SINGIN’ THE BLUES
Oilers fall 4-1 to St. Louis
St. Louis Blues coach Mike Yeo made the observation before the game.
“They look like a team that has found their game,” he said of the Edmonton Oilers.
The trouble is every time the Oilers find their game they go and lose it again. Immediately.
OK, the Oilers didn’t reek like they did coming off a 6-3 win over the New Jersey Devils and stinking the joint out 4-0 to the Detroit Red Wings in their last two home game combination before returning home for two this week.
Indeed, they were involved, played physical in the first period coming off their 8-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights going against the Blues.
But when things weren’t going their way, they went away.
The Blues, off to a fabulous start this season, came to town off back-to-back losses, 5-2 to the New York Islanders and 7-4 to the Calgary Flames.
And it was Yeo’s outfit that played refuse to lose hockey in their circumstances not Todd McLellan’s Oilers.
McLellan correctly identified the meaning of this one before it began.
“It’s a kind of test and they are a prime team in the league right now,” he said.
“They have been a top-five team on a nightly basis. It’s a good test for our group to see if we’re moving in the right direction and create some traction before we go out on the road.” They fizzled.
They flopped.
They failed.
They lost 4-1.
They’re now 4-7-0 at home and headed on the road for five with stops in Dallas, St. Louis, Detroit, Buffalo and Boston.
A big win followed by a loss, any kind of a loss, is inexcusable with the particular position in which they happen to reside.
That position is 14th in the West.
That position is 28th overall. This one wasn’t a start-to-finish stinker like the Detroit game. It didn’t get odorous until the second period.
The 13-5-1 Blues and 7-9-2 Oilers matched shot for shot and even fist for fist in a robust first period that was lowlighted by goaltender Cam Talbot having
It’s a good test for our group to see if we’re moving in the right direction.
a malfunction at the junction behind the net with Oscar Klefbom with the Oilers on the power play.
The puck popped out front to Vladimir Sobotka who got over his shock in time to deposit it into the gaping twine.
Twenty-nine seconds later, however, Ryan Strome had evened it up and the two teams returned to going toe-to-toe.
Talbot made the save of the game early in the second period off of Brayden Schenn and was terrific in the entire sandwich session. But he was pretty much on his own as the shots went from 11-11 with 1:11 left in the first to 32-24 by the end of the second. The Blues only beat him once and that was on the power play.
But a 19-shot second period in your own rink?
Connor McDavid was part of a turnover in the neutral zone that ended up with Brayden Schenn on a two-on-one and pulling the trigger to make it 3-0.
And that was it.
Schenn scored again to made it 4-1 and the fumigation truck pulled up in front of the building again.
The thing is, it was there for the Oilers last night.
After staggering out of the gate at 3-7-1 they were 4-2-1 in their last seven games and the Blues were not only coming in on a two-game losing streak but Edmonton looked to have turned things around against St. Louis with four straight wins after managing only three victories in their previous 22 meetings.
The Oilers also went into the game able to tell themselves they had won three straight against Western Conference teams.
They have had something to build on if they’d put another game together and won their second consecutive game at home for the first time this season. But they didn’t.
It was another big win followed by another large loss, another big build-up for another large letdown.