For most of Sunday afternoon in Anaheim, even Latvia’s World Junior team couldn’t believe what they were watching.
The Edmonton Oilers, against a Ducks team they’ve been using as a punching bag for years, had just 13 shots through 40 minutes and were being outscored 3-1 at even strength.
This was supposed to be a free space on the bingo card. Guaranteed win night.
After losing Saturday in Los Angeles, the Oilers were going to take their frustrations out on the poor, hapless Ducks, a team they’d beaten seven times in a row by a combined score of 41-11.
And with the Oilers up 2-0 on their first three shots of the night, the natural order of things was falling into place.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the massacre.
“Not our best,” understated Leon Draisaitl after a humbling and well-earned 5-3 smack in the mouth from the second-last team in the Pacific Division and the lowest-scoring team in the NHL.
“We left off the gas a little bit after the first 10 or 13 minutes, kind of gave them a chance to get back into it. Yeah, not our best.”
Nope, it wasn’t. Two days after the Latvians shocked the world by beating Canada on its own soil, the Oilers said, ‘Hold our beer,’ and laid a similarly-sized egg.
Edmonton had all kinds of momentum going their way after storming into the Christmas break on an 11-2 run, but all of that is gone now after resuming their schedule with back-to-back losses on the Mom’s Trip.
They’ll be lucky if they aren’t all grounded after this one.
This looked more like October than December. So, what’s missing from their game?
“Just a little bit of everything,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Puck management, turning pucks over, had a lot to do with it. The more you turn pucks over the less you have your opportunities to score.
“And, more importantly, it means you’re defending more and defending in vulnerable situations. If you do it long enough they’re going to capitalize and they did.”
That’s exactly how it went down. Edmonton spent most of the first two periods on the ropes and would have been down for the count at the second intermission if Draisaitl hadn’t scored twice on the power play and the PK units hadn’t killed off eight minutes worth of penalties.
Instead, it was 3-3 and the heavily-favoured Oilers had 20 minutes to make things right.
Seventeen minutes later it was 4-3 Anaheim. They needed a video review to find out that Ryan Strome’s wraparound actually went in, but it was indeed the kill shot. An empty netter for good measure sealed Edmonton’s fate.
A stunning turn of events for an elite team that had a 2-0 lead in the first period and a 3-1 lead in the second.
“We had two two-goal leads and we put in a strong effort in the third period but we shouldn’t have been in that situation,” said Knoblauch. “When you’re up two goals, that’s a game where we have to continue playing hard and I don’t think we did.”
NO HELP
Goalie Calvin Pickard did enough to get Edmonton a win, but saw his personal winning streak snapped at four games and his record on the season fell to 8-4-0. Edmonton’s goaltending, which comes in at a combined salary cap hit of $3.6 million, remains the best bargain in the NHL, but he and Stuart Skinner didn’t get much support on this trip.
“He deserved to get a win here, he gave us a chance to get it done,” said Draisaitl. “But we let him down tonight.”
SKINNER ON THE OUTS
Knoblauch made Jeff Skinner a healthy scratch Sunday as his trying stint with the Oilers continues its downward spiral. He’s being miscast in a bottom six role and hasn’t shown enough to warrant ice time in the top six, so he’s not much help at the moment.
Derek Ryan took his spot against the Ducks.
“Derek has been playing really well for us, we trust him in a lot of situations and we don’t want him out of the lineup too long,” said Knoblauch. “Somebody had to come out and a lot of the guys have been playing well.”
LATE HITS
Connor McDavid had two assists to extend his points streak to 11 games (three goals, 18 assists), but he finished minus three on a night when 12 of 18 Oilers skaters finished in the minus column. … Draisaitl’s point streak is also at 11 games and counting (nine goals, 14 assists). … After being caved in against the Kings, Adam Henrique’s third line was the only one that didn’t surrender a goal against the Ducks. … Henrique, making his first visit to Anaheim since becoming an Oiler, took the opening face-off against his old team. … D Troy Stecher took eight minutes in minor penalties — hooking, tripping and a double minor for high sticking.
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