The Edmonton Oilers got a bad break when Connor McDavid called in sick, and then watched the Dallas Stars get a couple of good breaks in a tepid 4-1 loss.
While Edmonton was looking for some unexpected people to step up offensively, it was Dallas who got two fourth-line goals, both on fortunate breaks. Edmonton had a great Corsi but absolutely zero offensive finish. Throw in the nightly Zack Kassian needless penalty, and the ensuing power-play goal, and it was a tidy win for the Stars against a punchless Oilers team.
Edmonton had been rolling along on some low-scoring hockey. This game proves the old theory, however: Zero goals are never enough.
Our takeaways from a slow night in The Big D.
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Hold on here…
Sure, missing McDavid puts a dent in a team’s offensive charge. But c’mon — there are still some players here, and this level of offensive effectiveness was poor, McDavid or no McDavid.
The Oilers had the puck plenty and were sound defensively, limiting Dallas to eight shots on goal at the 30-minute mark. But Stars goalie Anton Khudobin didn’t have to make more than three big saves on this night, and we can only remember two of them.
This was a classic example of how Corsi tells you something about a hockey game, but doesn’t actually win said game. Five-on-five, Edmonton was at 57 per cent after two periods and finished at 53.6 per cent. But all that possession produced their poorest offensive effort of the season, proving another hockey adage: having the puck isn’t as important as doing something with it.
It can’t be McDavid every night, right? This was a chance for the supporting cast to show up, but from the hashmarks down, it was a fail.
Somebody? Anybody?!?
So, let’s name names.
Assuming that neither Leon Draisaitl nor Ryan Nugent-Hopkins qualify as the kind of “unexpected” offence needed with the captain out of the lineup, let’s take stock of the rest of the lineup, shall we?
Jesse Puljujarvi: This young player still dips his toe in the water, waiting for teammates to make things happen. You’d like to see Puljujarvi hang onto the puck, use his size and speed and challenge a defenceman once in a while. On Monday, the puck was off his stick, most times, as fast as it had arrived. You simply can’t say he makes his linemates any better. Yet, at least.
Milan Lucic: Set up Alex Chiassson in the slot with a nice first-period feed, but it went unfinished. The rest of Lucic’s game is what we’ve come to know: High Corsi, low production. He’s at two goals in his last 73 games, and we’ve reached the point where it doesn’t matter what else he does. At $6 million per season, the puck has to cross a goal line now and again — especially on a night like this one.
Zack Kassian: He’s no different than Lucic, other than the fact Kassian makes $4.05 million less. Kassian made a dandy rush early in the game, but missed the net. Then he walked out front from behind the cage … and lost the puck of the end of his stick. It’s not fair to ask for a Kassian goal every game — or even every week. But he’s scored just one this season and two goals in his last 45 games. Less costly penalties, more production, please.
They do have a goalie, though
Serious question: How many games does Mikko Koskinen have to be very good in before we can say he is for real?
He had awful luck on the first two Stars goals — a Mattias Janmark shot where his stick broke, and the errant puck went to a wide-open Jason Dickinson made it 1-0 — but gave the tepid Oilers every chance to stay in the game.
Cam Talbot is expected to get the start Wednesday in St. Louis, as he tries to resuscitate his game. Koskinen is this team’s No. 1, however, and there is absolutely no doubt about that.
Both keepers are unrestricted free agents at year’s end. If everything stays status quo with Koskinen’s game, it’s hard to foresee any other scenario than the Oilers having to choose between the two next summer.
Who saw this coming, when we were criticizing general manager Peter Chiarelli for spending $2.5 million on an unproven backup?
Give the GM some credit here. The Oilers would be done by now without Koskinen in goal.
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