The Edmonton Oilers have fallen flat on their faces out of the 4 Nations Face-Off break.
Apparently watching teammate Connor McDavid score the game-winning goal to put a Gold Medal around the necks of his countrymen wasn’t enough to motivate his teammates to find another level in their game. Instead, McDavid walked back into a tire fire of back-to-back matinees in which his team was outscored a stunning 13-6.
But that push has to come from somewhere, and after losing to the Capitals a day after falling to the Flyers, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch had choice words for his players.
“Everyone just needs to dig in and get a little bit better,” said Knoblauch. “I can’t think of anyone that I’m saying ‘Oh I really like his game, he’s playing outstanding.’
“I think everyone in that room can be a bit better. Some more than others, but I think collectively we can step it up. There’s not a flip a switch, there’s nothing we can do immediately, everyone just has to be a bit better. Whether that’s on our backcheck, our breakout, our passing, our penalty kill. Everything can be a little bit better.”
Over the losses, the Oilers got caved in in pretty much every sense of the term. At five-on-five, they were outscored 8-5, controlling just 46.77 percent of the shot attempt share, and a dismal 36.38 percent of the expected goal share. The penalty kill was awful, allowing three goals against on four chances, while the power play went one-for-four.
Poor goaltending didn’t help, either, as Stuart Skinner, who started Saturday against Philadelphia, and Calvin Pickard, who went against Washington Sunday, looked like they were playing dodgeball combining for a .800 save percentage. 13 goals against on 43 shots, for those counting at home.
The team looked like a mess all weekend outside of five or so minutes to start Sunday’s game. Offensively, too cute. Defensively, not cute enough.
“For me, I thought we just looked slow,” said Knoblauch. “Slow to defend, slow to get up ice, on the attack. I think a lot of it (is) just not finding our legs and that makes it difficult to create offence if you’re not moving and gives them a lot more time and space to make plays.”
Edmonton won’t have much time to turn things around, as the next three games are daunting. They’ll continue this five-game road trip with games Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Thursday against the Florida Panthers and Saturday against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
