Struggling Talbot takes the blame for the latest fiasco
When last year’s saviour isn’t doing what he does best, you’re not winning hockey games.
So when Edmonton Oilers netminder Cam Talbot says after Monday’s 7-5 loss to the Florida Panthers that “I’d like four of those back,” you knew there was going to be a loss attached to the six goals he gave up.
He was on the bench for an extra skater when Vincent Trocheck got his third of the night and first career hat-trick with one minute left to seal the deal for the Panthers.
Talbot, a notoriously hard marker, knew he flunked the test on this night. But he had plenty of company on the wild night that saw the ’84-85 edition of the Oilers in the stands.
The way the goals were coming on this night, it was shades of what hockey’s ‘Greatest Team’ used to do on a regular basis.
“Any time you go out and score five goals, you should win a game every night,” said Talbot.
“I didn’t give us a chance to win tonight. I liked our battle level, our compete, our resiliency. Every time I let one in, we got one back but I just couldn’t find that next save to give us a chance.”
It was more mental than any flaws in Talbot’s analysis, although they beat him twice on his glove (Evgenii Dadonov and Denis Malgin), so they seemed to be picking on that part of his anatomy.
“I haven’t had a game like this in a long time and it came on a really bad night where I got a lot of support and they needed me. Tonight it wasn’t anything physical. Nothing changed from the weekend (Anaheim last Friday). I just couldn’t come up with a save when we needed it,” said Talbot.
It was a record-breaking night with Leon Draisaitl and Dadonov both scoring on penalty shots.
There’s never been an NHL game where both teams scored that way. The Oilers have scored on their last four attempts here (Taylor Hall, Andrew Miller, Connor McDavid and Draisaitl, who was tripped by Mike Matheson and cleanly beat James Reimer on the PS.)
McDavid and Patrick Maroon had a goal and an assist and Anton Slepyshev got his second goal in the last four games after none since November, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Groundhog Day was Feb. 2 but we got the same scene we’ve seen over and over again on Monday — a wretched home penalty-kill that gave up three in five shots in four attempts, a team that gave up the first goal of the game for the 35th time in 55 games.
And not enough saves from Talbot, who carried them last year through his 73 games but can’t string a series of strong games together.
In the end, it was the Oilers fourth straight loss, a week after they clobbered the best team in the league, Tampa Bay, here 6-2 with four McDavid goals, showing exactly why the Oilers are where they are because they’re so maddeningly inconsistent.
They gave up six goals in San Jose Saturday and now seven against Florida.
“We definitely need to tighten it up. Obviously, we’ve been giving up a bunch of goals and it’s more how we’re giving them up, breakaways and open shots in the slot, not really giving Talbs a chance,” said McDavid.
“Definitely frustrating when we’re scoring five goals and we’re still losing the game. It definitely can’t happen.”
Oiler coach Todd McLellan liked the offence but that’s about it.
“Not good enough, too many goals, the penalty kill and some big errors again from individuals,” he said.