In the final analysis, the Edmonton Oilers did get quacking against the Anaheim Ducks, with the NHL’s worst team on the afternoon playbill at Rogers Place Saturday, but some foul unpressured errors early sunk the home team.
The Oilers sailed in on Anaheim’s rookie stopper Lukas Dostal over the last two periods, outshooting them 38-9 (23-2 in the third frame), but the AHL call-up who was filling in for the injured normal back-up Anthony Stolarz, wound up with 46 saves in a 4-3 Ducks win.
Not to sound like a broken record this season, but the Oilers couldn’t outscore their mistakes, especially against a Ducks team that has won three games in regulation — against the New York Rangers, Montreal and now the Oilers. A team that has only won two in a row twice this season, with the Ws against the Canadiens and Oilers this past week. A team with four road victories all season.
Wasted days and wasted nights for the Oilers this week in their home rink.
On Thursday night they fell 4-3 in a shootout to St. Louis, with the Blues getting it to OT with 19 seconds left after their top D-man Darnell Nurse falling on his sword and taking the blame for his late mistake.
Against the Ducks, after Nurse blew a long one past Dostal five minutes in, he abandoned the front of the net to help partner Cody Ceci check Mason McTavish and Sam Carrick had a tap-in to tie it 1-1. Eight minutes into the second period, fellow blueliner Evan Bouchard tried to saucer a pass, ex-Oiler forward Ryan Strome knocked it down and had a breakaway from centre, and beat Stuart Skinner.
And in the third, Bouchard effectively blocked Skinner’s eyesight as defenceman John Klingberg came off the boards and beat the Oiler goalie on one of those two shots Skinner faced. Too many times shooting themselves in the foot in a game where only six Ducks’ forwards had shots on Skinner over 60 minutes.
“Too many mistakes,” said Leon Draisaitl, who set up power play goals by Connor McDavid (his 28th goal) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (his 15th).
On goals that weren’t earned? he was asked.
“That’s fair,” he said.
When you only give up 17 shots, your team defending is good.
But the mistakes they made are 10-bell.
“Too many individual mistakes from everyone … defencemen, forwards, and then we’re maybe a little out of position after that where we’re chasing it. We’ve got to clean that up,” said Draisaitl.
Bouchard, who made a bad read against Washington to allow a breakaway by Aleksei Protas that Lars Eller finished off a few games ago, knew instantly his ill-timed pass was also ill-fated when Strome scored to make it 3-1.
“It’s the mistakes that come off our sticks, my stick, that just can’t happen,” said Bouchard, who is learning on the job, a tough task for a young defenceman.
What do you do when it keeps happening?
“You learn from it…it’s happened too much recently. You go back to the fundamentals, keeping things simple,” said Bouchard.
Oiler coach Jay Woodcroft rightfully didn’t cut back his ice-time. He played him almost 18 minutes. All part of the education of a player in his infancy as an NHL defenceman.
“He’s a young D man who’s going through a stretch where simplicity might be his way out of it, rather than complexity,” said Woodcroft. “He’s a young man learning his way in the National Hockey League. Unfortunately, those chances against ended up in our net and the margins were thin today.”
So while Draisaitl got two points as did McDavid, their team kicked away two.
Just as they did against St. Louis, only getting a loser point in the shootout.
“It’s frustrating right now, but we can’t hang our heads. Have to park it, learn from it. “We’ve got a big road trip (Nashville and Dallas) coming up,” said Draisaitl.
Anytime you outshoot a team three to one, you should win, no matter what.
As usual, the Oilers big guys (McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) who have 64 of the team’s 115 goals, led the way. McDavid had eight shots on Dostal, five that went wide and one blocked. Draisaitl had four shots on net and four others wide or blocked. But, they are getting very little offensive juice from anybody else other than Zach Hyman (14 goals) up front. He had four shots that Dostal also saved.
Dostal was very good after also beating Montreal this week. He had no chance on McDavid on a 5-on-3, or Nugent-Hopkins on his doorstep with a raft of bodies in the blue-paint. And Nurse’s shot looked screened.
“Anytime you can hold at team to 17 shots on goal, you expect to win the game, especially when you pour 49 at the opposite net. The big errors are within our control, and we’ve got clean them up,” said Woodcroft.
“Dostal was very composed, he’s a big part of our future,” said Ducks’ coach Dallas Eakins, who got tired seeing McDavid and Draisaitl on the PP, which had 15 shots on six tries with their two goals.
“This is a really hard building to stay out of the box. Connor is so dynamic and Leon is dynamic and the crowd has a wonderful effect here, too. That is the biggest advantage of having home ice,” said Eakins.
“Through two period I thought we played solid and then in the third with the penalties and having a weary team on the last game of the trip,we were hanging on by a thread,” said Eakins.
“In the third (23 shots) we created numerous chances…but it shouldn’t even get to that (desperate) situation,” said Draisaitl.
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