Edmonton Oilers Out-Play Wild, Still Lose 5-2

The Edmonton Oilers may have succeeded in both encouraging and frustrating their fans on Thursday night. In many ways, they were competent enough to earn 2 points. But at the end of the day, they were not good enough…and considering they pulled up short against a team playing on back-to-back nights, that’s a pretty difficult pill to swallow. And the 2 Power Play goals in the 1st Period sure resembled a gunshot to the foot, as well.

9 Things:

9. Yes, Benoit Pouliot took two stupid penalties on Tuesday night. But wow, did he ever take an inordinate amount of criticism for that. Hopefully those who wanted him fired into the sun saw that sublime feed that he gave Connor McDavid for the kid’s 10th of the season. Pouliot, when his head is about him, has the skill to play with elite talent. Tonight was Exhibit “A”.

8. This Edmonton Oilers team really missed both Eric Gryba and Zack Kassian tonight. They were too easy to play against, and the absence of two players who are the very antithesis of that was noticeable. On the blue line in particular, the Oilers defencemen too often just “bounced” off the Minnesota players, who cycled effectively in the Oilers zone.

7. I’ve had a chance to watch Adam Clendening in person 3 times, now, and I think I have a handle on him: He’s a decent 1st pass option, makes decent reads in his own zone, and for the most part, was more a part of the potential solution tonight (Corsi of 83%) than he was the problem. I believe his undoing will be that he is, indeed DECENT…but not nearly good enough at anything.

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6. Brandon Davidson was, again, the Edmonton Oilers best D-man. He had a spectacular Corsi of 82%, but more specifically, he made one small, smart play after another, showed great anticipation in his own zone, and on a number of occasions carryied not one but two Wild players on his back, on the way out of the Oilers end. If only the other 5 D-men performed nearly that well. Justin Schultz was, again, part of the problem. Sigh.

5. Mark Letestu is a very good NHL 4C. Peter Chiarelli deserves credit, not scorn, for acquiring him. But he is batting WAY too high in the batting order, and his inability to score is actively hurting this club’s Power Play. Todd McLellan needs to do the right thing and replace him. He missed a number of opportunities on the man advantage again this evening.

4. Taylor Hall was a force in the opposing zone tonight, terrific on puck retrievals and marvelous at feeding the puck back to the point. I double-dare you to criticize him on a night when his Corsi was 88!! The problem was that feeding the blue line on a night like this was an effort in futility…as less than half the shots directed at the Minnesota goal hit the net.

3. Cam Talbot needed to be better tonight. He gave up 3 rebounds that ended up behind him. Does the defence in front of him need to do a better of clearing the front of the net? Absolutely. But Talbot is typically much better at suffocating rebounds than he was tonight. You could make a reasonable argument that Talbot was out-played by Minnesota’s back-up goalie…because he was.

2. Nail Yakupov probably had his best game this year, or at least close to it. He easily could have had a hat trick. Yakupov scored one on a great forecheck by Lauri Korpikoski, but full credit to Yak, who did a terrific job of retrieving the puck and then scoring a goal scorer’s goal with a laser over the goaltender’s shoulder. Darcy Kuemper stoned him once, and Yakupov rang another off the post. A very good bounce back game for the young Russian.

1. Again, this was a very poorly officiated game. But unlike the loss to Anaheim, I contend that a missed call in this game actually cost the Edmonton Oilers the game. On a delayed penalty, Taylor Hall put the puck in the net, after it had barely glanced off of a Wild stick. I’ve refereed enough games in my life to know that a play like that only gets blown down when the penalized team has POSSESSION of the puck. It was a flat-out missed call. The goal WOULD have tied the game at 3, and WOULD have been the 3rd time in 2 periods that the Oilers had answered back from a deficit. It is easily and plausible to make a case that momentum could easily have swung the game in the Edmonton Oilers favor. Instead, the hockey gods gave them a good, stiff finger.

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A day of rest, before Colorado comes to down. The Avalanche are a flawed team. But as they showed against Calgary the other night, they have more than enough skill to cover up their defensive shortcomings, and more than enough skill to out-score a careless opposition.

I don’t know about you, but those two things have me officially worried about Saturday’s outcome

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