Edmonton Oilers Can’t Weather Dallas Hurricane
By Kurt Leavins
There are losses. And then there are ugly losses.
The 4-2 Edmonton Oilers loss to the Dallas Stars, Tuesday night, falls into the latter category. It’s a real shame that Connor McDavid scored his first NHL goal in a game like that.
Sigh.
9 Things:
9. All of that progress and structure that we saw in the Edmonton Oilers game in the first two nights of the regular season evaporated Tuesday night. The club played a defensive game more reminiscent of what we saw last year, which is (needless to say) not good. I mean…they surrendered 52 shots!! Back to the old drawing board, I guess, hey Todd McLellan? Wowza.
8. What has happened to Anton Lander? Is the ghost of Dallas Eakins haunting him, somehow? He looked so, SO good in that pre-season game at Rexall Place. But he has been on a steep and concerning decline ever since that night. The offence has dried up, and he’s even losing face-offs at an alarming rate. Is he hurt, perhaps? This just isn’t the same guy.
7. There are a couple of veterans that are simply not good enough. The guy I will pick out of the lineup is Teddy Purcell. I’m one who thinks that Purcell DOES posses some skills that can help the Edmonton Oilers. But right now, those skills are not even coming close to over-shadowing his shortcomings, such as a lack of foot-speed and a lack of grit. He needs to show up, P.D.Q.
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6. With all due respect to Matt Hendricks, whom I admire and who put a whale of an effort in (again) Tuesday night, but…when Hendricks is on your 1st line with Ryan-Nugent-Hopkins and Taylor Hall, there is something broken. The Edmonton Oilers cannot help that Jordan Eberle is hurt. But now that Teddy Purcell and Anton Slepyshev have failed their auditions…who you gonna call?
5. Leon Draisaitl, that’s who. There are those who will say that you shouldn’t have a kid like Draisaitl in a situation like this. Like what? Like a situation where the Edmonton Oilers are having a terrible time creating offence, something the big German is really good at? If Jordan Eberle is healthy, that’s probably not necessary. But he is, and it is. Give me the phone, I’ll call.
4. It is impossible to blame Anders Nilsson for Tuesday’s loss. He faced more rubber than a tire technician at a GOODYEAR plant. It IS necessary to point out that his first goal against was a softy. And that is a movie that we have seen far too often in the past. Still, he showed a lot under terrible conditions, including a terrific save off of Tyler Seguin, who was in alone on a break-away.
3. If the Edmonton Oilers were trying out 3 defencemen for that 6th and final regular rotation through their blue-line, then tonight cleared it up. Brandon Davidson was badly exposed, twice, on the 1st Dallas goal. Then, he surrendered the gap and then let Jamie Benn spin away from behind the net for the 2nd goal. Hello? Hello…Bakersfield??? Griffin Reinhart will play Thursday night.
2. I have seen it so many times, both when I played and since, as I’ve covered the NHL in a number of Canadian cities: A missed break-away at one end (Nail Yakupov), which leads to a goal 200 feet away mere seconds later (Jason Spezza). Needless to say, if Yakupov scores that goal, the Edmonton Oilers could have escaped with 2 points, albeit not well particularly well-deserved. Them’s the way the pucks bounce, sometimes.
1. Connor McDavid was the Edmonton Oilers best player, tonight, and by a fair margin. He made a few rookie errors, but from the time he set up the screen on the Oscar Klefbom goal, he was dangerous nearly every shift. And a shift later, he went to the net yet again, and was rewarded with a nifty deflection for his 1st NHL goal. No doubt McDavid would be the first to say that a win would have meant more. And he’s right. But it was nonetheless a special moment for Oilers fans to celebrate, in what was an otherwise totally forgettable evening.
Thursday should still be exciting. Connor McDavid plays his home opener. But it sure doesn’t get any easier, with the big, heavy St. Louis Blues in Rexall.
Wear your orange…and hope the results don’t turn us all green.