Oilers fall to the mighty Lightning
LIGHTNING 3, OILERS 1
The Edmonton Oilers TAMPA, FLA. have been good lately, but they’re not that good.
Hoping to continue the momentum that lifted them to 4-1-1 in their last six, the Oilers bit off more than they could chew Sunday when they took on a Tampa Bay Lightning team 33 points ahead of them in the standings.
“Right now, they ’re a better team than we are,” Oilers head coach Todd McLellan said after a 3-1 loss. “We see the work we have to do to catch up. It can be done and it will be done.
“But at this point, I thought they had a little more in the gas tank than we did.”
The Oilers put up a decent fight against the second-place team overall, but their season-long struggle with the power play sunk them again. Edmonton went 0-for-5 with the man advantage, missing on three straight third-period power plays, including a two-man advantage for 28 seconds.
Nikita Kucherov scored the winning goal on a second-period power play and then added the insurance marker between third-period penalty kills as the Lightning improved to 49-19-4 and the Oilers fell to 31-36-5 with 10 games to go.
“We played them in Edmonton where it was a back-and-forth game and we didn’t want to do that again,” said Oilers goalie Al Montoya, who stopped 37 of 40 shots. “I thought we weathered the momentum, but they got a couple of bounces that went their way and that was the difference.”
Despite both teams playing their second of back-to-back games, this one had a lot of jump from start to finish with Tampa controlling the first 40 minutes and Edmonton pushing hard in the final 20, but unable to convert on 14 third-period shots.
“We had a lot of pressure in the third period, created a lot of momentum with our power play, but their goalie had a good night and unfortunately we couldn’t execute and that’s what counts,” said defenceman Oscar Klefbom. “It hasn’t been good enough.”
After having given up a goal on the first shot of the game an incredible 13 times this season, the Oilers turned the tables for a change, striking first at the 14-second mark when Ty Rattie’s centring pass went in off goalie Louis Domingue.
“If you had a microphone on the bench when that went in, some of the comments were pretty comical,” said Tampa coach Jon Cooper. “The big joke was that we felt we had a lot of time to come back.
“But how about our goaltender? He comes in, gets a tough break and lets that one in and then doesn’t give up another one for the rest of the night. That says a lot about how mentally tough he is.”
Victor Hedman tied it late in the first period when his point shot hit a stick on the way past Montoya. The Bolts took their first lead on the power play when Kucherov put a bullet under the crossbar at 2:24 of the second. The Lightning pulled away everywhere but the scoreboard. They were up 30-16 on the shot clock at the second intermission, but only had a 2-1 lead.
The Oilers, who also trailed 2-1 after 40 before coming back to beat the Florida Panthers 4-2 on Saturday, couldn’t find the same magic this time. They had all kinds of opportunities with three straight power plays, but couldn’t get anything past Domingue.
Kucherov made it 3-1 at 11:34.