Edmonton Oilers Vs Los Angeles- Game 5 Morning After

The Edmonton Oilers came out last night and played a pretty bad game. It has the same feeling as the morning after game 1. The Edmonton Oilers played an awful game, but still only lost in overtime. Now the Edmonton Oilers have to go into Los Angeles and beat the Kings at home if they wish to force a game 7

Edmonton Oilers Positives

• Although the Oilers never lead the game they were able to tie it up and force overtime.
• It goes to show when the Oilers try hard to score, they can score. They need to play like that for a whole 60 mins not just 10.
• The Oilers special teams kept them in it once again. Going 2/3 on the powerplay and killing 4/5 penalties taken.
• Connor McDavid showed that he is the best player in the league. He took over that game in the period.
• Ever Oiler forward had at least one hit. Archibald led the way with 10.
• Won 53% of the faceoffs.

Edmonton Oilers Negatives

• The majority of the game they look uninvolved. Maybe played a solid game for 10 mins
• Crushed in the shot department, you are not going to win by losing this stat 43-28.
• The Edmonton Oilers defense couldn’t get a shot from the point through and it showed up in blocked shots. The Kings had 30 to the Oilers 15.
• Mike Smith had his worst game of the playoffs. I wonder if they go to Koskinen, just to change something up.
• Another tough game for the Bouchard, Keith pairing.
• While trying to find a good line, Woodcroft pulled out the blender. I think he used it a bit too much last night.
• 5v5 play an issue again. Edmonton lost 4-1 while even strength. They got 2 on the powerplay and 1 shorthanded.

Quick Breakdown

Once again just like every game this series the Edmonton Oilers came out like a pack of turtles. They were slow and got outwork for the first 20 minutes. They were outshot 16-5 in the first period. I they were lucky to only by down 1 after that period.

Luckily for the Oilers they were able to tie it up, because of nice play from Connor McDavid. The Oilers were able to build some momentum and the crowd was getting into it. Unfortunately shortly after that Adrian Kempe was able to score on a fairly soft play that sucked the energy out of the team and arena.

Being down by 2 twice, it was nice to see the Oilers come back and tie it up to force overtime. They showed that if they play with some urgency they can produce offensively. That is what makes it more annoying from an Oilers fan perspective. It appears to be a lack of want from this Oilers team in the losses this series.

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Moving Forward

On Thursday the Edmonton Oilers will be in LA to try and force a game 7. If they want to be successful they need to learn from this game. They need to play a full 60 minutes. It obvious I know, but for some reason this Edmonton Oilers team can’t seem to figure out how to start a hockey game.

I don’t see Woodcroft making any big line-up changes, but I do wonder if Mikko Koskinen gets the start on Thursday. The Oilers need some sort of spark and maybe taking the start away from Smith would do that for this team. If not that, they need to a spark from somewhere, because the Kings aren’t going to take it easy on them.