Tight Game - Oilers Loss

Unlike other games I wasn’t able to sit down and capture every agonizing moment because we had company coming over for supper. I watched the Oilers get outshot 5-0 in the opening 5 minutes and almost gave up watching. Then my six year old son grabbed a piece of orange construction paper and a pencil crayon, stood infront of the TV and started writing something down. I asked him "Magnus what are you doing?" He stopped what he was doing looked at me and said "Since you aren’t writing down what’s happening in the game someone has to." Glancing over at his work I saw that he was writing down the time on the play clock and whether it was a power play or not. It was the highlight of the game for me.

Highlights

Summary

As you can tell I, like most of the Oilers’ fan base, have lost interest in watching another pathetic limp to the end of the season. Today’s game was no different for me, especially when I turned on the game, went to grab a drink from the fridge and walked back to see the Ducks score 45 seconds into the game. Like I had predicted, Todd Nelson decided to play Ben Scrivens over a rested Richard Bachman and almost immediately I said to myself this game is over.

But things didn’t play out the same as they had in mind. The Oilers put in a decent effort and were actually able to out play a tired and older Anaheim team. When Nail Yakupov feathered a pass to Teddy Purcell to tie the game just 28 seconds into the second period, I got quite excited. The Oilers started to push and got a few more nice chances as the game wore on.

But as we have all come to expect the Oilers’ luck ran out with just over 7 minutes left in the game when Ryan Getzlaf’s shot, that was going wide by the way, was redirected into the net by Justin Schultz’s skate.

The Oilers didn’t sit back though. Right after the 2-1 goal the Oilers got two decent shots on net and had some good pressure which also lead to tripping penalty to Nate Thompson on Oscar Klefbom. The first power play unit looked disjointed, they couldn’t hold the zone and gave up the puck a couple times. Then the second unit came in and both Yakupov and Iiro Pakarinen had some great looks. Nothing came of it but the Oilers did continue to press but time and luck weren’t on their side today.

Thoughts

The loss brings us one more game closer to the end of the season and held the Oilers in the DFL race. Edmonton is still 6 points up on Buffalo but only 3 points back of Arizona for the 28th spot in the NHL. This is going to be a tight race to crappiness but if anyone can do it the Oilers can.

Up Next

The Minnesota Wild in Minnesota this time. Maybe Devan Dubnyk can make it 6 wins against the Oilers this season. The game started at 6PM on Tuesday evening. Enjoy.

PS. I'm pretty sure my son did a better job of capturing the game than most of the beat writers.