’CANES 4 OILERS 1
Good team, bad team — just depends on the night So how do the Oilers look so good against a legitimate Stanley Cup contender one night in Washington, and come up with a massive stink bomb next game against the Carolina Hurricanes? Because these are your Oilers, who looked full measure for being the 30th-place team in the league here in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday. After Benoit Pouliot tipped home Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ power-play shot 71/2 minutes into the game, the ’Canes caught two breaks: one when Jordan Staal banked the puck off Griffin Reinhart’s left skate in the last few seconds of the opening period, then another when Jeff Skinner got one off his skate and past Anders Nilsson late in the middle frame. They were sandwiched around a bullet from Elias Lindholm through Nilsson’s wickets. The Oilers absolutely mailed it in the middle period, a totally unacceptable effort, and Andrej Nestrasil ended the misery into an empty net for a 4-1 Canes’ victory. “Really, really disappointing effort. I was very proud of our group in Washington and I still believe in them, but we were outworked here and I don’t care how big or skilled you are, it’s the determination factor I was looking for. The red team was. They played collectively hard, took every inch of ice,” said Oilers coach Todd McLellan. Flukes of flukes: Nail Yakupov injured his left leg early in the second period off a faceoff at centre when linesman Matt MacPherson stumbled, tugged at Yakupov in a scrum to keep his balance and Yakupov was twisted awkwardly as he fell backward. It appeared to be an injured knee or ankle, but the Oilers weren’t saying. It may not be as bad as it looked at the time, according to people in the dressing room.