Oil Kings return to losing ways in 7-2 rout
After big win on Teddy Bear Toss night, they get blown away Sunday
The positive vibes of a win on Teddy Bear Toss night and snapping of a 12-game losing skid lasted less than 24 hours for the Edmonton Oil Kings.
Returning to Rogers Place on Sunday afternoon following their successful, sold-out promotion the night before, where they collected 14,122 toys for 630 CHED’s Santas Anonymous, the Oil Kings fell flat in a 7-2 loss to the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
The Oil Kings (6-18-2-0) were plagued with the ineffective mix of not capitalizing on the power play and inability to kill a penalty. Edmonton conceded five powerplay goals in the loss, which wiped out a two-goal, first-period lead.
I think we kind of got away from our game a little bit, made a few mistakes and they capitalized.
Colton Kehler and Brian Harris scored for the Oil Kings and goaltender Boston Bilous made 31 saves in the loss.
“We got the start we wanted, and I feel we came into that first intermission and got a little bit ahead of ourselves and lost our way from the stuff that made us successful in the first,” Kehler said.
“You never want to blame one guy (on penalty kill) you don’t want to undermine anything that’s going on. It’s our job as players to know our duty and I think that’s the biggest thing that is going on right now. It comes down to us executing the plan.”
Taylor Ross and Jordy Bellerive each had two goals for the Hurricanes, while Dylan Cozens, Giorgio Estephan and Zane Franklin had the others. Defenceman Calen Addison had five assists for Lethbridge and Estephan had four. Hurricanes goaltender Reece Klassen made 25 saves.
“I think we kind of got away from our game a little bit, made a few mistakes and they capitalized,” Harris said. “We need to be better on the penalty kill. That’s one thing we struggled at. We have a good layout and plan from the coaches, it’s just about bearing down and talking away lanes. We just need to do a better job of that.”
The Oil Kings got off to a good start as Kehler scored from a bad angle on Klassen, who played ahead of Edmonton Oilers draft pick Stuart Skinner in the second of back-to-back games.
Harris extended the lead to 2-0 with his first goal of the season. Harris did well to join Kehler on a two-on-one rush and tipped a centring pass in past Klassen.
“It was pretty special to score, but in the end, we didn’t win and that’s the big thing,” Harris said. “It’s good to get it out of the way. Confidence is definitely big for me, so I’m just going to try and build on this game and try to take a positive note from it.”
Unfortunately for the Oil Kings, they were unable to get out of the period up two goals, as Jayden Platz took a hooking penalty with 1:13 left in the period.
The Hurricanes capitalized with 24.7 seconds left when Ross scored on the power play, snapping a shot past Bilous.
Ross tied the game five minutes into the second with Will Warm in the box on a cross-checking penalty.
Bellerive gave Lethbridge a 3-2 lead on one of two goals not coming on the power play.
Cozens, Estephan and Bellerive then scored power-play markers to blow the game open. The third power-play goal in the period was scored with 30 seconds left in the frame, just six seconds into a slashing penalty to Harris.
“You have to reset your mind after every (power play) goal and you just try to do the best after every goal,” Harris said. “You try not to think about that (snowballing), you just try to reset your mind and try to get the job done.”
Franklin scored for the Hurricanes in the third period and Ryan Bowen would have added yet another power-play marker had it not been for an outstanding diving save from Bilous.
Lethbridge finished five-forsix on the power play and the Oil Kings penalty-killing efficiency fell to a league low 66.1 per cent.
The Oil Kings have given up a league high 38 power-play goals on 112 opportunities.
“It gets a little heavy, especially in front of your own crowd coming off a pretty exciting night (Friday) night,” Kehler said. “Kind of laying an egg in that second period was not what we wanted to do. But it happened, and hopefully, it’s another learning experience that we can take from this.”
The Oil Kings host the Moose ■
Jaw Warriors on Thursday (7 p.m.) at Rogers Place.