Panthers Lull Edmonton Oilers Into 4-2 Loss
By Kurt Leavins
Good grief, the Florida Panthers are one boring hockey team.
However, a boring hockey team that plays the right way can win, as we saw at Rexall Place Sunday night, in a snore-fest that threatened to put to sleep the 14,000 or so that bothered to show up. Instead, it was the Edmonton Oilers that nodded off.
To be transparent, I had a bit of a hard time coming up with 9 things, but here’s the best that I could do:
9. The 2nd Florida goal. I, personally, find that it’s a little too easy to dump on the goaltender in that situation. When you replay it, it’s clear that not only was Ben Scrivens completely screened, but the shot from the point was tipped right in the low slot. Yes, the shot was floated in there, but I have a hard time grading the goal as soft, under the circumstances. Scrivens was otherwise solid.
8. Going to the net. The Oilers are getting better at going to the crease and stopping, once they get there. Both the Jordan Eberle and the Pouliot goals were scored on rebounds. You need to score that way in order to in win in the NHL. This is something the team has not done much of all year, and I consider it a substantial improvement over the first 35 games.
7. Special Teams. Taylor Hall made a phenomenal play coming out of the corner and into the slot, with a minute left in the 2nd. Hall was illegally impeded, but they could not capitalize on the resulting man advantage. If Hall scores on the play or if they convert the Power Play opportunity, this game may well have ended differently. Alas, it did not.
6. Justin Schultz was very good Sunday night. He logged heavy minutes, just shy of 24, and both moved the puck smartly up ice, and employed his stick very effectively in his own zone, ending up +1. The Oilers had 3 mental breakdowns that led to goals against. Considering how his year has gone, that Schultz was not responsible for any of them is a minor miracle.
5. Physical. The game sheet showed that the Oilers out-hit the Panthers, but like many statistics, Hits can give you a false sense of what really happened out on the ice. I thought that the Panthers out-muscled the slight-of-build Oilers on a number of occasions. It is a weakness that the general manager will need to address in the off-season.
4. Mis-match? The Oilers aren’t ideally built to play a team like the Panthers, where there is not really a lot to choose between the 1st and 4th lines. There isn’t really a “#1” line for the Gordon trio to be deployed against, nor a soft-minutes line that Todd Nelson could better have exploited with the Hall trio. As a result, neither line really excelled.
3. Jordan Eberle. He was named the 2nd Star in the building, and save for one “moment” in his own zone, #14 was very good for a 3rd consecutive game. Particularly on the cycle, he was much more difficult to knock off the puck, and played a bigger man’s game that perhaps we are used to seeing from him. He is playing his best hockey of the year.
2. Big Execution error #1. It was 2-1 Florida early in the 3rd Period, but the Oilers had momentum, physically and in terms of the shot clock. Then the Ghost of the Dallas Eakins Oilers showed up, as both Edmonton defencemen swung below the goal line, and the 2nd Oilers forward back (Benoit Pouliot) glided into the slot too late to pick up his man. At that point, it was 3-1 Florida. Then…
1. Big Execution error #2. It appeared as if the Oilers had the momentum in the final 15 minutes of the 3rd period, after the Pouliot goal, and one got the sense that with the score 3-2, the equalizer was imminent. Then, Nail Yakupov (unsuccessfully) tried to lug the puck out of his own zone through heavy traffic. The puck was knocked loose, hopped over the stick of Andrew Ference, and was deposited behind Scrivens. Game. Set. Match.
It’s an all-too-familiar script, this season, really. The Edmonton Oilers were probably the better team on the night (not saying much), but a few key mistakes killed them.
One step forward, one step back.