‘Horrendous’ special teams hurt the playoff dream

Stick the entire fork drawer in the Edmonton Oilers’ playoff hopes

The Buffalo Sabres, who’ve had 27 games where they’ve scored two or fewer goals this season, had five over the first 37 minutes Tuesday to send the Oilers crashing to earth in a 5-0 loss.

The Oilers, who had won three in a row and were feeling good about themselves — maybe far too good — continued to suck the life out of their home customers with their third 5-0 drubbing in the last five games since New Year’s Eve at Rogers Place. It was the sixth time they’ve been shut out this season, five of them in Edmonton.

It’s one thing to get taken to the woodshed by Winnipeg and Los Angeles 5-zip, but the Sabres had the fewest points in the league coming into this one, and the Oilers showed absolutely no gumption to get the win streak to four.

They gave up three power-play goals in the first three Buffalo tries over 2:07 of total power-play time, which fit with the Oilers’ lousy penalty kill numbers. They did nothing on their own power play, which is now one for 24 over the last 10 games, and has 19 total goals in 48 games.

“Special teams are killing us,” Patrick Maroon said.

While the Sabres have beaten the Oilers four straight going back to last year, the Oilers showed little emotion and a whack of commotion when they were on their special teams — as usual.

They are 31st on the PK and 29th

on the power play.

Coach Todd McLellan spat out a one-word answer when asked about both.

“Horrendous,” he said. “On the penalty kill, guys didn’t do their jobs and were reacting slow.

“On the power play, we did nothing to create any momentum.”

And so the Oilers, after beating Arizona, Vegas and Vancouver, came up with a colossal stinker against the Sabres, who after beating Calgary 2-1 in overtime Monday have their first two-game winning streak in three months.

Robin Lehner could have read the Hockey News cover to cover in a La-Z-Boy, he had so little work. If he had a tough save, it was keeping his shoes clean in the muddy Edmonton streets after the game.

“It was pretty clear. I don’t think we had enough respect for that hockey team. That’s what happens when you aren’t ready to play the other team, no matter who they are or where they are in the standings,” Milan Lucic said. “You can’t afford to lose games — no disrespect to them — against teams like this. Where you should have two points at least in the season series, and we come up with zero against them, it just goes to show why we are where we are.”