Professorless Oilers Lose on the Island

As we’d hear about a hundred times in the game tonight was probably the Oilers’ last visit to Nassau Coliseum as the Islanders are set to move to Brooklyn next season. And both teams really made a game of it. If you didn’t see it, I don’t blame you, but it was probably one of the better games I’ve watched this season.

Earlier in the day we also learned that Ben Scrivens would be out for a while with a hamstring injury so Viktor Fasth got the start and Richard Bachman would be backing him up. Chances were that Scrivens wasn't going to get the start tonight anyway but an injury is never a good thing.

Highlights

First Period

• 10:06 5v4 - Anders Lee for hooking - Drawn by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
• 9:43 GOAL - Ryan Hamilton tips Nail Yakupov’s shot and gets his first NHL goal
• 9:31 4v5 - Matt Hendricks for delay of game (puck over glass)
• 7:31 5v5 - Penalty expires
• 6:40 GOAL - Colin McDonald makes a quick pass to Matt Martin. Martin takes a hard shot that rebounds right back to McDonald who buries the rebound
• 6:12 5v4 - Brian Strait for hi-sticking - Drawn by Anton Lander
• 4:12 5v5 - Penalty expires

Second Period

• 8:33 GOAL - Thomas Hickey wires a shot from that point. Josh Bailey tips it on its way into the net
• 4:55 5v4 - Bailey and Hendricks get into a pushing match after Bailey cross checked Hendricks. Bailey gets the extra 2 minutes for cross-checking
• 3:26 GOAL - Anton Lander sneaks into the slot while Jordan Eberle is behind the net with puck. Eberle makes a great pass for Lander and Lander releases it quickly
• 1:11 4v5 - Derek Roy for hooking - Drawn by Strait

Third Period

• 19:11 5v5 - Penalty expires
• 17:49 - Ryan Hamilton gets open again and gets a quick pass from Roy while he’s driving to the net but Jaroslav Halak makes the stop
• 13:24 - Eberle all alone in the blue paint and the rebound goes right to him. He releases it quickly and hits the post.
• 4:47 - This was a sequence where two penalties could have been called but weren’t which segues nicely into the next event
• 4:37 GOAL - Casey Cizikas scores after two Oilers are caught up ice. Mark Fayne tries to make a move to break up the pass but Cizikas gets it and lets the shot go. It appears to hit Martin Marincin on the way in.
• 1:00 EMPTY NET

Thoughts

The Oilers deserved a better fate than this tonight. They actually played quite well. This was probably one of the few games that could’ve gone to a shootout and I wouldn’t have minded.

One guy that really impressed me tonight was Luke Gazdic. I am probably one of the biggest critics of Gazdic but he actually had a really nice game tonight. He played the least amount of time out of any Oilers’ player (9:17) but had 4 shots on net. To put that in perspective both Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins also had 4 shots on net with almost double the time on ice. That’s pretty impressive.

Up Next

The Oilers head to Montreal to take on the Canadiens at the Bell Centre. Once again the game is an early game because of the eastern time zone so if you are going to be watching the game it starts at 5:30 mountain time.