Gut-check time arrives for Oilers after being outclassed by Capitals
“You have to learn how to dig yourself out of the hole.” Adversity has arrived for the Oilers, who looked slow, small and soft in a whupping at the hands of the league-leading Capitals.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s one thing to play poorly, cough up a bunch of chances and lose, the way the Edmonton Oilers did in a 6-3 loss at Philadelphia Saturday.
It’s quite another to bounce back well, lay down a pretty good version of your top game the first 15 minutes — and then get spanked even worse by a team that is supposed to be your equal.
Steam rolled.
Blown out.
Shellacked.
Yes, folks, it’s name your adjective time.
Adversity has arrived for the Edmonton Oilers, who looked slow, small and soft in a 7-3 whupping at the hands of the league-leading Washington Capitals.
“Is there a way to play against that?” Connor McDavid asked, repeating the question. “I mean, push back. I don’t know. It’s just not good.”
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Edmonton has given up 13 goals in two games to open this road trip, with stops remaining in Tampa, Florida and Carolina. The Flyers scored six as Edmonton stunk the joint out, but more worrisome was the seven scored by the Caps, an offensive binge the Oilers can not blame on their own turnovers and poor play.
The Caps were just that much better. In fact, a four-goal spread may favour the Oilers, who looked like the little brother for most of the final 40 minutes on Sunday.
“I thought we were just slow. Slow on defence, slow to get up ice, slow on the attack,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “They were outskating us, and we looked like the slow team tonight.”
If Washington is the standard, then Edmonton has a loooong way to travel before anyone would predict they could handle the Caps in a seven-game series. On Sunday, it was men against boys, as the Caps toyed with Edmonton while trying to find Alex Ovechkin a third goal in the final period.
Ovechkin eventually sealed his hat trick with an empty netter, a memorable event in a game that the Oilers would prefer to forget.
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“It’s probably the best three periods we’ve put together this year,” said rugged Washington winger Tom Wilson. “I thought the whole night we were good, and that can be frustrating for an opponent, especially after they come out and they score (first).”
Washington led 5-1 after two periods, and the rest was merely garbage time. With general manager Stan Bowman and team CEO Jeff Jackson looking down from the press box, everyone got an eyeful of what it takes to beat one of the NHL’s top contenders.
On this day, at least, Edmonton was not on the same plane — or the same planet — as the Capitals.
An Oilers team that got off to that terrible start last season, then righted their ship and never looked back, has now lost three straight games. They overcame another tepid start to this season, but it appears the Oilers will not wait until playoff time before experiencing hard times, the way they did last season.
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It’s almost March, there are three tough games left on this road trip, and the Oilers are in the glue.
“You have to learn how to dig yourself out of the hole,” said veteran winger Corey Perry, who struggled mightily in a game played at the pace kept by the Caps. “You get into playoffs and lose a game, you have to figure it out right away because if you take too long, you’re gone. You’ll be sitting on your couch.”
There’s an old saying in hockey, that big and good beats small and good every time. That played out Sunday in D.C., as an Oilers forward group that is not long on either size nor power couldn’t get off the perimeter in the Caps’ zone.
The Oilers’ team speed comes in the form of puck movement, and a team that lost speedsters Warren Foegele, Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway off of last year’s roster – replaced in part by ageing, ineffective vets Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner — didn’t move the puck fast enough to avoid looking glacial against Washington.
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“Everybody knows how we can play, how good this group is when everybody’s playing the right way,” Perry said. “And over the last, probably, six-and-a-half periods are not the right way. If you recognize that, you can start to build.
“We started the season not great, and we can look at that and look how we got out of it. All it was was hard work. Putting your head down and doing the right things.”
Two goals in garbage time, by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jeff Skinner, made this one look somewhat competitive. Leon Draisaitl opened the game with his 42nd on the power play.
Meanwhile, Ovechkin is now 13 goals away from 895 career tucks, one more than Wayne Gretzky’s 894. Chanceless Calvin Pickard becomes the 181st goalie Ovechkin has scored against.
OIL SPILLS — McDavid is minus-11 in his last four games … The Oilers captain now has 697 assists in 696 career games. He has 1,054 career points, and will be the fourth-highest-scoring player in NHL history through 700 games. Ovechkin had 834 points in his first 700 games … McDavid’s first-period assist was his 50th of the season. This is his ninth consecutive season with at least 50 assists, which ties for the fifth-longest streak in NHL history … Draisaitl has recorded a point in 30 of his last 32 games (30-29-59), including a point in eight straight games (7-5-12) … Capitals are outscoring opponents 74-35 in the third period, largest goal differential in the NHL.
