PREDATORS AND PREY
Nashville slips past Oilers
NASHVILLE The Oilers couldn’t ‘Win one for the Gripper.’
Goalie Cam Talbot, who has firmly held his team in so many low-scoring games this season, needed the guys in front of him to win one for him on Sunday in a wide-open affair against the Nashville Predators.
But they couldn’t bail him out on a day when the busiest NHL goaltender made his 31st start in 34 games over the past three months.
Swedish winger Viktor Arvidsson, the surprise player of the season, scored his ninth goal this month to give the Predators a 5-4 win with just 79 seconds having elapsed the third period.
The play went to a five-minute coach’s video challenge after Todd McLellan argued Arvidsson jumped in the air and was offside as Ryan Johansen moved the puck into the zone at the Oilers blue line during a Predators power play.
The Oilers were under the impression a player had to have at least one skate on the blue line on a rush inside the other team’s end for it not be ruled offside, but that’s not what happened Sunday as the folks at the NHL home office looked at several camera angles and still refused to overturn the ruling on the ice.
“I’ve personally been in the game for a long time and I’m still trying to comprehend the rule itself. To me it’s about as clear as can be that he’s offside, but ...” said McLellan, who wasn’t about to go the sour grapes route.
The Oilers lost this one because their penalty killing was awful, as was their performance in the faceoff circle (23-of-66), but then we’re beating a dead horse on the draws. They’re last in the league in that department and need somebody to ride in on a white horse to right that problem by Wednesday’s NHL trade deadline.
Nashville scored three goals on the PP with Ryan Ellis and Filip Forsberg, who also has nine goals in February, connecting on the Predators’ first two man advantages in the opening period.
Colin Wilson and Vern Fiddler also beat Talbot, who was making his league-leading 56th start between the pipes.
“Three goals we give up on their power play, not acceptable,” said Oilers captain Connor McDavid, who scored on a dazzling evenstrength rush and set up Milan Lucic on one of two extra strength goals for the Oilers.
Mark Letestu had the other one, his seventh power play goal of the year, but the Oilers were roadkill on the penalty kill.
“You go 3-2 in the special teams battle and lose the game,” said Letestu.
Jordan Eberle also scored for Edmonton.
The Predators scored three times on five power play shots on Talbot.
Ellis hammered in one and Forsberg, who has eight goals in his last 13 shots over four games, slammed one home, too.
“The penalties we took weren’t good (too many men, cross-check by Kris Russell, and a trip by Lucic in the first period). Ones we’d like to avoid or were questionable,” said McLellan.
“Their first goal ( by Ellis) is a deflection that goes off a player and in. Nothing we can do about that. The second one (by Forsberg) we lose the faceoff, stumble a bit and we’re out of position. The third one in the third period is controversial, but we didn’t get back to the net.”
“They moved it around. We had a couple of beautiful goals,” said Predators coach Peter Laviolette.
“James Neal, in particular, with a couple of the passes (to Forsberg and Arvidsson) that he made that led to really pretty goals.” Gimme putts, for sure. “We scored four goals (Sunday) ... I don’t know if that’s indicative of the faceoffs, but we’re 30th in the league and that’s not where we want to be,” said Letestu, the only Oilers centre over 50 per cent on the season.
“Again, we scored four goals in a tough building.”
Talbot has only given up five or more goals twice this year. Only once all year, in the season opener (a 7-4 victory over the rival Calgary Flames), has Talbot given up four goals and seen the team won anyway.
Talbot wasn’t bad, except for the goal by Vern Fiddler that he’d like back, but his teammates couldn’t score six for him.
They came back twice from 3-1 and 4-2 holes in the middle period, but lost to Nashville for the ninth straight time.
“They had some back-door tapins that Patrick Roy couldn’t have got too,” said Letestu.