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They gave up six. They scored zero when it mattered. Their power play let them down when they needed it. They got roughed up. They turned the puck over way too often and they left so many Toronto Maple Leafs wide open around their net you would have sworn it was 2011.
By the end of the second period a hooked Stuart Skinner was rocking a .783 save percentage and every player on the Edmonton Oilers was in the minus figures except third-pairing defencemen Cody Ceci and Brett Kulak.
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All in all, an ugly and embarrassing night for the visitors.
“It sure didn’t feel like it was 5-0 going into the third,” sighed Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse, after a 6-3 pistol-whipping at Scotiabank Arena. “But we gave them a few too many Grade A opportunities and they’re a good team, they’re going to capitalize.”
They capitalized the Oilers into oblivion. It happens. You can twist yourself into a pretzel trying to decipher what Saturday’s result means, but in the end it’s probably nothing more than an unfortunate and untimely stumble.
Yes, the Oilers stumbled face first into a mud puddle on national television, turning the most anticipated game of the regular season into hockey’s version of Rocky Balboa pummelling a side of beef, but I wouldn’t read too much into it.
And neither do they.
“Weird game,” said Leon Draisaitl. “They probably capitalized on every single one of their chances. We gave up a little too much in the first 40 and they did a good job capitalizing on their looks. It’s tough to win when you give up five. It’s something to clean up.”
Getting pumped in a high-profile game is going to generate considerable hand-wringing among Oilers fan, but one 60-minute upchuck doesn’t mean anything. And it certainly doesn’t mean a team that’s 9-2-2 in its last 13 games and owns the best record in the NHL since Nov. 11 might not have what it takes to go deep in the playoffs.
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The Oilers are fine. They just beat Boston, they were tied with Colorado at the end of regulation and have recent measuring stick wins over Los Angeles and Dallas. They can beat good teams in high-profile games.
But the Leafs just taught them a few good lessons, reminding them again how important it is to start on time and illustrating mistakes that simply can’t happen in the playoffs.
“Just the attention to detail it takes for 60 minutes as we come down the stretch,” said Nurse. “We know that, but at this point in the season everything is heightened to the extreme. That’s what we take from it.”
Adam Henrique has to be smarter instead of turning the puck over on Toronto’s fourth goal. Evan Bouchard has to be stronger instead of pulling the chute on Toronto’s third goal. Edmonton’s fourth line can’t leave Bobby McMann WIDE open in front of their net for the first goal. Skinner needs to make a save on the third, fourth or fifth Toronto goals. And the Oilers cannot continue easing their way into games and waiting until the third period to turn it on.
“We have to play hard the whole time,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “The mistakes that we made were too costly. We didn’t make many mistakes but when we did they were big ones. And they capitalized.”
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And the Oilers didn’t.
“We didn’t capitalize on our early opportunities in the first period, especially the McDavid line,” said Knoblauch. “They spent a lot of time in the offensive zone and didn’t capitalize. That set us back. We also had a couple of power plays, we don’t capitalize on two and they score on theirs. It just snowballed from there.”
Maybe it was stage fright or maybe they were trying too hard on the big Toronto stage. Whatever it was, the moment got the better of them and a good Oilers team looked pretty bad in front of the whole country.
“We wanted to come out and win this game, obviously,” said Nurse. “But we didn’t.”
They need to shake it off in a hurry because they play Ottawa on Sunday and have another one of those highly-anticipated showdowns Tuesday in Winnipeg.
On the bright side, Zach Hyman scored his 49th goal of the season to make it 5-1 in the third period, Corey Perry made it 5-2 and Draisaitl cut it to 5-3 with three minutes to go, but the Oilers weren’t coming back from 5-0 down in the third period and everyone knew it.
An empty-netter from Auston Matthews made it official.
“We believe we’re capable of anything in here and we’ve been a good third-period team,” said Nurse. “We just didn’t want to quit. And we didn’t, but we weren’t good enough in the first 40.”
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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2024-03-24 02:37:44Z
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