Oilers Postgame: Another One Bites The Dust

The Oilers soundly defeated the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night (8-2) in their most dominant performance of the year. With the Western Conference leading St Louis Blues in town, they were looking to build a bit of a win streak before their upcoming road trip starts in Dallas on Saturday afternoon.

Instead, the Blues showed why they’re at the top of the West, and why they bothered to get Brayden Schenn out of Philadelphia.

It wasn’t a good game for the Oilers, and will hopefully mean some legitimate shakeups in line combinations before the Oilers go down to Dallas to meet Jamie Benn and the Stars.

First Period

• Mike Cammalleri had his first shift as an Oiler, and now we can stop talking about how his first NHL goal was 15 years ago to the day, against the Oilers.
• With 2:34 gone, Zack Kassian and Chris Thorburn fight a little bit. But mostly they rolled around on the ice. NB: Kassian has tattoos on his stomach.
• Tarasenko is filthy good.
• Remenda was confused about stuff.
• Lucic skated the puck in kind of fast, but lost it. Luckily Jesse Puljujarvi worked hard to keep the puck in the St Louis zone.
• Drake Caggiula gets a good chance on Jake Allen; Jake Allen denies a goal. Somehow the Blues took a penalty on that play.
• Remenda mumbles things sometimes, and then he talks too fast and stumbles over his words.
• Oilers PP is 0/1 with 2 shots.
• Adam Larsson and Iiro Pakarinen crunched someone. It made a loud noise.
• Connor got pokechecked by Allen and looked surprised.
• Scrum along the boards. Larsson maybe elbowed someone in the jaw. Nurse and Larsson get penalties and Remenda can’t count.
• Eric Gryba is out on the PK. This seems silly.
• Kassian knocked someone over. No penalty.
• Cammalleri gets hit. Pakarinen comes to his defence. Kris Russell kind of stands around. Gryba gets a penalty “because he’s the biggest guy on the ice”. Pakarinen also gets a penalty, as does Kyle Brodziak. Oilers shorthanded again.
• Tarasenko rings one off the post. What a shot, my heavens.
• Kassian shorthanded breakaway. Didn’t score.
• Oilers kill the penalty. Still 0-0.
• Draisaitl hits the side of the net on a perfect setup from Connor. For shame.
• St Louis penalty. It doesn’t end well for the Oilers. Cam Talbot was momentarily possessed by the ghost of Ty Conklin and gave the puck away to Sobotka and it’s 1-0 Blues. (Klefbom looked bad there somehow.)
• Oilers get one back real quick, though and Strome scores on a wicked wrist shot.
• Lots of pushing and shoving with 2:46 left. And with 1:48 left. Oilers back on the power play.
• Sundqvist blocked a Klefbom shot. Twice. He crawls back to the bench.
• Oilers finish the period with 10 seconds left on a powerplay.

Second Period

• Oilers are 1-3 on the PP.
• McDavid out there doing McDavid things, but he doesn’t have as much room as normal. St Louis is maybe better than Vegas.
• There was a big hit and Talbot lost his stick and the net came off and it was perhaps the funniest thing Remenda has ever seen.
• They’ve replaced the ketchup bottle on the glass with an ad for the Westin hotel, and it’s just not the same.
• Luke Brayden Schenn was ROBBED by Talbot at 3:13. Best chance of the period.
• Oilers win the faceoff and get a great chance. Denied by Jake Allen.
• Sobotka got hit in the head (maybe in the back of the neck?) with a puck. Good thing they wear helmets.
• Oilers aren’t getting good chances, but fortunately neither are the Blues.
• Not a lot of flow to this period, with only 5 minutes gone.
• Kassian gets a penalty. The crowd boos. McLellan is unhappy.
• The Oilers are falling down a lot on this penalty kill, and they can’t clear the puck.
• Tarasenko does have a very quick release.
• Scramble in front, and Alex Steen lifts the puck over Cam Talbot. Blues up 2-1.
• McDavid has been kept well to the outside. I don’t think he’s used to that.
• Glamour shot of LB on the bench. More of that please.
• About 11 minutes left. Nuge passes to Lucic on a 2-on-1, but the pass is broken up because of course it is.
• Oilers being outshot 13-3 in the 2nd period with 10:35 left.
• Remenda correctly says that Drai/Connor/Maroon are getting pucks to the net, but they’re not what a paperclip would call grade A chances.
• Bortuzzo smashed Maroon into the boards. Nothing happens.
• Kris Russell has blocked 751 shots since 2014 because Kris Russell is not good at being a defenceman in the NHL. Remenda thinks that the number of blocked shots is a good thing. (Second place is Dan Girardi, another not-good NHL defenceman.)
• Top line is playing well, but they’re not quite in sync. Maybe in the 3rd there will  be a change?
• Tarasenko could play on my team any day. My heavens.
• The ketchup bottle has returned.
• 4 minutes left. Oilers aren’t playing as well as they could.
• Lucic crunches Bortuzzo. Remenda is pleased.
• Puljujarvi has a great chance. Allen makes a great stop. And the beat goes on.
• The last 2 minutes are a flurry of activity at both ends, but the period ends 2-1 Blues.

Third Period

• I didn’t start watching my recording late enough to not catch up to the live feed. I regret not being able to fast forward through commercials.
• The Oilers seem to have a little bit of jump in the early going of this period.
• Puljujarvi is a big man. He hits Jaskin and knocks his helmet off. It was a whole big thing.
• Quinn talking about how many hits St Louis and Edmonton throw as if that’s important.
• It seems shocking that the Oilers are trying to put consecutive home wins together.
• The first 5 minutes of this third period are MUCH better than the first 5 minutes of the second period.
• Drew Remenda definitely owns multiple copies of every volume of Rock’em Sock’em, what with how giddy he is about all the big hits.
• Brayden Schenn scores his 6th with a killer shot.
• The Blues cycle the puck and Alex Pietrangelo held onto it for about 12 seconds, virtually unchallenged. The threads are coming unravelled.
• Brayden Schenn scores again. It’s 4-1. The Rogers Library is REAL quiet.
• I don’t make those fancy charts, but about 3 minutes before their third goal is probably where the Blues start to really take over.
• When they show Mike Yeo, it looks like he’s got long blonde hair because of the lady sitting behind him.
• The Oilers heavy hockey looks like it was exhausting hockey.
• “Second time Pakarinen’s been involved in a double team” is a thing that Kevin Quinn said. Remenda talking about how more hits mean better hockey.
• I really like Jaden Schwartz.
• Oilers have 1 shot, 11 minutes into the third.
• Drew Remenda is apparently a wooden mallet fan. This might explain some things.
• Lucic tries to fight Colton Parayko, but Parayko says “nah fam” and skates away. Lucic gets 2 & 10.
• Does it count as a blocked shot if a guy gets in the way of the puck without going into a starfish? #askingforafriend
• Probably would have been 5-1, but Jayden Schwartz’s stick exploded.
• 5 minutes left. Blues outshooting 39-26.
• 2 minutes left. Oilers still losing, and pretty much getting outworked at every turn.
• McDavid has very little space out there, and it looks strange not to see him streaking down the wing.
• Last minute. Blues just toying with the Oilers now.

And that’s the game. The Oilers go down 4-1, leaving fans dissatisfied and wanting more.

Notes

The Oilers leave on this road trip with a record of 7-10-2. Other than Draisaitl missing a few games, there’s no reason they should be in this position. Obviously some of the luck they experienced last year isn’t happening this year, but there’s something not quite right. After 19 games, coach Todd McLellan should be looking to split up Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to do that.

These 5 games away will be a pretty big determining factor in postseason play – it’s almost American Thanksgiving.