The Edmonton Oilers continued a lengthy homestand on Tuesday night against the New Jersey Devils. This game was a nationally-televised one state-side. As such, the start time became 8:15 PM local, which is very unusual for a non-Saturday night game. At the very least, it was made up for by an excellent pre-game ceremony honouring the Indigenous peoples of the area in and around Edmonton.
As far as in-game storylines went, this was the third straight opponent the Oilers faced with scoring issues. Vancouver, St. Louis, and New Jersey have all been mediocre at offence so far this season. The Devils have had several players underperform, and also were without Jack Hughes for a period of time. Even in their win over the Calgary Flames the previous night, they needed overtime to scratch out a 2–1 decision. They would be in tight against hot Edmonton goaltending.
After two games of facing substandard goalies and weakened rosters, the Oilers’ offence came crashing back down to earth on this night. The Devils may be terrible at offence, and to be sure their star players still couldn’t score. But they defended well, and when they couldn’t, they had Jake Allen behind them.
Now we know why everyone is doing the 2016 trend: it’s like this is January 2016, the Oilers are missing a star player, and guys like Darnell Nurse, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Luke Gazdic are unable to solve demigod-level Jake Allen. Only now it’s when they face the Devils, not the Blues. The pain only happens twice a year, but it’s still a game of pain, all the same.
Oilers lose 2–1.
At this point, are we going to have to sage the building, or something? There must be demons inside Rogers Place preventing the Oilers from winning three in a row. And they need to be vanquished pronto.
Here’s the game story.
Slow, plodding first periods are not the Oilers’ forte
Some of the games the Oilers have played this season make you wonder how awake they actually are. You can’t regularly roll into a 9-to-5 job Downtown on four hours of sleep, and expect to get away with it. If you’re a coffee drinker like this observer is, any day you have to get through without Coffee Bureau or Fawkes Coffee is going to be a much taller task.
The Oilers appear to be the same way, and it needs to be figured out what they end up forgetting to do on certain days, that makes them sleepwalk through starts to games. Granted, New Jersey also didn’t seem particularly interested in indulging in goal-scoring during period one. The result was a period in which fewer than ten shots combined were put up by the two teams. Boring, slow hockey—not what this team is built to endure in the first 20 minutes.
The result eventually became the Devils’ bottom-six coming up clutch, capitalizing on Oilers mistakes. Cody Glass, a noted former Vegas Golden Knight, (allegedly) still hates the Oilers. And so he hatched a plan with linemate Arseni Gritsyuk: let’s get both our team’s goals, and make off with the win before we get caught.
A late read of the guy speeding into the slot, a horrendous line change and poor play by Nurse, two goals against. The Oilers have to be more ready than this, more awake than this, to start games. Enough with the sleepwalking.
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Depth scoring continues to show up at timely moments
At the very least, if the Oilers would lose this game, it would be nice for them not to get blanked 1–0 again. Don’t let the opposing goalie brag that he got a shutout for his efforts. That’s happened twice already.
Matt Savoie answered that call in-between Devils fourth-line tallies. After a decent stretch earlier on in the season, Savoie has gone through some growing pains recently. Coming into this contest, he hadn’t scored in 15 games, so this must feel pretty darn good, getting the monkey off his back.
The game result may have been just as aggravating as Thursday night last week was. But this offers a small glimmer of hope that the depth is indeed turning it around. That, if the superstars of the Oilers roster are held off the scoresheet, the rest of the players can chip in for a timely goal. And timely this was at the time it was scored, as the Devils had only recently broken the scoreless tie. Savoie tying it up, in a different outcome, means this game sees Overtime.
Not necessarily Jarry’s fault the team lost, but he wasn’t perfect
Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram both had shutouts over the weekend, with their team adding on plenty of run support. In Jarry’s case, he got his shutout in Vancouver on Hockey Night in Canada. For the product of Surrey, BC who has fostered such a strong connection with the city of Edmonton, that has to feel sweet.
For the most part in this game, Jarry played decently. Anytime you hold the other team to just two goals, you generally deserve to win. You also deserve a tying goal from somebody, anybody on your team when you make a save like this to keep the score 2–1:
The one issue was how quickly the Devils got those two goals. Allowing them in a span of less than four minutes, especially with the Savoie game-tyer sandwiched in there, is a rough thing to let happen. Even more so when it’s New Jersey’s fourth line getting both goals.
Jarry finished the game with 15 saves and an .882 save percentage. Again, not abhorrent by any means, and he made up for it with the spectacular grand larceny of a save. It was, though, still one save fewer than what the Oilers needed.
Podkolzin doing more than scoring to stay in the top-six
Vasily Podkolzin has been really effective the past few games, getting a goal in each of the last two. He’s emerging as a legitimate top-six option, and even without Leon Draisaitl these past couple of games, he’s played well with McDavid. And somehow, the Oilers got him for effectively the last year of Evander Kane’s contract. What a steal.
Though Podkolzin didn’t get a goal in this game, he was still effective. He’s the type of player that, when his offence isn’t there, he will run you through the end boards. He’s the type of person who, when snarled in traffic on 107 Avenue, will navigate north for a few blocks, and take 111th or 118th instead to get to the West End. And on this night, his impact was sticking up for McDavid by fighting Jonathan Kovacevic:
Now, one could argue this came at a detriment. The Oilers were less one solid back-checker and playmaker for 15 full minutes of the second period thanks to this. But the message has to be consistent: liberties cannot be taken with the star players. Good on him for enforcing that.
Player perspective
“I thought we were too easy to play against (in the first and second periods). We didn’t manage the puck well.” -Mattias Ekholm
An emotional return lies ahead for two players on Thursday
The Oilers traded for Tristan Jarry just four days before they played the Pittsburgh Penguins on the road. It was early enough that Jarry was able to get his “return game” out of the way quickly. The two Oilers who went the other way, however, have had to wait since then for their return to Edmonton. But that is set to change on Thursday.
Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak will accompany the Penguins into town later this week. Say what you will about how their tenures went in Edmonton, or how they ended. But these two were bonafide fan favourites as Edmonton Oilers, and they will be sure to get a lot of appreciation.
It will be cool to see how well they are received. Maybe even hear one more loud “STUUU” chant. This next game will have a much more familiar start time of 7:00 PM local.
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