Oilers doing more, but still finding clever ways to lose
Edmonton starts to lose touch with Pacific Division playoff chase group
The Edmonton Oilers are talking a good game, although not necessarily playing one.
On Thursday, the Oilers lost their 15th one-goal game of the season, falling 3-2 to the Dallas Stars.
If close meant something in the standings, the Oilers would be on to something.
“We’re definitely a better team than last year, I think everyone sees it,” said Jordan Eberle following the contest. “It’s definitely been frustrating having guys get injured — not just guys, but key players. We had (Benoit) Pouliot playing at centre (Thursday) and he’s never played centre before and he did a good job. That’s going to make our team better when the injured guys come back. That’s going to help us.”
The Oilers are doing enough not to be embarrassed this season, which is an upgrade from the joke that was the last two years.
Yet when push comes to shove, they are still the Oilers: they find new and inventive ways to lose and are still in the league basement.
Teams just have to try a little harder to beat them this year.
“Dallas, that’s a good team,” Eberle said. “I thought we played a good game, we had a chance to score on the power play. I thought our power play was clicking.
“It’s just one of those games when you get your chances, you have to be able to bear down and score, because you know they’re going to score on their chances.
“It’s one of those things that when you get the chances, you have to try and put them in, because they have some good shooters over there and they did that.”
The Stars went into the game looking to snap a four-game losing skid, their longest of the season. They built a 2-0 lead against the Oilers, which could have easily been 3-0 had Stars winger Ales Hemsky been able to keep a skate blade on the ice to stay onside.
The Oilers tried to battle back and regained momentum for an entire 15 seconds before the Stars were able to restore a two-goal lead in the second period.
The Oilers were still exchanging high-fives on the bench after Teddy Purcell scored on the power play when Jyrki Jokipakka came back the other way and banked in a shot off Pouliot.
“Both teams had a lot of good looks (on net),” said Purcell, who rang a shot off the crossbar before scoring his 11th of the season moments later.
“It’s tough when you give up one early, but we got better as the game went on and that’s a positive. But at the end of the day, it seems like we’re on the wrong side of those more than the good side, so we’ve got to find a way to bury our chances when we can.”
The Oilers have a game Saturday against the Nashville Predators, before they go on a nine-day break for the NHL All-Star game.
Following their skills competition Sunday, the team will disperse for a week and reconvene for the last 32 games of the year.
The Oilers are starting to lose touch with the playoff chase group in the Pacific Division, waking up Friday eight points back of the third and final playoff spot.
The hope is they’ll get a few bodies back after the All- Star game to be able to make a push for a playoff spot and, at the very least, keep things interesting for the rest of the season.
But even when Connor McDavid returns, how much of an impact can a 19-year-old have after missing three months of the season?
“Every team is going to get a break, for us more than anything, the good thing is maybe we’ll get some bodies back after that,” Eberle said. “That will help, for sure. We’ve definitely been snake-bit by some injuries for sure, but you can’t really use that as an excuse. Leon (Draisaitl) has stepped up and we got Yak (Nail Yakupov) back now and it’ll be nice when we get some more guys. I thought (Thursday) was a good team effort, but it’s tough taking a moral victory when you need points.”
Moral victories and draft lottery wins are the only ones the Oilers have been able to attain in the past few years.
Unfortunately, at this rate it might be a few more years before they can earn enough real victories to make a difference in the standings.