Mediocre Edmonton Oilers don’t seem willing to pay the price

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It was a perfect measuring stick for a team still trying to find itself a quarter of the way through a season that isn’t going the way anyone expected.

Bring in one of the best teams in the NHL, turn them loose in Rogers Place and let’s see where the inexplicably average Edmonton Oilers stand.

Turns out they didn’t stand at all. They got rolled over.

They weren’t good enough. And they didn’t play hard enough.

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The Minnesota Wild schooled them on both counts Thursday. Despite the Oilers getting more gifts than a rich kid whose birthday falls on Christmas, the Wild still beat them for fun in a 5-3 victory that everyone in the place knew was more like 6-1.

Minnesota had one goal taken off the board and another disallowed while Edmonton had one goal go in off a Wild skate and another beat Marc-Andre Fleury from 160 feet away. And the game still wasn’t close.

There is no sugar-coating it: The gap between the Oilers and the best teams in the league is disturbingly large. Against opponents with winning records, Edmonton has just two wins in 10 tries (2-6-2), beating Calgary and Vancouver and losing to Winnipeg, Calgary, Dallas, Carolina, Jersey, Vegas, Toronto and Minnesota by a combined score of 33-12.

“I don’t think we’ve played close to our potential many nights,” said defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “We know we played a lot better hockey (at their peak) last year but in order to get there it starts with the work, it starts with the defensive side of the game.”

The sky isn’t falling yet. The Oilers are still hanging around a wildcard spot (10th in Western Conference winning percentage) with 61 games to go. Teams that sit 10-9-2 in mid November can still make it to the Stanley Cup Final.

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But teams that play like the Oilers are playing right now don’t make it past the first round.

“I definitely believe in this team,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, who has no other choice. “I think we should be better than our record, but it’s a hard game. You need good players, but you need good players working hard. Collectively, we can do more.”

‘Trying to be too cute’

That’s the issue right now. In the hard areas of the ice, Edmonton isn’t hard enough.

“We talk about that all the time,” said 39-year-old winger Corey Perry, who is third among Oilers forwards in goals this year with four. “The (other) goalies are seeing too many shots and we’re trying to be too cute playing the perimeter game. It just doesn’t work.”

Remember at the start of the season when Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner came to Edmonton, joining Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman as wingmen for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl? And the Oilers had the best top six in the NHL?

Well, it’s 21 games in and after you get past McDavid and Draisaitl four of the next five leading scorers on this team are defencemen. After McDavid and Draisaitl, the forward with the most five-on-five points is third line winger Mattias Janmark.

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Arvidsson, who can’t seem to stay healthy, is injured, Skinner has bounced through all four lines already and Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins are a rumour, combining for four even-strength goals (two each) in 41 man games.

“Overall, we have to find ways to score goals,” said Knoblauch. “You need skill to do that but you also need some grit, simplifying your game and going hard to the net.”

Knoblauch wonders if some of his forwards are getting caught up in the McDavid-Draisaitl hype and forgetting what it takes to score goals when you aren’t one of the best players in the world.

“We have incredibly skilled players who can make those plays,” Knoblauch said of his two lead dogs. “And when you’re playing with those guys and you see them doing it, sometimes the other players get mistaken identity and try that extra pass and play on the perimeter rather than shooting for a rebound and getting to the net. It’s little things like that.”

‘Losing battles around the net’

It’s a similar theme around Edmonton’s net, where opposing players are setting up shop with very little resistance.

“In the defensive zone it’s not being able to close things out and also losing battles around the net, the most important area,” said Knoblauch. “All (Minnesota’s) goals were five or 10 feet away from the blue paint. I don’t think we did enough to get there and defensively we didn’t do a good enough job boxing out.”

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And, in goal, Stuart Skinner ranks 52nd in the NHL in save percentage out of 60 goalies who’ve played five or more games this year. On a team that can’t score and isn’t committed enough around its own net, this is the last straw.

“He’s not playing the level he was last year,” said Knoblauch. “Last year I thought he was one of the top goaltenders and if he had a bad game it was turned around the next night.”

But while Skinner hasn’t been good enough, the Oilers are also not an easy team to be a goalie on.

“For a goalie to play well we have to be more predictable for him,” said Knoblauch. “What kind of shots are we giving up? Where are they coming from? Taking away the high danger shots. Tonight was not a predictable game for a goaltender to turn his game around.”

So the mystery continues. Is this another slow start that’s going to be wiped from the memory banks when the real Edmonton Oilers show up and start tearing through the league?

Or is this it? Is this who they are now?

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