Edmonton Oilers Lack Execution, Luck in 5-4 Loss To Calgary
By Kurt Leavins
The Edmonton Oilers entered Saturday night with momentum from a brilliant, come-from-behind effort against Montreal. And they were drawing a Calgary Flames team that has struggled mightily this season, and just coming off a bad loss the night previous. The end result should have been different.
But it wasn’t.
9 Things:
9. The Edmonton Oilers went out and signed Mark Letestu to replace Boyd Gordon. Letestu was 10-and-2 in the face-off circle Saturday. But he had about as much success burying a perfect, goal-side feed from Connor McDavid as The Commissioner would have. I’ve yet to be convinced that the Letestu-for-Gordon swap is a net-gain.
8. You have to hand it to Calgary: On the 2nd of back-to-back games, the Flames at least matched the energy of the Edmonton Oilers in the 3rd Period, and out-shot them 10-4 in the 3rd Period. Calling a spade a spade, that statistic speaks to effort, or more to the point…a lack of it, with the game on the line.
7. Again Saturday night, a big, fat nothing from the 3rd and 4th lines. Secondary scoring for the Edmonton Oilers is a serious concern. Sure, the Oilers have 2 very good scoring lines right now. But on a night when one of them is just luke-warm (the McDavid unit), you risk coming up short…just like they did tonight.
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6. I won’t be overly hard on the D-core, even though they were far from perfect…but they were good enough to win. More on Cam Talbot in a bit. But the Oscar Klefbom pairing with Brandon Davidson was decent, both men contributing to the rush, and defending reasonably well. Darnell Nurse was more a victim of his partner, as Andrej Sekera was bad…again. Gryba & Ference struggled to move the puck.
5. Leon Draisaitl is, so far, making it nearly impossible for the Edmonton Oilers to send him back to Bakersfield once Jordan Eberle is back. The big German had another goal and added 2 more assists, and was a Corsi of 70% in almost 19 minutes of TOI!!! So far, the decision is not whether to send Draisaitl back…but how you even take him off that line with Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins?
4. The Start. I was super-hard on Dallas Eakins, when his teams got off to one bad start after another last season. Well, the Edmonton Oilers fell behind 3-nothing against the league-leading Montreal Canadians Thursday, then again to one of the worst teams in the NHL Saturday, 3-1. Different coach, similar result. Hmmm. Maybe it wasn’t Dallas Eakins after all??
3. At the start of the season, I vowed to not stand for it, every time fans started un-reasonably hating on Taylor Hall. Hall was spectacular Saturday, the best of the Edmonton Oilers, absolutely flying, a goal and 2 assists, and a Corsi of 68%. Hall has 9 points in 5 games, led the team in chances, and absolutely pushed the river. And what do I read on Twitter? Fans hating all over Hall, over “turn-overs”. Give your head a good, hard shake. C’mon.
2. I will not make the disallowed Oilers power play goal the #1 reason why the club lost on Saturday. The home team made too many of their own errors to blame the officiating. But to be clear: That interference call on Mark Letestu was brutal, flat-out wrong, costing the Edmonton Oilers a goal and precious momentum. If the NHL wonders why offence in this league is drying up, this is Exhibit “A”. I also felt the winning goal was icing, but at least that was close-ish.
1. By my count, Cam Talbot allowed 3 weak goals on Saturday night, but two of them were absolute stinkers. Did the goaltender cost the team 2 points? Well, one for absolute sure, on the behind-the-line head shaker with 8 seconds left. But the mishandled puck behind the net wasn’t much better. And on the Frolik goal in the dying minutes of the first, Talbot was almost in his own net he was so deep. Did Anton Slepyshev fail to punch that puck out along the boards, on the play? Yes, but if you’re asking me whether Talbot should have had that one, too…I’d say yes. But you know what? That’s is going to happen. It doesn’t make Talbot a bad goaltender. And he 100% owned it, after the game. Talk to me if he’s still staging a circus like that in 3 months. Likely not.
That loss hurts. It was a “scheduled win”, as they say. And while I could blame the referee and give Calgary some well-deserved credit, fact is…the club gave away 2 points that they absolutely should have had.
Philadelphia is next, Tuesday night.