Edmonton Oilers Lose Entertaining Affair In Tampa Bay

It really was a shame to lose a game which the Edmonton Oilers over-all played very well in, and general out-played Tampa Bay. But this otherwise entertaining affair was ultimately spoiled by a handful of miscues that ended up behind a helpless Ben
Scrivens. 9 Things:

9. Taylor Hall played his best game in quite a while, despite still missing that extra gear that’s been absent since his knee injury. He was creating all night, and played with urgency and edge. And most of his minutes were against the Stamkos line. Not bad at all. Exhibit “A” for why +/- is such a useless stat (Hall was -2).

8. Nikita Nikitin was already skipping rope when the Lightning entered the zone on the rush that turned into their 2nd goal, his legs churning like an egg beater. But then he started puck-watching, leaving his man exposed in front for a goal that I could have scored. And his night started off so well…

7. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was flying Thursday night, and was full-value for the two assists he registered. Nuge is the one Oilers who has taken his game to the next level this season. In fact, you could easily argue that he was the best player on the ice on either side. His effort on the shortie was inspired.

6. Derek Roy, Benoit Pouliot and Nail Yakupov formed a very effective line. Pouliot was chosen the Game’s 2nd Star, on the strength of his 2 goals. But Yakupov could easily had two on his own, just counting the pucks he pinged off of the post. Yak has come alive since he started to play with a real NHL center.

5. Oscar Klefbom played a mostly excellent game, but in the end, he was one of 4 players who need to share the blame on the winning goal. Still, I’m not sure I can blame Klefbom for Justin Schultz running into him, for Teddy Purcell losing the battle along the boards, or Matt Fraser flying the zone. The screen, though, was on him.

4. Andrew Ference played his best game in quite a while, making one smart decision after another, and registering 3 hits in 19 minutes of ice-time. One knock against the Captain is his relative lack of foot-speed, but funnily enough that weakness did not show versus the speedy Bolts. Covered effectively the couple times he got into trouble, and was +1.

3. Poor Justin Schultz. Just when I think the kid is responding to Todd Nelson, he has a game like this where he must want to crawl into a hole afterward. He did a poor job of closing the gap on the Stamkos goal, and was the principle goat on the winning goal…where he wasted a key D-zone faceoff by Anton Lander with AHL-level decision making. Etc., etc.

2. I found it interesting that the line which is often the Oilers best saw the least amount of TOI on Thursday. I know Boyd Gordon is nicked up, but on a night when the Oilers were only chasing in the latter stages of the game, I found Todd Nelson’s line choices curious…especially considering how effective Rob Klinkhammer has been since arriving. I would have flipped them and the Lander line, as that 3rd goal would attest.

1. Benoit Pouliot was terrific once again on Thursday night. When the Oilers are in last place, the General Manager has some heat coming to him. But the Pouliot signing has paid off nicely, so far. And while I am not the first to point out how well he has played since his game-losing penalty versus Detroit, I will take credit for saying at the time that you do NOT sit out a veteran, for a first offence, as his recent performance should attest.

There were lots of positives, which admittedly ring a little hollow when you lose. Goaltending was not an issue, Scrivens could not be reasonably blamed for any of the 3, including a wicked snipe by Stamkos.

No, with a little luck, the Oilers easily could have beaten Tampa Bay. They did outplay one of the best teams in the East. Instead, it’s onto the Bolts’ poor Florida cousins, the Panthers.