Columbus crime scene a spooky glimpse of Oilers without Connor McDavid

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You want spooky for Halloween?

All you had to do is watch the Edmonton Oilers without Connor McDavid Monday night.

It was like the aftermath of a slasher movie, nothing but Oilers blood and guts strewn all over Nationwide Arena.

And if their humbling 6-1 slaughter is a sign of what’s to come while the Oilers captain recovers from the injury he suffered against the Columbus Blue Jackets, then prepare to be frightened out of your wits.

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“It’s your captain and your best player,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, who might as well have sent five zombies over the boards for all the Oilers got done against a 3-3-1 Nashville team.

“It should be an opportunity for guys to step up and say ‘I got this.’ It’s more ice time, more opportunity.”

As it turned out, it was just more opportunity to make things worse as the Oilers fell behind 3-0 in the first 15 minutes and bled out from there, with their only goal coming in the final 30 seconds of the third period.

“He’s our leader and also the best player in the game, so of course you’re going to feel it,” said Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, shaking his head at the crime scene. “But we have to do a better job of stepping up when a guy like that goes down.”

We won’t know for sure how long the Oilers captain will be out of the lineup after being tripped up and landing awkwardly on his first shift of the game, all Knoblauch could say Monday is that he’s “going back to Edmonton to be evaluated.”

So he’ll miss Thursday night in Nashville for sure, and who knows what beyond that. But any length of time is too long for a team that is still trying to find its footing.

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With the Oilers offence and power play buried at the bottom of the NHL, their penalty killing doing its best to sink even lower than 32nd and the team sitting one game below .500 with a -13 goal differential, this is not the time to losing the best player in the world.

“It’s tough being without your best player, but it’s something we’re going to have to (deal with), hopefully in the short term, and find a way,” said Knoblauch, adding he and general manager Stan Bowman are deciding who gets called up to round out the forward units for Thursday.

“Obviously our team is going to look different. Whether it’s one or two moves, I’m not sure. We’ve discussed it and we’ll make that decision tonight or tomorrow to see who is coming up.”

McDavid has a long history of durability. He’s never missed more than seven games in a season since breaking his collarbone in his rookie season and he’s proven time and again that he’s a fast healer.

That’s good because they need him. That’s no secret, they always need him, but when there’s not much going on with this team except four or five players, it hurts like heck to lose the best one. There have been times in the past when the Oilers were running hot and were fully equipped to withstand the temporary loss of their best guy. This doesn’t seem like one of those times.

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Even with McDavid the power play was floundering and without him Monday it was a smouldering pile of goop. It went 1-for-6 in Columbus, with its only goal coming in garbage time, to fall to 4-for-29 on the season (13.8%).

Even with McDavid, the offence is averaging an anemic 2.20 goals per game, which is third worst in the NHL. And the penalty kill and team defence is nowhere good enough right now to carry the load until the goals start coming.

So, there are a lot of fingers being crossed in Edmonton right now, especially after Monday night’s preview of what the future might look like with McDavid on the shelf.

“I thought we were ready to go and then we give up an early penalty kill goal,” said Knoblauch. “It was a little deflating for our team. And it just seemed like the mistakes we made went in our net.

“Not that I’m blaming Stu (Skinner) because there wasn’t much opportunity to save those, but that first goal against was a tough one.”

Skinner went from a 27-save shutout against the Pittsburgh Penguins in his last start to six goals against on 25 shots in Columbus, so consistency remains a bit of a thing. But, then again, the Oilers could have put Skinner and Calvin Pickard in the net at the same time and still would have lost.

“Tonight it didn’t matter,” said Knoblauch. “We only score one goal, which came in the dying seconds of the game. No matter how well he played we’re likely not winning this game so it’s not on him at all.”

Nope. This game was lost 37 seconds after the opening faceoff. The air was out of this team before the first commercial break.

“We started losing some battles and they took over,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “We know they’re a fast team, they capitalize on little breakdowns and that’s what we saw.”

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