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Blues 4, Oilers 1 post-game Oil Spills: Outclassed by the best of the West
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Photo credit: Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports
Cam Lewis
Nov 17, 2017, 13:19 ESTUpdated: May 18, 2018, 15:48 EDT
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After last week’s solid Eastern road trip and the subsequent thrashing of the Golden Knights, most of us wanted to tell ourselves everything was turning around. But that wasn’t the case. The Oilers got badly outclassed by the St. Louis Blues, who rolled into Edmonton and proved why they have the best record in the Western Conference.

Highlights

This was something out of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final. My goodness, that gave me flashbacks I didn’t want to have. On the power play, Oscar Klefbom and Cam Talbot got mixed up behind the net and the puck bounced to the forechecking Vladimir Sobokta for an easy goal.
The Oilers answered back immediately on the same power play when Ryan Strome took a pass from Matt Benning and sniped a gorgeous goal bar down over Jake Allen. Strome now has points in three straight games and has been effective on the power play.
St. Louis took the lead in the second period on a power play goal from Alex Steen. This entire sequence is ultimately a perfect example of the Oilers being out-worked. Edmonton won the draw, but St. Louis quickly regained possession down low, worked it back to the point, where Alex Pieterangelo had all the time in the world to get a nice shot towards the net. The puck took a few bounces along the way but Steen slipped in and smacked home the rebound while Adam Larsson and Darnell Nurse just sort of stood there.
The Blues added a couple more in the third period to pull away. Brayden Schenn sniped one over Cam Talbot on a two-on-one and then he added another one two minutes later on a side of the net tap in. By this point, the Blues were skating circles around the Oilers, who looked totally gassed.

By the numbers

The numbers suggest that this game was very tightly contested the whole way through, but it really didn’t feel like that was the case. St. Louis edged Edmonton in even strength shot attempts 42 to 40 and shots on goal 30 to 26 but the teams split high danger chances right down the middle eight to eight. I felt like the first period was really the only one where the Oilers looked up to par with the Blues, and then after that St. Louis took over even though that doesn’t really appear in the numbers. What’s really noticeable is the fact that Edmonton only had two high danger chances in the third. The Blues shut them down completely after taking the lead.

Thoughts

  • The McDavid line was good but not great last game. Behind them, it seemed that the other lines weren’t able to get much offence going. I think with McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line it’s easy for the other team to key in on them and shut them down. At some point, you have to switch things up and separate your two big gunners to make life more difficult for the other team.
  • Mike Cammalleri’s first game with the team was fine. He isn’t supposed to come in and be a big time game changer as he’s just a veteran depth addition, but he was quicker and generated more offensively than Jussi Jokinen did, which is something the team needs. He’s a good trigger man, so I would give him a chance on the wing in the top six.
  • Jesse Puljujarvi played a good and energized game. In the third period when it seemed the Oilers had given up, Puljujarvi was skating hard and threw a few big hits. He clearly doesn’t want to go back to the AHL. Even if he isn’t producing offence at a high level, he makes the team better when he’s on the ice, utilizing his speed and size.
  • As painful as it is to say it, games like this a perfect indication of how the Oilers don’t stack up with the best teams in the Western Conference. That doesn’t mean that they can’t make the playoffs, but they simply aren’t the team to beat in the West right now like many expected coming into the season. The first period was rough and physical and for that 20 minutes the Oilers stood their ground. They didn’t shy away from battles, won races, and played well. But after that? St. Louis was skating circles around them. The Oilers looked burnt out after the first. A couple of the goals St. Louis scored were simply the result of them being outworked and that was also evident in the offensive zone as the team struggled to generate and sustain consistent pressure.
  • Here’s a good example of the Oilers being outworked like I mentioned a few times above. Eric Gryba got wrestled away from the puck by Kyle Brodziak and he got a good scoring chance on net. Brodziak is 33 years old and has a lot of milage on him and really shouldn’t be stripping your defenders and getting a semi breakaway chance.
  • Is that a roster problem that can’t be changed in-season or is it something psychological? Did the team take themselves too seriously coming into the season? Are they burnt out from last year’s playoff run? It’s difficult to say, but watching the team get outplayed like that after a solid week of what seemed like momentum gaining is disappointing.

Post Game

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