The Edmonton Oilers’ Jekyll-and-Hyde season continued on their past three-game road trip.

They gave up yet another lead to lose to the Anaheim Ducks in the first game, looked like men among boys in a dominating 8-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings, and just when you thought they had turned the page, they came out flat in a 5-4 loss to the San Jose Sharks.

While the big names — Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard, and Leon Draisaitl — produced as usual, here’s a look at three players who made a noticeable impact on the California road trip, for better or worse.

One of, if not the, biggest positives on the three-game road trip was Matt Savoie, who registered six points, second only to Connor McDavid’s seven, while also leading all forwards with 7:31 minutes on the penalty kill.

Having played one game in the AHL during the Olympic break, it was clear Savoie was in game shape from the get-go, and that showed almost immediately against the Ducks. He picked up his first point of the road trip just 13 seconds into the game, setting up Jack Roslovic for a breakaway goal. He added another assist in the first period and scored a short-lived go-ahead goal in the third by making an excellent read, following the play, and pouncing on the rebound.

The next night against the Kings, he registered two more assists, the most notable coming when he skated the puck up ice, made a pass, and earned a secondary assist on Ty Emberson’s first-period goal.

By far, those first two games on the road trip were the most confident Savoie has looked this season, and he carried that into the game against the San Jose Sharks. It showed in the way he was firing the puck.

In the first period against the Sharks, he got on a shift with a mix of personnel from the first-unit power play and unleashed a one-timer on his offside that caused a scramble in front of the net. With the Sharks on their heels, Draisaitl finished it off with a power-play goal on the same play. Savoie didn’t get credit for an assist, but his one-timer started the sequence that left the Sharks scrambling.

To top it off, the 22-year-old made a nice move to go around a Sharks D-man and slid the puck into the slot to set up Trent Frederic, who buried it, picking up his fifth assist of the road trip.

Savoie has been extremely dependable defensively for the Oilers all season, leading all forwards with 97:43 of penalty-kill time, and this past three-game California road trip may have been proof that the offensive floodgates for him didn’t just open; the dam finally gave way.

Unless you’ve just tuned into the Oilers recently, you’d know that Trent Frederic has struggled heavily for most of the season. However, maybe the Olympic break was exactly what he needed, both physically and mentally, because to me, he looked almost like a completely different player on the Oilers’ past three-game road trip.

The 28-year-old is moving around the ice better, holding onto pucks longer, and making plays, as evident against the Ducks, where he set up two wonderful plays from behind the net that led to high-danger chances in the slot. He didn’t record any points that night, but he posted a 62.01 expected goals for percentage (xGF%) according to Natural Stat Trick.

Against the Kings, he played 15:56 minutes, the second most of the season. While he once again didn’t register any points, the high-danger chances were 8-2 when he was on the ice, and he posted a 76.55 xGF% while playing with Adam Henrique and Vasily Podkolzin.

That said, in the first two games on the road trip, he had good chances to score — one on a near breakaway against the Ducks, where he tried making a move instead of shooting the puck in a panic, and then against the Kings, he deked around a D-man to create a scoring chance. To me, the signs were pointing that Frederic was ‘feeling it.’ So when I went on ‘Pregaming with Bordzy’ before the game against the Sharks, host Aaron Bordato asked me who my pick was for an anytime goalscorer against San Jose, and naturally, my gut instinct picked Frederic, who hadn’t scored in 35 games up until that point.

That prediction came true in the third period. Frederic stayed with the play, Savoie centred the puck into the slot, and Frederic made no mistake, burying it. Not once, but twice — he shot it in again after the goal had already been scored, for good measure.

In addition to making good plays, the 28-year-old left an impact physically, leading the team with 15 hits on the trip. That included a heavy one on former Oiler Corey Perry, which temporarily took Perry out of the game.

The three-game sample size is very small, but again, Frederic looks like a completely different player, and the Olympic break may have been the reset he needed. His season had been very poor up to that point, but let’s call it a clean slate from here on. If he can maintain this pace over the remaining 21 games, Oilers fans can be forgiving at times and put his subpar play leading up to the Olympics behind them.

Between Savoie and Frederic, there were clear positives to take from the past three games, but with the good came some bad, and Darnell Nurse had a difficult road trip overall.

In total, Nurse was on the ice for six goals against at 5v5, with four of them coming in the first game of the road trip against the Ducks, including two in particular that were worth nitpicking.

For example, on the Ducks’ fifth goal, which tied the game, the Oilers’ D-man allowed rookie Beckett Sennecke to gain the zone freely without impediment, cut to the middle of the ice, and pump fake a couple of times before shooting through netminder Tristan Jarry.

The Oilers’ netminder surely should’ve made the save, but Nurse’s decision to give the rookie that much time and space to cut to the middle and pick his spot never should have happened. To top it off, there wasn’t even an attempt to block the shot. As you can see in the picture above, Nurse’s body is turned instead of being square to the shooter.

On the Ducks game-winning goal, fingers could’ve been pointed to all five Oiler’s skaters on the ice, but the initial blunder unfortunately goes to Nurse.

With 1:23 left in the game, on what should’ve been a routine D-to-D pass and a play up ice, Nurse bobbled the puck, and Leo Carlsson took advantage. He outhustled the Oilers’ blueliner to the puck, and after a couple of passes, Cutter Gauthier scored the game-winner. What should’ve been a simple, routine play ended up costing the Oilers at least a point in that game.

The Oilers as a whole played much better in the 8-1 shellacking of the Kings, Nurse included, who registered an assist. But the team’s Jekyll-and-Hyde tendencies continued against the Sharks, with Edmonton coming out flat instead of building on the momentum from the Kings game. Nurse got caught up ice early, which started a series of Sharks scoring chances. Then, on the first goal against, he ran into his netminder, Connor Ingram, knocking away his stick, which led to a Macklin Celebrini goal when Ingram tried to retrieve it.

On the third goal against, Nurse was part of a sequence where he lost track of the puck and ended up screening his own netminder, with his body turned away from the play — once again, not square to the shooter — before Barclay Goodrow shot it into the net.

Overall, the Oilers were cooking up turnovers at a rate higher than the busiest of California bakeries against San Jose, and Natural Stat Trick indicated that Nurse led the way with three. For some reason, though, it felt like there were even more, and one of his giveaways led to a high-danger chance for Celebrini.

That said, in two of the three games on the road trip, Nurse had very tough outings. While many Oilers struggled, Nurse — one of the team’s leaders and a player who wears an ‘A’ — simply needs to play better down the stretch.

The saving grace is that these were the first three games since the Olympic break, and fingers crossed that rust was a big factor. Now that the team is heading home, they can get a practice in, and with Paul Coffey back to work his magic, hopefully it will help the Oilers’ D-man improve his game. For the Oilers’ sake, let’s hope it does.

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