Edmonton Oilers: Analyzing the NY Islanders Win

The New York Islanders lost in a shootout to the Edmonton Oilers. Jordan Eberle made his return to the city who drafted him nearly ten years ago.

The Edmonton Oilers got their second straight win this week, this time in a shootout against the New York Islanders. Last night marked the return of Jordan Eberle back to Edmonton after he was traded last summer to the Islanders.

With a mixed reaction from the crowd, Eberle couldn’t do much in regulation or overtime to get his team the win. A lot of credit has to be attributed to the Oilers as they had one of their better defensive showings of the year. The most important part of this game is that they stayed competitive throughout the night.

A lot of credit has to be given to Cam Talbot in this game. Only giving up one goal in 31 shots during regulation and overtime can’t get any better for an NHL goaltender. He did absolutely everything he can to keep his team in the game while they couldn’t take advantage of their scoring chances.

Talbot was composed for most of this game and was the deciding factor in the shootout as well. Every expert has put ample blame on Cam Talbot all year-long for the Edmonton Oilers’ woes and mishaps, but the man can only do so much if the rest of his team isn’t doing their job.

Concern

And that was most concerning about this game for the Edmonton Oilers; this team couldn’t get any goals in the game. For nearly three periods, nobody couldn’t get the puck in the net until Connor McDavid in the last-minute of the game tied it up to send it to overtime.

Compared to what happened on Monday night, the Oilers can’t keep reverting to allowing their star player to bail them out once again. They did have 36 shots on net, but they’ll need to find creative ways to get quality goals.

The Edmonton Oilers will need to do an excellent job of trying to win their face-off battles moving forward. They were only 39 percent for the game compared to the Islanders’ 61 percent which kept them in the game. The Oilers’ power play was also abysmal as they couldn’t take advantage of their two opportunities of the game.

Credit

The one thing you can give them credit for is that they stayed with it on the defensive end for most of the game. They kept the top two lines of the Islanders in check and made sure both John Tavares and Matt Barzal didn’t get on the scoreboard.

At least you can say now that the Edmonton Oilers are on a two-game winning streak this week. Granted that both those wins are over teams that have been struggling lately but a win is a win.

This team just needs to show everyone that they are developing and growing together as the season winds down in less than a month. The next game that the Edmonton Oilers will be in is against the Minnesota Wild.

That will be a tough matchup for the Oilers, and it’ll be interesting to see if they can pull one out this Saturday night.