A dreadful third period, led by Tristan Jarry, cost the Edmonton Oilers an important two points in Anaheim last night.

The Oilers controlled the first two periods and led 4-2 to start the final frame but they allowed four goals in the third and lost 6-5. It was their fourth loss in a row, a season high, and the Oilers dropped to third place in the Pacific Division.

The Oilers’ inability to find consistency plagued them once again, but most of it was due to a really rough night from Jarry. He allowed three soft goals. The first goal was a shot from an area I call the ditch (the space from the faceoff dot to the boards). Ian Moore, who had been recalled earlier in the day, took an unscreened slap shot from outside the dot just inside the top of the circle and beat Jarry high over the glove. That’s a save he should make, but then he self-destructed in the third period, allowing three goals on six shots in 6:39. In between the three goals, Matt Savoie, who had a great game, scored his 10th goal of the season, and the Oilers were tied 5-5 with 13:21 remaining.

It looked like the game was going to overtime, but then Darnell Nurse mishandled the puck and lost control of it near the top of the circle in his own zone, allowing Leo Carlsson to gain possession and moments later, Cutter Gauthier scored the game-winner with 74 seconds remaining. Nurse and Jake Walman were on for four goals against. Some were weak goals by Jarry, but still, that pair was on for four goals, and it outlined why I believe Edmonton needs to acquire a second-pair right-shot defender before next Friday’s trade deadline.

The Oilers have lost four in a row and have allowed 22 goals in that span, but the defensive and goaltending weaknesses extend even further as they’ve allowed 40 goals in their last eight games. That isn’t a typo. Forty freaking goals in eight games. They allowed 21 goals in the 10 games prior, so they went from a 2.10 GAA in 10 games to an awful 5.00 GAA in their last eight games. Their ability to play like Jekyll and Hyde is astonishing.

The Oilers must regroup tonight when they play the LA Kings, who sit in ninth place in the West, only four points back of the Oilers with two games in hand. This is a massive game, and they must reduce their goals against. Connor Ingram has to give his team a chance to win. He has to avoid the weak goals. The Oilers can’t outscore their goaltending and defensive woes every night. The Kings rank 28th in GF/GP at 2.56. Adding Artemi Panarin will help them offensively, but their identity is not offense. They prefer to win low scoring games, but the Kings only have 14 regulation wins in 57 games.

They Kings are brutal on home ice with a record of 8-12-7 and a .426P%. Only the Rangers (6-15-4) and Vancouver (6-17-5) are worse in front of their fans. The Oilers are far from a juggernaut road team with a record of 13-13-4, but last night for 40 minutes they looked quite good against the NHL’s fifth best home team. The lack of focus or attention to detail is killing Edmonton. Jarry simply wasn’t dialed in, and Nurse shouldn’t mishandle a puck in the final 80 seconds with no Ducks forward pressuring him heavily. Those plays can’t be made at key times. The Oilers wasted a great start and a solid 40 minutes.

They can’t keep throwing away points. They are in a battle with Anaheim, LA and Seattle and the only good news for them is they play in the Pacific Division, which is suddenly the weakest division in the league. Last season the Pacific had three of the nine 100-point teams in the NHL. They had two in 2024 and four in 2023, but they might not have one this season. Last year the Calgary Flames missed the playoffs in the West with 96 points but would have been in the first Wildcard spot in the East. It happens, so don’t listen to the Eastern media and fans who said nothing last season but suddenly will be vocal about the weak Pacific division this season.

The Oilers are lucky the rest of the division decided to have a down year at the same time. They are still in the mix, but they need some saves. Jarry has made 11 starts and he’s allowed 38 goals on 280 shots. He has an ugly .864Sv% and 3.20 GAA in those starts. He and the Oilers were hopeful the three-week break would be a reset, but he arguably looked worse last night. He got beat high glove, got beat on a long screen, and allowed another through the five hole. He looked weak on multiple different types of shots and from different areas of the ice. He will make some big saves, but he’s allowing too many soft goals.

Ingram hasn’t been great lately either, but his last three starts have been better than Jarry’s five, and Ingram has a chance to grab the starting job right now. Put in a solid game tonight, and Knoblauch will surely start him in San Jose on Saturday. The Oilers need wins, and they need a goalie to give them a chance to win. They’ve been leaky defensively in some other games, but last night many of the Ducks’ goals were not due to porous defence. They need Ingram to be steady, not spectacular tonight in LA.

— The Kings have 14 regulation wins and 14 OT/SO losses. They’ve gone to overtime 23 times this season, which is tied with Minnesota for the most in the league. The Kings are 5-8 in overtime and 4-6 in the shootout. They are 14-20 in regulation and 9-14 in OT/SO. The Oilers are 21-23 in regulation and 7-8 in OT/SO (7-5 in OT and 0-3 in SO).

— Matt Savoie produced the first three-point of his career last night. He made a great stretch pass to send Jack Roslovic in all alone in the first 13 seconds of the game. The Oilers had a great start and led 2-0, but they lost in regulation for only the third time this season when scoring first. Savoie added two assists, and was excellent on the penalty kill, especially stripping pucks. He matched his season high with four shots, and he looked refreshed after the break. I wonder if the one game in the AHL last Friday night helped him knock off some rust. Savoie has quietly had a very solid rookie season. He’s played the most PK minutes among Oilers forwards this season at 93:41. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Adam Henrique are second and third with 74:20 and 74:07 respectively.

The break likely helped Savoie re-charge somewhat and I think his production in the final 23 games will be higher than it was prior to the break.

— Mattias Janmark was injured in the first period last night and didn’t return. If his injury is short-term the Oilers will have to recall Alec Regula from his conditioning stint and play 11 forwards and seven D-men. If Janmark will be out a month, they can move him to LTIR and recall a forward. However, because they’d be in LTIR, Josh Samanski would carry a $1.462m AAV (because his bonuses would need to be added to his base salary of $975K), and Janmark’s $1.45m AAV wouldn’t give them enough space to recall Samanski, who would be the obvious recall.

The other issue is that if they recall Regula, or any other Condor, that player will be playing his third game in three nights. The Condors played Tuesday and Wednesday in Colorado. Roby Jarventie and James Hamblin have played very well and could fill a depth role for a game or two no problem. Some AHL teams do still have the odd three-games-in-three nights, so any player recalled would be fired up to play and could handle it. It isn’t ideal, but they’d be thrilled to be in the NHL.

— Vasily Podkolzin tied his career in points last night with his 26th point of the season. He should set new career highs in goals (14, currently has 12), assists (16, currently has 14) and in points. He had some great chances to score last night.

— Trent Frederic looked much more energized last night. He made more plays with the puck than he has in the previous month. He set up Podkolzin and Andrew Mangiapane in the slot with great looks, but neither could finish. He made an impact in his 11:14 of TOI with the two good passes, one decent scoring chance, and he has six hits. Play like that more often, and he’ll be a positive contributor.

— Darnell Nurse had a horrible game. Multiple giveaways, no hits and not engaged enough. The error on the game-winning goal was self-induced. I understand he isn’t trying to mishandle the puck, but he’s in his 11th season and 25 games shy of 800. It was an inexcusable unforced error that ultimately cost the team the game. He’s an elite skater, but he isn’t accomplishing much when he’s on the ice.

— For much of the game Edmonton actually managed the puck well. It like one change they coaches made during the break was more of an emphasis on breakouts up the middle. Thankfully didn’t see as much of that long outlet pass up the boards with a deflection into the zone. I loathe that play, unless your line is tired and you need a change. I felt they moved the puck quicker, but it was only one game, and Anaheim does give up a lot, so I will need to see more, but there seemed to be more of an emphasis on quicker puck movement from the defence to the forwards.