The Edmonton Oilers faced off against the Dallas Stars last night, looking for their third win in a row. They have only had one three-game winning streak all season to this point. But after beating the Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche, they had reason to believe they could grab a second three-gamer.
Remember what happened the last time the Oilers faced off against the Dallas Stars? Yeah, it turns out swapping out both goalies didn’t fix the problem. Clearly, the Oilers must have forgotten about how uggo’ that game was, because they ice again offered meek resistance to the Dallas offensive attack. They didn’t start scoring until it was already 5–0, and despite several fights and scrums, including one by their own captain, the Oilers were never truly in this game. This was a total letdown on all fronts.
Oilers lose 7–2.
This team’s steadfast refusal to go on winning streaks remains intact. They’ve literally had to be dragged into their only one of the season kicking and screaming. And yet somehow, this team resides just three points outside of the division lead. Here’s a short game story, since there weren’t many positives.
Interested in joining our writing or social media team? Apply here.
Recent first-period play vanishes, old starting habits return
In the past couple of games, the Oilers have battled their adversaries to a deadlock through one period of play. It was a scoreless tie against Vegas, and a 2–2 score two nights prior against Colorado, but all the same, Edmonton was starting to handle early pressure well. The caveat is that the Avalanche got on the scoreboard quickly, which in hindsight should have been a red flag.
This observer uses the “Scorebug Rule” to determine how soon is too soon to concede an opening goal. If the Sportsnet scorebug is still scrolling through the starting lineups, and the other team scores, that’s unacceptable. This clip doesn’t show it, but the Sportsnet scorebug had, funnily enough, just shown Jamie Benn’s line when he scored. Way too early of a goal to give up.
The score would remain the same for 10 minutes, which is a positive. However, the Oilers weren’t even getting any shots on goal at the other end, and if you’re not getting shots on goal, you’re not scoring, you’re not taking away momentum. So of course Sam Steel is eventually going to make it 2–0.
We’ll get to the other goal in a moment, but that came less than three minutes after the Steel tally. All told, the Oilers found themselves trailing by three goals at the end of the first period. And the shots on goal were 10–4 in favour of Dallas. There’s worse first periods to open a game with, but that still fits the definition of a no-show. We’re over 60 games into the season. Enough with the no-shows.
Whatever magic Jarry conjured two nights prior also disappeared
Forced to enter in relief of Connor Ingram on Tuesday night, Tristan Jarry helped save the game for Edmonton. He stopped 11 of 12 shots from a high-octane Avs squad, no small feat for any goalie in this league. To allow Ingram to have an extra day to shake off the impact he took from Nathan MacKinnon, the Oilers rolled with Jarry in this game. It could also be seen as a reward for his contribution to the Tuesday night win.
Safe to say, that magic he conjured in Denver stayed in Denver, and did not make it to Dallas with the team. Jason Robertson is a lethal goal-scorer, yes, but there’s no way this should sneak through Jarry. A save here keeps the Oilers sort of close, and makes it much less of the goalie’s fault. Instead, Jarry became part of the problem.
His save percentage on the night would not improve. And in addition to that goal, Robertson would embarrass him a second time, in the next period. Make a save, please.
For 48 hours, we had a glimmer of hope. Maybe Jarry could match Ingram’s solid recent play, and give Edmonton a passable tandem. Negative; it is still Ingram’s show and the games where Ingram doesn’t play are going to be adventures. And before anybody begs for it, Oilers management included, no, recalling Calvin Pickard is not the answer. If any goalie is coming up from the farm teams, it should be Connor Ungar. The answer should never be to swap underwhelming for underwhelming.
Some snarl was nice to see, but more Oilers need to get involved
At the end of the second period, with the Oilers trying to turn the game around, Connor McDavid and Miro Heiskanen initially came together. As McDavid went to confront either Heiskanen, or Arttu Hyry, he had to deal with Justin Hryckowian standing in his way. That resulted in the ultra-rare McDavid fight, as he tussled with the willing Hryckowian.
This wasn’t the lone moment of ferocity, as Connor Murphy came to the defence of Josh Samanski in the third, plucking Oskar Bäck out of the scrum and trading punches with him. Frederic, in that same play, got on Hryckowian who just seemed to cause all sorts of ruckuses on this night.
However, in a sign that accountability is being increased in the Oilers dressing room, Zach Hyman believes it wasn’t enough. In regards to McDavid fighting, and with all due respect, Hyman correctly stated that “he’s the last guy that should be (fighting).” Hyman also said, of the Oilers trying to respond to being down, that “When things are going like that, there’s ways to try and be engaged.” Ultimately, the message? “We can do a better job as a team to push back.”
Hyman’s not wrong, by the way. While it was nice to see three guys get involved that way, and also nice to see Jason Dickinson score his first as an Oiler, that still means too many passengers. 18 skaters are around to contribute to a team’s win. Six contributing, if you count Bouchard scoring and Hyman nearly doing same but being stoned by Jake Oettinger, still leaves twelve who are very much not. Not good enough.
Only solace is that the boys are right back at it tonight
Sometimes, the social media peeps of The Oil Rig can be pretty humorous. One moment of funny came after the last opening game of a back-to-back, where the Oilers also lost by letting the other team score a bunch of goals in one period. Just as a reminder: it does not make you “stuck in the past” if all you want to do after an Oilers loss is binge-watch Full House. That is a perfectly valid method of de-stressing.
The Oilers shook off that annoying loss to the Anaheim Ducks by curb-stomping the Los Angeles Kings the next night, which resulted in Jim Hiller losing his head-coaching job that weekend. There’s hope that maybe it can be done a second time. We’re not even asking for an 8–1 rout; just take care of business against St. Louis tonight. Bank two points, stay level with Vegas in the standings, put pressure on Anaheim. That’s all that has to be done.
Follow The Oil Rig on social media!
One Comment