on net. It’s simply ridiculous there wasn’t a call on this play.
In the second period, Leon Draisaitl would give the Oilers the lead with a penalty shot snipe, but the Panthers tied the game a few minutes later. Drake Caggiula then restored the lead, but, again, the Panthers quickly tied it up. Florida would go on to score a couple of power play goals to kick off the third period.
Anton Slepyshev would pull them back to within one with a nice snipe seconds after Florida’s fifth goal. It’s nice to see Slepyshev healthy and playing like the guy we saw back in the playoffs last year. That goal was all skating and shot, which is his calling card. But of course, Florida regained their two-goal lead just a few minutes later.
Connor McDavid! With five minutes to go, the captain grabbed a puck in the high slot and ripped it past James Reimer to bring the Oilers back to within one. Florida would score an empty netter to ultimately take the game 7-5.
By the numbers
The Panthers were the better team in the first period, controlling the shot attempts at even strength 24 to 18. It was split evenly 17 to 17 in the second period, then, in the third, the Oilers put their foot on the gas and had 28 shot attempts to Florida’s 15. Of course, even strength didn’t matter a hell of a lot because Edmonton’s penalty kill was junk again. Florida had four power play opportunities and they scored on three of them. The Oilers didn’t get a single chance on the power play all game, as the only call that went in their favour was Draisaitl’s penalty shot.
Thoughts…
- I generally avoid pinning a loss on the goalie, but Cam Talbot’s performance last night was far from good enough to help the team win. Talbot faced 39 shots and stopped 33 of them. Obviously you don’t want to be allowing 39 shots, but a few of the goals he let in were soft ones he should be stopping. When you score five goals — James Reimer wasn’t good at all either — you really should be coming out on top.
- The penalty kill. Woof. Three goals against on four opportunities. I think a part of it also comes down to Talbot not making stops, but the penalty killers certainly aren’t making life easy on him. You notice when the Oilers have the power play and teams swarm around and make life difficult for them? How they can’t just stand there and look for perfect passes? Well, the Oilers don’t seem to recognize how well that works on them, so instead, they stand there and hope the other team just skates around and kills the clock. Maybe the home and road PK splits are so bad because Talbot, having twins and all, gets no sleep when he’s at home. Who knows! At this point, it’s mind-numbing to even think about.
- The reffing was very bad last night. The Oilers didn’t get a single power play and Connor McDavid got the ever-loving crap slashed out of him on multiple occasions. It’s amazing to me that the league is just OK with young star players get hacked like that. I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest if a player was able to come out with a lead pipe and just hack away at Connor’s arms whenever he had the puck given the way the reffing has gone on him this season.
- All in all I don’t think the team wasn’t all that bad last night. As the numbers suggest, they played a tightly-contested game at even strength and they had a very good third period. Of course, they were playing Florida, a team that’s pretty bad, so matching them isn’t something to be proud of. But still, had some calls gone their way, the Oilers easily could have earned a win last night. At least it was exciting? Goals are fun? I don’t know. You just have to ride it out and try to find something to make it worth watching at this point.
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