EDMONTON — And here we thought the problem in Edmonton was Toby Rieder, who made it through his 61st game this season, still snipe-less.
Hey, name another team in the NHL that got 43 goals this season out of German-born players. We dare ya.
Anyway, it turns out that foot speed is the Oilers problem, according to the coach. Or perhaps, as Alex Chiasson points out, being ready to play against opponents who, like Edmonton, are down the standings.
“No, no, no!” said Milan Lucic. It’s the home record — especially on Hockey Night in Canada.
Unfortunately, like everyone who unloaded on Oilers CEO Bob Nicholson over the past 48 hours, they’re all correct. The Oilers are slow, they start slow, and they’re lousy on Saturdays, their latest effort being a 4-3 overtime loss to the NHL’s last place team, the Ottawa Senators.
“The first period, it just feels like we don’t respect our opponent,” said Chiasson. “We play a team like Columbus that is fighting for its life to get into playoffs, and it may not have been the prettiest game, but we played a tight game and didn’t give them anything. Tonight we play a team at the bottom of the standings, that has traded away four or five of its best players, and they outwork us.
“In our position, that is not good enough.”
Ken Hitchcock sees a different issue, in fact taking umbrage with any thought that losing to lowly Ottawa was some kind of carnal sin.
“What would you say to Toronto? They lost 6-2 to this team,” said Hitchcock, later adding, “You’re not going to tell me our team wasn’t ready. We were ready to battle today.”
So, what holds the Oilers back? Well, Hitchcock used the term “foot speed” seven times in his opening answer post-game.
“When you’re a team that skates as well as they do, they put a lot of pressure on you,” he assessed. “Foot speed matters, and we’ve struggled for most of the year against foot speed. And we knew when they added their players … there was more foot speed. That’s our struggle. It’s not the opponent.
“Foot speed matters,” he continued, “and we have to find a better way to negate foot speed. We shut down Columbus’ foot speed by hemming them in. Today, they got loose on us. What did (Anthony) Duclair have? Three breakaways?
“The foot-speed problem, that’s a problem for us. We’ve got to fix that.”
OK. Slow starts. Foot speed.
What else?
“If you look at our record as a whole,” began Milan Lucic, “I think you can say we’ve been a good enough road team (16-17-5) to help our cause, to make the playoffs. But, for whatever reason, we have not been a good enough home team.
“We’re under .500 (actually 17-17-3),” he continued. “Saturdays at home — two o’clock, five o’clock, eight o’clock, I don’t care when it is — we haven’t been good enough.”
The Oilers’ Saturday night record this season is 7-11-2. At home, it is a pathetic 3-7-1, which Lucic just can’t get his head around.
“Saturday is usually the most exciting time of the week, for a Canadian kid, especially,” he said. “When I was in the States, when you’d get a chance to play on a Saturday in Canada you’re ramped up more than anything.
“You look at our season as a whole, it’s not just giving out garbage points here and there. It’s our home record and our Saturdays at home. They just haven’t been there.”
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This Saturday, Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson collected his first win since Dec. 17, having lost 14 straight decisions. Connor McDavid tied a career high with point No. 108, but a lost point against the 31st-best team in the league at home is crippling.
“This has to be a hard place to come into and play,” said Chiasson, a quote we have quite worn out over the past decade in Edmonton. “As the game went on, we were much better, but we have to do a better job of dictating the pace in the first 10 minutes, with our tempo and physicality. We didn’t do that.”
OK. Let’s just all agree.
It’s not the foot speed that will make the Oilers one of just three teams in National Hockey League history to miss the playoffs 12 times in 13 years this spring. And it’s not some kind of Hockey Night in Canada jinx, or an acute fear of succeeding in front of friends and family.
Let’s just come to an understanding here.
It’s Toby Rieder’s fault.
