LOS ANGELES — The situation sure looks bleak for the Edmonton Oilers as their series with the Los Angeles Kings shifts northward.
Their special teams have been a complete disaster. Their power play has gone goalless in five tries and not looked particularly dangerous while doing so. Their penalty kill is operating at a 50 percent success rate through 10 tries and has already given up one more goal than it did through 25 games on their playoff run last spring.
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They’ve allowed 12 goals against without arguably their top defenceman, Mattias Ekholm, who won’t be playing at any point against the Kings because of a lower-body injury. They’ve made life about as challenging as possible for goalie Stuart Skinner, who’s responded in kind by not giving them enough saves. Skinner was pulled midway through the third period of Game 2 and, deservedly or not, appears to be on the cusp of losing the No. 1 job.
Oh, and they have struggled mightily to score save for the third period of the series opener. It’s hardly surprising they’re down 2-0 and face the possibility of their season ending catastrophically before the week’s end.
Yup, things are a mess.
It’d be easy to write off the Oilers given all that. It would also be foolish to do so.
There are plenty of reasons to believe they’ll push the Kings and make this series compelling and competitive to the end. The most obvious example is last year’s team winning five games when a loss could have ended their season.
“I’ve seen the majority of this team face difficult situations — a lot more difficult than it is right now,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We had two elimination games against Vancouver. We had four elimination games against Florida. There’s absolutely no quit with this group.
“It’s not an ideal position being down two games, but certainly no panic — especially with what I’ve seen from the majority of this group.”
Any optimism starts with Connor McDavid.
The Oilers captain had a down season by his standards with only 100 points in 67 games, but he was a menace in Game 1. He simply took over the game from the dying seconds of the middle period onward. His primary assists on goals by Leon Draisaitl, Corey Perry and Zach Hyman were more impressive than the finishes. The tying goal, passing to himself off the boards and walking around Mikey Anderson before beating Darcy Kuemper, was one of his more remarkable NHL tallies.
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His fantastic display of will and skill was lost in Phillip Danault’s bizarre game-winner.
That McDavid already pulled this off means he surely has it in him again. It’s what happened in Game 2 that should provide as much — if not more — hope for the Oilers.
McDavid was held pointless with the Oilers offence was stuck in neutral Wednesday. It was just the 18th time in his 76-game postseason career that he’s been kept off the scoresheet. He has 19 points in the subsequent games, including six multi-point outings, and has been held in check in back-to-back contests just four times. All that sure bodes well for Game 3.
Connor McDavid is more than capable of turning a game on its head, as he did in Game 1. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
The Oilers have been the better team at five-on-five in this series and own a 52 percent expected goals rate, per Natural Stat Trick, but have been outscored 7-5. Play-driving doesn’t always correlate with results, especially in a short series, but their luck is bound to turn if they continue possessing the puck the way they have in the Kings’ zone. They need to generate some more chances and then capitalize on them.
It appears Hyman and Jake Walman, who were held out down the stretch due to injuries, are being scaled back. Perry has taken some of Hyman’s minutes on the first-unit power play. Walman played just 15:57 in Game 2, a low among Oilers defencemen. That was almost three fewer minutes than John Klingberg, who’d appeared in just one game since March 4.
If they can get a bit more from those players, plus any improvement from Evander Kane and Trent Frederic as they knock off the rust from longer-term injuries, the Oilers should be in much better stead.
“We feel they’re just going to continue to get better with more playing time and more games under their belt,” Knoblauch said.
And then there’s defensive play, special teams and goaltending. It’s hard to envision those aspects getting any worse.
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Blueliner Brett Kulak said Thursday he didn’t feel as though any of the defencemen were playing well enough in Ekholm’s absence. Knoblauch has been annoyed by the number of big mistakes the Oilers are making around the net.
Skinner has felt the effects of that and hasn’t helped the cause, either. He allowed 11 goals on 58 shots before he was pulled Wednesday. Knoblauch wouldn’t confirm his Game 3 starter Thursday, but he sure sounded like someone seriously contemplating giving the net to Calvin Pickard.
Either way, there’s nowhere to go but up for this team.
“We’re not happy with the position that we’re in at all. But this group’s been through a lot lately,” defenceman Darnell Nurse said. “We know what it takes and how much you got to step up here, especially in the next game, to try grab one.”
The Oilers might not ultimately knock off the Kings for the fourth time in a row. Winning four of the next five games is no easy feat, especially given all their issues right now.
But to suggest that this series is all but over, to even think it, is likely a big mistake. There’s more than enough to believe these Oilers won’t go quietly in the night.
“They protected home ice. That’s what you’re supposed to do, is protect home ice,” Perry said. “We came here to steal a game. It didn’t happen. We go home and protect our ice and go from there.”
(Top photo of Darnell Nurse: Harry How / Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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