EDMONTON — This train only arrived at the station Sunday night, a day late and a dollar short in a 5-1 home-ice loss to the Los Angeles Kings. But it’s been stumbling down the tracks for some time now.
“This has been coming for a while here. Been coming for a while,” repeated Edmonton Oilers head coach Dave Tippett, whose team had a dreary game Friday in Seattle, then didn’t get back to work to his liking come Saturday’s practice.
He saw this effort coming: Soft, noncommittal, all eyes peeled in search of the easy road.
“We’ve been masking it with some special teams stuff, but we haven’t had enough guys play well for a while,” he said Sunday evening. “It was a 2-1 score, but weren’t good enough in it and we gave up some powerplay goals at the end.”
The Los Angeles Kings presented Edmonton with a NASCAR face on Sunday night, and the Oilers pulled out of the garage in their flashy F1 cars.
This was a barn dance, and the Oilers showed up in ballet slippers, not cowboy boots.
“We need to play down low,” said winger Warren Foegele, as big a no-show as any of his teammates. “You can’t always try to score off the rush, you have to find ways to score down low. That’s what it’s going to be like in the playoffs. We have to find a solution to doing that more consistently.”
On one hand, this was a 2-1 game that turned when Connor McDavid — of all people — was quite rightly assessed a boarding major and game misconduct with 6:33 to play. He plowed Arian Kempe right in the No. 9, and the Kings scored three times on the powerplay to make it look like a blowout.
On the other hand, this was wholly lopsided — if work ethic, attention to detail and systems play could be tallied up after 60 minutes.
Los Angeles was very good and very hard to play against, handing the Oilers a textbook reminder of what they’ll face from every opponent when the games get more important as the season wears on.
“I don’t think you beat the Edmonton Oilers unless you check,” said Kings head coach Todd McLellan. “You open it up and play a freewheeling game, you’re not going to win. Checking and patience led to opportunities for us and we took advantage of them.”
When the opponent takes that tack, then executes it as perfectly as the Kings did, Edmonton needs to dig in and push back.
That’s where they were delinquent on Sunday, and in recent games.
Not enough push from not enough people. Too many no-shows.
Call it what you want, after a great start — much of it on the backs of two superstars and a league-leading powerplay — Edmonton has fallen into a groove where they only work as hard as they have to. Trying to win without getting their hands dirty.
“We’ve got too many guys who aren’t contributing enough to help us here,” Tippett agreed. “We need some more throughout our lineup.”
Calling Foegele. Jesse Puljujarvi. Zack Kassian. Kailer Yamamoto. Tyson Barrie. Derek Ryan. Even McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Leon Draisaitl for the past two games.
“It‘s not depth guys,” cautioned Tippett. “It’s everybody tonight. We didn’t play well enough as a group tonight.”
The Kings opened the scoring just 2:01 into the game, marking the 14th time in 23 games that Edmonton has fallen behind 1-0. L.A. never trailed for the rest of the night.
For the second straight night, the goalie at the other end was better than Edmonton’s netminder. In Seattle, it was Stuart Skinner with a below-average start. On Sunday, Mikko Koskinen took a turn playing at a pedestrian level.
Let’s face it: Tippett has a fourth line, with Colton Sceviour, Derek Ryan and Devin Shore. But he doesn’t have a third line.
Ryan McLeod may grow into the third-line centre this team requires. But that takes seasons, not months.
Foegele is a big body who can skate. But his hands…? If he’s not throwing his weight around, he’s not helping.
And Kassian? That ship had sailed, folks. He hasn’t been a positive player for three games in a row in ages.
“Some adversity is good for us right now. It’s a recognition that it has to get better,” said Tippett. “We’ve had a good start — we’ve done some good things — but we have to get way better if we’re going to be a real, top competitive team. You’re going to go through some ups and downs. These downs show you how much you have to be better.”
And if they don’t, then perhaps flip the channel over to a Calgary Flames game and watch how Daryl Sutter’s team plays.
If you think you’re going to win a series against Calgary with the “pretty boys” approach the Oilers have adopted of late, you are sadly mistaken.
The Flames team we’re watching will eat this Oilers' effort for lunch, spit them out in five games, and move on to the next victim.
It has to get better, harder and more committed in Edmonton, or these Oilers are going to go down in history as Toronto West.
Let’s see if they get it, the way their head coach does.
