RECAP: Sharks Win 7-4 In A Walk

The Oilers are in serious trouble.

The Oilers were outplayed for well over 50 minutes of this game, it was reflected in a final score of 7-4. The Oilers are now winless in their last five contests, and any ideas of a playoff chance are slipping away precipitously.

God, do we really have to recap this nonsense?

It’s really easy to have optimism when the score is 0-0. Fortunately for the Oilers, the score is 0-0 at the beginning of every game! These scores, they can go either way. One team scores, it goes up by one. Anyone could score! You know who scored first in this one? The Oilers scored first. Sure looked like Ty Rattie, but the goal goes to Connor McDavid. Probably your second guess.

The first goal goes to Connor McDavid, it’s his 20th of the year. As of this writing, he’s six points behind Nikita Kucherov in the scoring race. Hey, the Oilers get on the board first. They’re up 1-0, and anything can happen. At least the Oilers are going to get a little confidence in their game, pep in their step, good times ahead.

It lasted exactly sixteen seconds before San Jose responded.

That’s a terrible move by Drake Caggiula which turns quickly into a three on one for San Jose. Caggiula moves in for a big hit, but he’s not close. It’s 1-1 just sixteen seconds after Connor McDavid scored.

It only got worse from there. The Sharks would score again three minutes later when Tomas Hertl tucked it by Cam Talbot for his fourteenth of the year. It’s not all bad at this point, but the Sharks would take a 2-1 lead to the dressing room after one. Shots were 12-all, and it’s still manageable at this point.

Second period is where the wheels rolled off. Logan Couture and Erik Karlsson would each get a goal for the Sharks, and it’s 4-1 before you know it. Cam Talbot isn’t having a good night at this point, it could easily be 7-1. Don’t you worry though, San Jose gets their seventh goal eventually. It would take the third period before we’d see it, but it’s gonna come.

That’s the seventh goal for San Jose. I kinda glossed over two other goals for San Jose, but this is what the seventh goal looked like as Melker Karlsson scores his second goal of the day. The game ended at 7-4, but we’ve got to get to the bullet points to hammer some things home.

FRUSTRATION

• Cam Talbot was in net for all seven Oiler goals on 40 San Jose shots. This game could’ve been 11-1 at the end. Not a good day for Talbot, but honestly, it could’ve easily been three or four goals worse.
• Go watch the first goal that the Sharks scored again. Drake Caggiula played 2LW to start the game, and him swinging and missing the big hit sums up the night perfectly.
• NUMBERS: Melker Karlsson had two goals. Erik Karlsson had four points (1-3-4). Barclay Goodrow, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Joonas Donskoi, Brenden Dillon each had two points, and Brent Burns had two points in his 1001st NHL game had two points. You know who had a good day for the Oilers? Ty Rattie had three assists. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl each had a couple of points.
• Did you know Valentin Zykov got claimed by the Golden Knights today? Kailer Yamamoto was called up yesterday and Zykov was shipped to Bakersfield. Before he got there, Vegas claimed him. How did Yamamoto do? He was on a line with Jujhar Khaira and Milan Lucic. As you might have expected, there isn’t much to expect there.
• In my frustration, I purposely left out the late goals scored by Caleb Jones, Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, who scored one with six seconds remaining in regulation. Congratulations to Caleb Jones on picking up his first NHL goal, hopefully the next one he scores won’t be in garbage time.
• Hitchcock tried to make something happen at the beginning of the third period when he jumbled the lines with 97, 29 and 93
• Kris Russell is expected to be back in the lineup against Winnipeg. That’s great, but it doesn’t fix what we just saw. The roster is not good, and it’s exacerbated by the loss of Oscar Klefbom (and to a lesser extent, the lack of Andrej Sekera). February can’t come soon enough.
• We’ve beaten this poor horse for too long, but this roster is going to face Winnipeg on New Year’s Eve. It’s not good enough, and the Oilers are now on a five game losing streak after some success when Ken Hitchcock became bench boss. Peter Chiarelli has got to be feeling the heat right now, and I don’t see how he makes it through two more consecutive losses.

Oilers are home against Winnipeg on Monday night. Buckle up.