Oilers’ season down to a wing and a prayer
ANAHEIM 3, EDMONTON 2
Did the Anaheim Ducks just end the Edmonton Oilers’ season?
Again?
After being eliminated by the Ducks in a fiery and controversial playoff series last spring, the last thing Edmonton wanted was for Anaheim to be the team that pounded in the final coffin nail this year, too.
But that’s kind of how it looks after the Ducks snuffed out what little hope remained — and there wasn’t much — with a 3-2 victory Friday night at the Honda Center.
The loss leaves Edmonton 14 points out of a playoff spot with 29 games to go.
That’s a lot of ground to make up in a very short period of time.
They came into this three-game California road trip with high hopes, riding a 5-1-1 streak and 10-2 record against Pacific Division opponents this year, but are 0-2 through Los Angeles and Anaheim. They wrap it up with their third game in four nights Saturday in San Jose.
The Oilers were fully engaged the instant the puck dropped and had five shots on net by the two-minute mark (two more than they had in the entire first period in L.A.).
Alas, they were still down 1-0 at the 2:28 mark when a point shot from Hampus Lindholm that was going wide hit Andrej Sekera’s skate and went in.
The Oilers had two power plays in the second period but couldn’t convert on either, then fell behind 2-0 when Kris Russell didn’t get good wood on a clearing attempt at Edmonton’s blue-line and Corey Perry converted the turnover into a 2-0 lead at 15:50.
It was the fourth time in five games the Oilers have fallen behind 2-0 and it didn’t look good.
But Anton Slepyshev scored on a spectacular individual effort 1:08 later to make it a more manageable 2-1 deficit at the second intermission. Until Ryan Kesler made it 3-1 early in the third, anyway. Russell cut it to 3-2 with 5:05 to play.