Saturday’s 4-3 OT loss to Toronto stung the Edmonton Oilers. Edmonton had the game in control for 52 minutes, until Toronto scored twice in the final eight minutes to tie the game and then won it with a lucky bounce in overtime.

Edmonton is now 16-1-1 when leading after two periods. They’d been quite good protecting leads in the third period, but for the fourth time this season they endured another tough learning lesson at the hands of the Maple Leafs.

— Edmonton dominated the second period and led 3-1. They were eight minutes away from a victory and tying Toronto for first place in the North, but then they allowed two goals in the final eight minutes, and then Auston Matthew’s game winning goal deflected off Leon Draisaitl and @Darnell Nurse  before going in. It was rather unlucky, however — the Leafs second and third goals is what got them to overtime and that is where the game was lost. Only twice in the past 34 years have the Oilers been leading by two with eight minutes remaining and lost the game. They did it in 1993 and 2011. But that is why the loss stings a bit more. They were in a great position to win, but couldn’t finish. It will be another hard lesson learned.

— Edmonton didn’t give up much prior to that. Toronto’s first goal deflected off a stick and off the top of Mike Smith’s head before going in. It wasn’t the result of a defensive miscue or turnover. For me Saturday’s game reinforced the two most glaring areas of need on the Oilers: They need a second line LW and a second pair LD.

— I’m not basing this off one game. I’ve been saying all season that Dominic Kahun is not a second line player. He could help your bottom six, but he isn’t productive enough or strong enough to help a second line. Tyler Ennis is more skilled, and I suspect we will see him in that spot tonight, but I don’t think Edmonton wins with Ennis/Kahun and Kailer Yamamoto on the second line. They are too small, especially when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins plays centre.

— I still believe the long-term plan in the playoffs if for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to centre their own lines, but Tippett has to consider different winger options. Even if he plays Draisaitl with McDavid, I’d look at switching the lines.

— Right now @Jesse Puljujarvi is the Oilers fourth best forward. If you play Draisaitl with McDavid, then I’d play @Kailer Yamamoto with them and put Puljujarvi with Nugent-Hopkins. RNH needs help and Puljujarvi is more capable of being a driver than Yamamoto. Plus he is much bigger and heavier. And if you have Ennis/Kahun on the LW, then at least you have a skilled winger with size on the right side. And if you run McDavid and Draisaitl as the top two centres, whichever centre gets RNH, the other should have Puljujarvi. It balances out the lines, but it ensures that Draisaitl or RNH aren’t playing with two small wingers on the second line.

— William Lagesson plays hard. He battles every shift, but he doesn’t have the puck skills or skating skills to complement Adam Larsson in a second pairing role right now. Maybe Caleb Jones can find his game down the stretch. He skates and moves the puck better than Lagesson, although he isn’t as good of a defensive defender, and he hasn’t looked comfortable this season. The other option to upgrade the second LD is via trade. The problem with that is Mattias Ekholm and the Predators are suddenly tied with Chicago for the final playoff spot in the Central. With every passing day the odds of David Poile trading Ekholm diminish.

Ryan Murray in New Jersey is another option, but he carries a $4.6m cap hit. Edmonton would need to move out $3.5m to make that work. The lack of cap space makes acquiring a player with any significant cap hit much more difficult. Right now Dallas still thinks they can make a run and get in, but if they are still six or eight points back on April 10-12th I wonder if they’d consider moving Jamie Oleksiak. He only has a $2.137m cap hit, and he’d be a big upgrade, no pun intended, for their second pair LD.

— I find it interesting how @Leon Draisaitl got less play in the build-up to Saturday’s game than McDavid, @Auston Matthews and @Mitch Marner. I get why McDavid got talked about a lot, because he’s having an unreal season. Matthews still being tied for the league lead in goals despite being in a scoring funk makes sense too. But Draisaitl is almost an afterthought in how they talk about those three players. He is the reigning trophy winner.

Since the start of the 2018/2019 season Draisaitl has 268 points. Only McDavid with 275 has more. Marner has 203 and Matthews has 192. Draisaitl is also second in goals with 112, trailing only Alex Ovechkin (116). Marner has 54 goals in that span. Draisaitl is also second in assists with 156 with only McDavid (179) ahead of him. Maybe it is just me, but I think Draisaitl doesn’t get the respect he deserves. I understand McDavid is unreal, and he deserves the accolades he gets, but Draisaitl is underappreciated in how great he is.

And he makes backhanded passes like this regularly. Incredible.

— Scoring first has been huge for the Oilers. They are 14-2 when scoring first and 7-11-1 when allowing the first goal. Toronto is dominant as well when scoring first (15-3-1) and they are competitive when allowing the first goal going 7-7-1. Edmonton has scored first in the two games they beat Toronto this year. They also scored first, Draisaitl shorthanded, in the second meeting of the season, but lost 4-2. Toronto is 5-0 in this series when they score first.

— Edmonton will play in Montreal tomorrow night. It will be Montreal’s first game since March 20th. Mike Smith shutout the Habs the last time they played, but I’d go Smith tonight and Mikko Koskinen tomorrow.