The Edmonton Oilers were humiliated by the Vancouver Canucks on Friday night. There are other ways to describe it: they were embarrassed, out-classed, routed, disgraced, humbled, shamed. Whatever the word choice, their 4-0 loss was a game where it appeared the team didn’t even belong in the same league as their Pacific Division rivals.

Exactly one member of the Edmonton Oilers was on the ice for more chances for than against versus Vancouver. It was Boyd Gordon, who saw the ice for two Oilers chances to one against. Otherwise, it was pretty ugly:

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle had some decent looks with varied wingers once the game was already lost, but otherwise that’s just embarrassing. 

And, as Tyler Dellow points out, that’s Zack Kassian apparently mocking Sam Gagner’s face shield. Gagner’s wearing the face shield because he suffered a broken jaw in the preseason. He suffered a broken jaw in the preseason because Zack Kassian whacked him in the face with his stick.

It’s a bit of a surprise that nobody went after Kassian in the game actually, particularly since it was over early, the fourth line got plenty of ice-time and Kassian’s generally a willing enough fighter. 

But that’s neither here nor there. All’s fair in love, war and hockey games apparently and Kassian seemingly felt that getting under his opponents’ skin was worth revealing a deficiency of character. As Ryan Rishaug points out, it’s consistent with how he’s acted since the incident:

It probably wasn’t an especially bright play on Kassian’s part given that the game was already over at that point and the Oilers don’t play the Canucks again for over a month, but maybe he just couldn’t turn it off.