At least it wasn’t on TV.
If you are searching for highlights in the seventh game of the Edmonton Oilers pre-season Wednesday in Seattle, that one ranks at the top of the list.
The Oilers, who still haven’t found their regular-season scoring hands yet, didn’t get the saves they needed to make up for it in a 6-2 loss to the host Kraken.
It’s only pre-season, so it still doesn’t matter, but any time you lose 6-2 to a division rival it kind of stings.
“We were good at times, especially in the second period,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “I thought we carried most of the momentum in the second period, we just made mistakes that ended up in our net.
“That often happens when you have the puck as much as we did in the second period — you neglect your defensive responsibilities and they capitalized on them.
“Then in the third period, I don’t know, maybe it was a little bit of frustration. It was a good learning experience for us as we head into the regular season.”
The Oilers played about 95 per cent of their full team in this one, dressing their top three lines and at least four of their top six defencemen (five if you think Travis Dermott will be turning his PTO into a contract) while Seattle countered with pretty close to its own NHL roster.
That made it the first time in seven games that the real Oilers faced real opposition. Edmonton controlled much of the play, outshooting Seattle 30-24 and holding them to just five shots in the second period.
Trouble is, Seattle scored on four of those five shots to take a 4-2 lead into the second intermission and added two more in the third to complete the rout as Oliver Rodrigue, who started in net in place of the injured Calvin Pickard, let a couple or three past him that he’ll want back.
• Knoblauch wants to get his second power play unit more ice time this season and he followed through on that plan Wednesday. Edmonton was on the man advantage for 8:12 and the Arvidsson, Skinner, Adam Henrique, Mattias Ekholm and Darnell Nurse all saw nearly two minutes of it.
• Connor McDavid played his fourth pre-season game and will make it five out of eight if he draws in against the Canucks on Friday… Dermott, Noah Philip and Drake Caggiula are already at five games each.
• Defenceman Darnell Nurse made his pre-season debut, playing a team-high 22:17, including a team high 4:04 on the PK that went four-for-four. Alas, he finished minus three, but it wasn’t on him by any stretch.
• The Oilers power play did throw it around like it was mid-season on Edmonton’s first goal of the game (Leon Draisaitl at 11:15 of the second period). Edmonton’s training camp lineup was 21st in the league on the power play through the first six games, going four-for-22 for 18.2 per cent.
• Dermott made it 2-2 midway through the second period, jamming home the rebound after a nice three-way passing from the second line of Draisaitl, Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner.
• Edmonton rounds out the pre-season Friday night in Vancouver.
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