With the playoffs now just eight games away, the Edmonton Oilers suddenly have the perfect single-game video to serve as a refresher on how not to play.
Reviewing Wednesday’s brutal defeat to the Dallas Stars should be akin to Bart Simpson flipping through his copy of “Don’t Do What Donny Don’t Does” before getting his pocketknife with the Junior Campers. Basically, the Oilers repeatedly made bad decisions that resulted in dangerous chance after dangerous chance for backup goaltender Calvin Pickard to face.
They got what they deserved in a 5-0 loss that saw them allow four goals in a 5:48 span late in the second period.
“We let the second one in and, after that, it seemed like we wanted to go on our own and try sauce passes through our own slot,” defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “We got away from our game.
“Dallas is one of those teams where, when they get those opportunities, they’re going to capitalize. And they did — in a big way. That’s something we’ll have to learn from and be a lot better.”
Coach Kris Knoblauch summed it up like this: “(We were) too easy to play against.”
No kidding.
“That’s not our game, that’s not how we’re going to win.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins shares his thoughts on the loss to the Stars.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/CjGnnja1tH
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) April 4, 2024
It was some of their most trusted players who made some of the biggest gaffes against the Stars.
Leon Draisaitl made two glaring turnovers that led directly to the Stars’ first and fourth goals. That latter goal against was where the sauce pass Ekholm referenced was on display.
Sure, Draisaitl had chances offensively — he hit a post on a power-play one-timer that would have secured the fifth 40-goal, 100-point season of his career — but those two giveaways were inexcusable.
Darnell Nurse, another alternate captain, also had a poor outing.
Nurse mouthed off after taking a minor penalty for interference in the first period and earned himself a 10-minute misconduct. Frustrated or not, putting your team down to five defencemen for 12 minutes for something that could have been easily avoided is something that just can’t take place. Not against an elite team like the Stars. Not with the Oilers in a stretch of playing 10 games in 18 days this month before the playoffs begin.
That was bad enough from Nurse. His read on the third Dallas goal arguably clinched the outcome in the home team’s favour.
With the second unit on the ice at the end of an Oilers power play, Nurse made an irresponsible pinch in the Stars zone. It resulted in a seldom-seen four-on-one against that was finished off by Wyatt Johnston, who’d just stepped out of the penalty box.
A two-defenceman second unit is a conservative tactic used by Knoblauch — as his predecessor Jay Woodcroft did before him. It’s done to provide a safeguard for an offensive counterpunch by an opponent at the end of a failed power play.
Nurse is on the ice to keep the Oilers out of trouble. He made things far worse than a forward would have.
“You have to understand what the situation is,” TNT colour analyst Eddie Olczyk said on the broadcast. “He knows the penalty is expiring. He comes down and, all of a sudden, you’ve got Dallas Stars coming out of the penalty box, coming out of the defensive zone.
“That can’t happen.”
Draisaitl and Nurse were the two biggest culprits. There were more.
Fourth-line centre Sam Carrick was put on the ice late in the second to provide some energy and stability with a four-goal deficit. Instead, he froze in the corner of the Oilers zone and then coughed up the puck for Dallas goal No. 5.
That marker came at 19:04 of the period. Mercifully, the intermission finally came to end the onslaught.
“We’ve got to do a better job of managing shifts after goals where you just play simple and get in on the forecheck,” Ekholm said. “We weren’t able to do that.”
Draisaitl, Nurse and Carrick saw their errors end up in the back of their net. Others were just more fortunate.
There was a moment in the second period when winger Corey Perry — Edmonton’s oldest and probably slowest skater — was the lone man back on a two-on-one rush for the Stars. Draisaitl, Ekholm, Evan Bouchard and Adam Henrique were all caught up the ice.
Pickard was hung out to dry throughout the contest.
“Obviously not the way that we play hockey,” forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said.
Pickard did his best to keep the Oilers in the game.
He prevented a contested breakaway attempt from Logan Stankoven in the second period with the score still just 1-0. He robbed Johnston in the slot after Stankoven pickpocketed Brett Kulak in the corner — another big defensive error by the Oilers.
But it was nowhere close to being enough.
The Oilers completely fell apart as the middle period wound down — the Nurse, Draisaitl and Carrick boo-boos in succession leading to their undoing.
“That’s where you’ve got to stay a little more stubborn defensively,” Ekholm said. “You can’t unravel when you go down two or three goals.”
The Oilers loss, coupled with a Vancouver win in Arizona, puts the Oilers 7 points behind the Canucks for the top spot in the Pacific Division. After going 0-1-1 on a two-game road trip, their chances of winning their first division crown since 1987 are on thin ice.
The defeat in St. Louis was unfortunate. The one in Dallas was all on them.
This shouldn’t be a burn-the-tape scenario. It can’t be at this time of the season, especially since it was against the Stars — the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed and the type of opponent they’re bound to face in a little more than two weeks.
No, the coaching staff should have the players re-watch this one on a loop. Maybe do it “A Clockwork Orange” style for good measure.
“We still have work to do to catch up to them,” Knoblauch said. “There are a lot of teams in our conference where we cannot let that happen.”
“They played a game like what we’re going to see in the playoffs,” Ekholm said. “We’re going to have to manage that a lot better.”
Indeed, they will.
The Oilers simply can’t afford to play like this if they expect to go on a long playoff run — never mind winning the Stanley Cup.
Anything close and they won’t even make it to month’s end.
“I’m sure we’ll watch it and learn from it,” Ekholm said. “We have to.
“We don’t have that many games before it starts for real. It was a big learning game for us.”
(Photo of the Oilers’ and Stars’ reactions after a goal by Wyatt Johnston, center, gave Dallas a 3-0 lead in the second period Wednesday: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
