The Edmonton Oilers are 12-10-2 and have a positive goal differential to start the month of December. They’ll also start the third month of the season in a playoff spot, so things are going pretty well, right? Not exactly. The Oilers had a tremendous 7-1-0 start that had people like myself believing this year would be different. Their 5-9-2 record since that point suggests something different.
The Oilers have now lost three games in a row and two of them in regulation time. Those losses came against the last place Arizona Coyotes (twice) and the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had just one road win all season before coming to Rogers Place and embarrassing the Oilers on Tuesday night. That, to put it in frank terms, is just an unacceptable losing streak.
Yes, teams hit rough patches and will suffer losing streaks all season long, that’s part of the 82 game grind of the NHL schedule. The way the Oilers have done it, however, suggests this isn’t a team ready to turn north towards playoff contention and experience. The Oilers are losing to teams they are supposed to be better than, that simple.
There is no way the Oilers should have lost all three of these games. The problem, in my mind, is a lack of effort and a lack of a willingness to do the little things to win. We saw the Oilers bring it every night at the start of the season and we saw them making an effort to do the little things. Since then? We haven’t seen either consistently enough.
Against Arizona, like I wrote on Monday here, the Oilers were content with just firing a bunch of shots on net. In theory that seems like a great idea, but the club really didn’t test goaltender Mike Smith or make things difficult for him until the third period on Sunday afternoon. That’s a pretty alarming fact when you consider that Arizona is at the bottom of the entire NHL.
On Tuesday night, the Oilers again failed to make life difficult for the opposing goalie. Frederick Andersen had a mostly easy night in net and once again shut the Oilers down with ease. Not only that, but the Oilers were soft and easy to play against in all facets of that game. Toronto outworked and outplayed Edmonton to a point where it looked genuinely easy for Toronto for sixty full minutes. Seriously.
The Oilers played two teams in these last three games that they should beat. They played two teams that, according to most in hockey, they are better than. The final results? Three losses and three games where the Oilers were thoroughly outworked. Folks, that should be a real cause for concern.
Inconsistency:
There are certain players on this Oiler roster that, quite frankly, are massive disappointments right now. Benoit Pouliot is a good NHL player, I truly believe that, but he has been completely ineffective this season. His offense has all but dried up and he no longer is a pest in the offensive zone, forcing turnovers and disrupting the opposition. In all honesty, I’ve failed to see his use the last handful of games, he’s been really bad.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has simply not provided the offense that he needs to. Most of that is because of bad luck, how many posts is one guy gonna hit? Part of it is ineffective linemates (Hellooooo Pouliot and Eberle!) and part of it is an unsustainable shooting percentage that baffles the mind. All that said, he’s gotta figure this out sooner or later or else this team is going to continue to sink faster than the Titanic.
Lastly, Jordan Eberle has not been good for the Edmonton Oilers. He has just four goals in his last 19 games and those goals have come in two games, where he scored a pair in each. That’s not good for a guy who is supposed to cash as a goal scorer. It also doesn’t help matters that his defensive game has been so bad he’s become more of a liability than anything on the ice.
Those three lead the way, they all need to be better, but they are not alone. Edmonton’s defense has not been good as of late and forwards like Matt Hendricks, Jesse Puljujarvi and Drake Caggiula also need to be better. JP and Caggiula especially, they keep getting great looks but can’t seem to finish any of them. That has hurt the Oilers in a big way.
That’s Not All:
The coach and the GM deserve a large share of the blame pie too. Yes, the players have been extremely inconsistent and some nights lazy. The players SHOULD NOT be without blame, they play the games and they haven’t been close to good enough since the end of October. That falls on them and no one else.
That said, Peter Chiarelli simply didn’t do enough this off-season. He stopped halfway to a balanced roster and that is on him. If this team’s goal was truly the playoffs, then trying out players who don’t appear NHL ready (Drake Caggiula, Jesse Puljujarvi) wouldn’t have been an option. Adding cheap veterans who can play in this league would have been the play.
The coach also doesn’t get away free from this. Many of his roster decisions have been poor this season. Sitting Tyler Pitlick to not hurt the feelings of Matt Hendricks is a laughable decision. Holding certain players accountable and letting others make the same mistakes over and over again also is a bad look, while the in-game management is reaching Dallas Eakins’ level bad right now.
It’s not pretty for the Edmonton Oilers, and this three game losing streak has only proven that. With a playoff spot about to slip out of hand, I can’t help but feel angry, frustrated and almost sad. It didn’t have to be this way, in fact it should be a lot better. But so is life with the forever underachievers known as the Oilers.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
