General Disappointment: Stars 6, Oilers 3

It started bad, it got better, then it got bad again. That’s the summary of the 6-3 loss the Oilers took in Dallas to start their five game road trip. Coach McLellan ended up jumbling his lines a little bit opting to go with Leon Draisaitl on the second line, while Drake Caggiula would get Draisaitl’s old slot.

Dallas got goals from six different players en route to a victory today, while the Oilers only mustered half of that to open a five game road trip. Somewhat unbelievably, the Oilers had the lead in this one (albeit only for eight minutes.)

The party kicked off when Antoine Roussel scored after dumping the puck into the Oiler zone and fired it off of the back of Cam Talbot’s pad from behind the goal line. Read that again, now watch it.

The Oilers should’ve just folded their table and headed to St. Louis for Tuesday’s game, but they insisted on staying for the whole game.

FUN FACT: The Stars scored on their first two shots of the game!

Things didn’t get much better when Alexander Radulov put the Stars up 2-0 from near the top of the faceoff circle two minutes later. Less than nine minutes into the game, Dallas was up 2-0 and if you turned your TV off, I wouldn’t have blamed you.

The Oilers would make it interesting when Drake Caggiula would score his second goal (a shortie!) of the year on a simply marvellous pass from Connor McDavid.

Caggiula would have two goals on the day, including one that would (temporarily) put the Oilers up 3-2. Kari Lehtonen did not look good, he was yanked after Caggiula’s second goal. Here comes Ben Bishop. Finally! The Oilers would overcome some adversity going down early, and they’d chase a goalie, and they’d run away with the game.

About that.

With less than two minutes remaining in the second period, Tyler Pitlick (hey, that guy!) would have the primary assist on Radek Faksa’s go-ahead goal

DON’T WORRY, IT GOT BETTER IN THE THIRD

Except, no, it didn’t. The Oilers would surrender two more goals (the Stars’ sixth goal was a two-on-none power play goal, I promise you I’m not screwing with you) and it ended in favour of the Stars by a 6-3 margin. Oilers are 7-11-2 at the quarter pole, and don’t get any easier headed into St. Louis on Tuesday.

THIS ISN’T TOM POTI OR SHELDON SOURAY OR JORDAN EBERLE OR LINUS OMARK OR ALES HEMSKY OR DUSTIN PENNER OR TAYLOR HALL OR JEFF PETRY SO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Can we...just not do this?

The Oilers aren’t having very much fun to the start of the 2017-18 season, it’s true. Can we not start with the Jeff Petry treatment so soon? At least wait until the new contract kicks in, then start with the stories about body language and not being first on the ice or how Linus Omark’s twitter response was an attack on the club, and how Ethan Moreau is the character guy that this hockey club really needs now, and really, does he fit our culture?

The Oilers travel to St. Louis looking for a win on Tuesday. Catch it!