The Edmonton Oilers penalty kill has officially been renamed the Buzz Kill until further notice.
It’s been a long time since any element of the Oilers sucked as much life out of them as this year’s PK has, but 13 games into the season it’s going from bad to worse.
OK, that’s a little harsh. It’s actually going from worse (eight goals against the first four games of the season) to bad (four goals against in the last four games), but it’s still a major problem.
In one short summer, it’s gone from one of the most important weapons in their run to the Stanley Cup Final, a jaw-dropping 94.3 per cent, to the worst percentage in the league at 60 per cent and sinking.
And Monday night against the New Jersey Devils it bit them again. In a 1-0 game in which the Oilers were swarming the Devils end in the second period, on the verge, it seemed, of tying the game and pulling away, Edmonton took a penalty.
And that was it.
New Jersey found the back of the net just 28 seconds into the man advantage and had all the breathing room it needed in a 3-0 victory that ended Edmonton’s two-game win streak.
“I think that one’s on me, just taking a little bit of a wrong turn,” said Adam Henrique, who admits things seem to be just a sliver out of sync from last year and that’s all it takes.
“Those little details when things aren’t going your way, they just seem to find the back of the net. It’s just the little details within areas of the game and I take responsibility for that one.”
There has been a lot of responsibility to go around this year among Edmonton’s eight main penalty killers. When a team gives up 14 power play goals in 13 games (35 chances) it hurts. The Oilers have soldiered through, sitting a respectable 6-6-1, but continually coming up on the wrong end of the special teams battle means a nightly uphill climb.
It’s ironic that special teams in general, the Oilers greatest strength last spring, have turned into their soft white underbelly this year.
The vaunted power play is even spinning its wheels, sitting 26th in the NHL at 14.7 per cent and 25th in the league in penalties drawn.
“Special teams are huge,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “You look at our run through the playoffs. There’s no way we’re going to the Stanley Cup Final if we didn’t have an unbelievable power play and an unbelievable penalty kill. That got us through a lot of series.
“It wins you hockey games. We know our power play is going to get better, we know our penalty kill is going to get better, it’s just finding the execution.”
The Oilers lost some blue-collar guys in the off-season who didn’t make a lot of headlines, but last year’s team could kill a penalty like nobody’s business. They allowed just four goals on 70 chances over 25 games in Edmonton’s two-month Cup run.
Did they miss Connor McDavid in a back-and-forth track meet with the Devils Monday night? Sure. But there have been more than a few nights when they’ve missed Vincent Desharnais, Cody Ceci, and Ryan McLeod just as much.
“I think it’s a little bit of personnel change,” said Henrique. “Last year you had guys in it who like to kill in pairs and they kind of have that familiarity with each other. You know in the back of your head what the other guys are doing and it just flows easy.
“I think right now there are just some times where little details get out of sync: Clears, little routes. They keep the pucks in and they end up in the back of your net. It’s just those little things, but they end up being big things in the end.”
The PK started slowly last year, too. Not THIS slowly, but they gelled as a crew and became part of Edmonton’s backbone. With most of the same guys back, and the analytics suggesting they are heading in the right direction, Knoblauch feels it’s only a matter of time before they get things shored up.
“A lot of the metrics are pretty good on the penalty kill side of it,” he said. “On zone denials, preventing shots from the slot. It’s just making some mistakes and they’re going in.
“Tonight it was one mistake and it went in. It wasn’t on the goaltender. It came from the slot. We’re doing a lot of good things and there will be a time where we’re talking about how good it looks.
“We just have to find it. It’s close and we’re going to find it.”
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