EDMONTON — A little help, please.
The Edmonton Oilers are a one-line team with a defenceman who is fourth in the NHL in scoring. And they can’t blame injuries for that anymore.
“We need more, for sure,” said head coach Mike Babcock, whose team lost just their second game this season — but in regal fashion. It was a 7-2 blowout aired coast to coast, under the glare of the Saturday night lights against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
There are the one or two nights a year that a coach should be able to count on a passionate effort from all 20 players.
Leafs head coach Jim Hiller got it from his side. But Babcock?
“Jim Hiller had his group playing harder than I had my group. That’s on me,” said Babcock.
“It's a shame,” said Edmonton winger Kasperi Kapanen, after a pointless, minus-2 night for the former Leaf. “It's Saturday night against these guys. It’s what we live for as hockey players, and it just wasn't enough today. They were just better.”
Edmonton scored two goals and had six points — two assists each for Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard, and two goals for Leon Draisaitl, who has a dozen goals already.
The rest of the team? They ghosted this one.
Meanwhile, Toronto got goals from the dynamic Troy Stecher, plus depth wingers Zack MacEwen and Vinni Lettieri.
“Their bottom six was better than ours,” admitted Babcock. “The bottom line is, they were better than us. They were more competitive than us. They were quicker than us. We can blame anybody we want.”
In goal, Tristan Jarry wasn’t any better than the group in front of him. He had zero chance on a few of the Leafs goals, but he also didn’t do anything to make Toronto believe that it might get stonewalled tonight.
The guy at the other end, former Oiler Anthony Stolarz, was undoubtedly the better netminder — but he also faced far less danger from a sleepy Oilers squad that was a step behind the surging Leafs right from puck drop.
Now, with Devon Levi out of action with what is believed to be a groin injury, it’s highly likely that Jarry will get the final two starts of this homestand — Monday against Detroit and Wednesday versus the Calgary Flames.
Full credit to the Oilers. They’ve started the season at 8-2-1 and built a lovely cushion to pad the pain of a few inevitable losses.
And you could truly see this loss coming from miles away, after Edmonton had rescued the first two games of the homestand against Minnesota and Carolina despite being outplayed at times by both opponents.
“Perhaps,” offered Kapanen, when asked if this loss was likely due. “I don't have a crystal ball, and I don't think you have one either. It's a shame. We should be really excited to play a game like this tonight. And for whatever reason, we just weren't at our best today.
“Hopefully, this kind of wakes us up, and we just bring our best on Monday.”
At issue here is a team that has been carried all season long by a red-hot top line, and a power play that is running at 35.1 per cent. The top line is beyond good, but how many nights can McDavid pile up four or five points?
They don’t need much from the bottom nine, or the other five defencemen. But every now and again someone has to kick one in — just to take the pressure off the big boys.
“We’re capable of playing way better and being way more competitive,” said Zach Hyman, who’s played five games now and has just a single power-play goal to show for it. “I think we can play heavier. There are a lot of things that we can clean up and be better at.”
Babcock made both Trent Frederic and Ike Howard healthy scratches on Saturday, replacing them with Filip Hallander and Max Jones. But it was trusty defenceman Connor Murphy who took the fight with Lettieri when the score was 3-0 Toronto, and the Oilers needed a lift.
That’s likely a job for someone else. But that someone else was nowhere to be found on Saturday.
“We’ve got to play more simple,” said fourth-line centre Colton Dach. “Just getting pucks in and playing hard, that’s our identity and we’ve just got to continue to do that.
“They were the better team, they played harder.
“We’ve just got to find a way to compete more.”
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