Weight a minute.
A plane carrying too much cargo, is a little like the way the Edmonton Oilers felt against Florida on Sunday night. Head coach Tom Renney says, if there's anyone at fault for that feeling, he would be at the top of the list.
"I'll take the blame for it," Renney fessed up at his Wednesday morning meeting with the media.
Since Sunday's lethargic showing against Florida, where Edmonton won 3-2, the topic of what happened to the Oilers has been a popular one.
The reason being is that game two of the season, was the exact opposite of what Edmonton displayed in game one against Calgary.
That night the energy and enthusiasm was overflowing and while some of it could be chalked up to opening night, Edmonton had a jump that was long gone by the time they met Florida three days later.
The culprit was Saturday's hour and a half long practice that left the team with heavy legs, for their game the next night.
"The problem is that we had a lactate buildup and we couldn't flush it out, that's why we just couldn't get going," explained Renney.
Interestingly enough on Tuesday the head coach alluded to what was wrong versus the Panthers, but didn't fully explain it.
On Wednesday he came clean.
"I just decided that we would have that kind of practice on Saturday," said the first year Edmonton bench boss. "Then I quickly figured out the next night what was wrong."
Renney said his deduction, was from what he saw and what he heard.
"Not only did I pick up on it from my vantage point on the bench," said Renney. "But I also talked to a few of the players and it was duly noted that they just didn't have what's needed to play well at this level."
A lesson learned in a win.
So the good news for Edmonton is while they didn't flush out their legs, they also didn't end up flushing two points down the drain.
