• Milan Lucic‘s struggles continue
• Pekka Rinne fantastic in victory
• Viktor Arvidsson continues to shine vs. Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers are better this season. In fact, you can even call them a good team now, considering they’ve spent most of the season among the National Hockey League’s Top 10 clubs.
They are not so good, however, that back-to-back losses to good Central Division teams has been ruled out. The Oilers followed up a waxing by Minnesota on Tuesday with a hard and evenly played 2-0 loss in Nashville Thursday night.
We watched, made some notes, and here are our takeaways from a second consecutive regulation loss. A playoff-intensity game that was winnable for most of the evening, from an Oilers standpoint:
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• Viktor Arvidsson. How good a player is this guy?
Nashville drafted the 23-year-old Arvidsson out of Skelleftea, Sweden in the fourth round in 2014, and he was perhaps the best player on the ice in each of the last two meetings between Edmonton and Nashville, both wins for the Preds. He’s small — five-foot-nine, 180 pounds — but tenacious? Wow!
He’s a bulldog without the puck and a buzz saw with it. Arvidsson wired home the game’s first goal off the right wing, then made a beauty pass for Ryan Johansen’s open-net one-timer that made it 2-0.
This kid is a huge find for GM David Poile and the Preds — a fourth-rounder that not only plays, but also looks like he could be a big contributor for a long time. He’s a great example of a guy who has all the intangibles, and plenty of tangibles too.
• Concern grows about Milan Lucic’s game, after he signed that massive seven-year, $42 million deal last July 1. The hopes are that his game will be more prevalent come playoff time, but for now, he appears too slow and lumbering to get to the checks he used to throw.
Lucic played 19:07 in a strong defensive effort Thursday, but for $6 million, more is expected. He looks to us like a guy who will come back next season 10 pounds lighter after having trained differently for the new game.
In the meantime, as long as opponents don’t fight him and let him sleep, the pure hockey aspect of his game hasn’t been as effective as GM Peter Chiarelli had hoped. He’s just not quick enough.
• After a so-so start to the season, Nashville is beginning to look very much like the Predators team we expected. As their injured players return, so too does the Predators identity as a defensive juggernaut.
When the Preds are on they are perhaps the most difficult team in hockey to carry a puck through the neutral zone against. Their defence skates so well, so they can keep those tight gaps that force you to dump and chase.
And when you do that, goalie Pekka Rinne is as good as there is at collecting the puck and getting it to the right teammate to initiate a breakout.
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• The good news for Edmonton? This game was up for grabs, with a few unfortunate bounces at the wrong time separating them from scoring at least the two goals required to get to overtime.
Edmonton’s game is pretty sound. It’s production from guys like Lucic, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Benoit Pouliot that makes the difference in games like this one. Guys who get paid to produce points always wear the goat horns in a shutout.
• Rinne, it must be said was fantastic, stopping all 31 shots he faced. When he is playing this well, Rinne could drag any club through a playoff round or two. He is so big, so economical in his movement, so stingy at allowing rebounds. And his puck handling skills? He’s in the top 10 per cent in the NHL.
This guy is truly a franchise goalie. It’s amazing the Preds have won never won more than one playoff round in a single spring.
