The Edmonton Oilers lost a tough one to the Minnesota Wild on Friday night by a score of 4-2.
Despite dominating for the majority of the game, going 4/4 on the penalty kill, 2/2 on the power play, and outshooting the Wild 43-19, they couldn’t solve Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson or the iron behind him.
A rare losing streak
This marks the first time the Oilers have lost back-to-back games since December 19th. This was part of a stretch of three straight losses to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, and New York Islanders.
While this wouldn’t qualify as a losing streak per se for most teams, but it does for the Oilers who rattled off 16 straight wins earlier this year. That historic winning streak came immediately after they had lost those three games in a row, for what it’s worth.
Since the streak was snapped by the Vegas Golden Knights on February 6, the Oilers are 4-4-1. It’s a small sample size, but a poor record nonetheless.
Goaltending wasn’t good enough
In this game, the Oilers lost the goaltending battle, plain and simple. They probably deserved to win the game regardless, but at the end of the day Gustavsson stole the game for the Wild and Pickard didn’t do enough to keep the Oilers alive in the third period when they were pressing hard to win the game.
Stuart Skinner will be in net tomorrow night in the Battle of Alberta as the Oilers visit the Calgary Flames.
