The hockey gods did all they could to get the Oilers a win Thursday night, serving up a week’s worth of breaks in about 30 minutes, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the gap between lukewarm Edmonton and one of the NHL’s power teams.
Despite scoring two flukes and having two Minnesota goals taken off the board (one that was millimetres offside and the other on a quick whistle), the Oilers still got routed by a Wild team that’s clearly on another level.
“We’re a quarter of the way through the season and we continue having this (discussion), that wasn’t good enough tonight,” said Oilers forward Corey Perry, unable to put his finger on why the Oilers are so mediocre this deep into the season.
“I wish I had answers. I have no idea. It’s just a matter of competing, night-in, night-out. Some nights we look great when we do it and when we don’t it’s ugly. They definitely out-competed us tonight.
And it could have been worse. The 5-3 final could have easily been a five- or six-goal margin if this game of inches went an inch or two the other way.
“Right off the bat it felt like we didn’t really have the same jump that they did, “ said defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “I think they had a little a little more juice, and that showed up in the game. It’s up to us to be better and be better prepared.”
There’s no shame in losing to the Wild. They are 13-3-3 for a reason. And the odds were against Edmonton before the puck even dropped. They were minus Darnell Nurse, Zach Hyman, Viktor Arvidsson and Travis Dermott, they were playing their first game back after an eastern road trip and they were the 20th-ranked offence in the NHL taking on the third-ranked defence.
But they’re not in Minnesota’s league right now. The Oilers hung in there, thanks in large part to some good fortune, but couldn’t overcome the holes in their game. The team defence caved in under the pressure, the goaltending didn’t make the difference and the offence wasn’t good enough.
This makes it 1-2-1 in the last four games and 10-9-2 on the season — better than last year, but nowhere near as good as Minnesota.
“I guess that’s where we’re at right now,” said defenceman Evan Bouchard. “Consistency’s a big thing. If you want to be a good team, you’ve got to be consistently good. And that’s finding ways to play a full 60 minutes. We’ll play good some games and then a little too lackadaisical and get outplayed other games.”
FREEBIE TO START
The Oilers have some sexy looking analytics that suggest they’re getting more than enough scoring chances but aren’t scoring goals right now because they’ve been a little unlucky. Well, they got two massive breaks, resulting in a two-goal swing, before the game was 130 seconds only. The first came on a Plays of the Year candidate when Leon Draisiatl scored on a wrist shot from inside Edmonton’s blue line.
The bouncing puck went through three players before it got to Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, where it took a last-second football hop, went over his stick and through his legs to make it 1-0 Oilers at 27 seconds.
At 2:09, a tying goal from Marcus Foligno got taken off the board because it was a couple of millimetres offside. A game that should have been 1-0 Minnesota was 1-0 Edmonton.
All the Oilers could do was laugh. But the smiles were pretty scarce after that.
After Minnesota put two more past Stuart Skinner to take a 2-1 lead, Edmonton caught another bit of good fortune when Perry’s wraparound attempt didn’t quite wrap, but bounced in off a Minnesota skate and went in anyway to make it 2-2.
But even that wasn’t enough as the Wild scored three in a row to pull away for good. Jeff Skinner scored in garbage time with 25 seconds left in regulation to make it look kind of close.
“We lucked out with the one goal that was offside and when they pushed Skinner into the net (for a second goal that was disallowed) that shouldn’t have happened,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “We have to be better around there.”
The Oilers weren’t gritty enough, didn’t want it badly enough, at either end of the ice.
“This is a tough league, everybody comes in and wants to play their game against us at the top level,” said Perry. “We have to respond to that. They made plays tonight and we didn’t and that’s the end of the game.”
Things don’t get any easier on Saturday when the 12-5-1 Rangers roll into town, angry after a loss in Calgary.
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