Pain continues for the Edmonton Oilers, and a massive thank you

• The one aspect that wasn’t shown was Andrew Mangiapane’s errant pass in the offensive zone. He put the pass behind Draisaitl, which thwarted a good chance, and allowed the Stars to break out of their zone. The Stars made a routine dump-in, but 
  Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm lost the battle behind the net. Vasily Podkolzin was in a decent spot in front of the net, but he didn’t tie up his man and had bad stick positioning.

2. Stars score on the PP.

• Henrique and Savoie allow the pass to go between them down low, where Skinner makes a solid stop on Heiskanen, but he ends up out of position, and Hintz has a wide-open net for the rebound. Skinner needs to have better movement control on that play.

3. Bastian makes it 3-0.

• Again, the video doesn’t show the giveaway by Frederic. He’s on the right wall, and instead of dumping it deep in the zone, he tries a cross-ice pass looking for McDavid, who was coming off the bench. The pass goes right to the Stars, and they move up ice. Now, the puck wasn’t in a dangerous spot even after the turnover, as Blackwell’s pass is deflected by Draisaitl and slows down right in front of the Oilers bench. Frederic changes, rather than engage in the play, and Kulak loses the board battle, and Bastian is allowed to walk right down the lane — if you give NHL players that much time and space, usually they can pick their spot.

4. Sam Steel makes it 4-0.

• A ghastly turnover by Ekholm. He wasn’t pressured, but he mishandled the puck and then just shot it off the boards right to the Johnston. Johnston isn’t in a dangerous spot as he takes his time skating down the right wall. Ekholm backs in, McDavid doesn’t really pressure him, and he doesn’t shoulder-check either, which leaves 
  Jamie Benn wide open in the slot. He’s shooting from the ideal spot on the ice with time. Skinner gets a piece of the shot, which then ricochets off the post and lands in the crease and Steel taps in an easy goal. Ekholm made an odd choice to slide down to try and intercept Johnston’s pass and wound up sliding into the corner and out of the play.

5. Robertson scores his 11th goal in seven games to make it 5-0.

• The Stars were on a 5-0n-3 man advantage. Their PP is sizzling, and stopping them 5-on-4 is tough. Teams should score on a two-man advantage. If we want to nitpick, Ekholm could be a bit lower, but there will always be someone open in this situation if teams move the puck efficiently. Not much they could do on this goal.

6. Another PP goal.

• Johnston sneaks down the back door, and it is difficult for Ekholm to pick him up. Pickard makes the first save but can’t control the rebound, and Johnston taps it home. The Oilers weren’t nearly strong enough on their sticks during this sequence. No physical pressure on any of the Stars players.

7. Hryckowian gets his third of the season.

• The video doesn’t show the zone exit up the left wall, which had three Oilers pressure the puck carrier on what was an inevitable dump-in. He goes cross-corner, and while Stars got to the puck first, they then got a bit lucky as Bourque fired it into the slot looking for Back. Henrique deflects it back to the point. Edmonton is in a good 5-man defensive posture now. It leads to Kolyachonok just putting a weak shot on goal, which takes a lucky bounce. Better stick positioning and body positioning from the D would help, but this was more of a lucky bounce for Dallas.

8. Bastian buries his second of the game.

• Draisaitl mishandles the puck behind the goal, and the Stars made him pay. A behind-the-net turnover is often deadly because your teammates are moving away from the middle of the ice, expecting a rim pass. Once the turnover happens, there isn’t time to recover. Pickard makes the first save, but there isn’t time for Regula to get to Bastian. Watching Draisaitl just over-skate a puck with no pressure illustrates the struggles of the Oilers perfectly. They are making routine plays look difficult.

ENERGY AND FOCUS…

You won’t win many games allowing three power-play goals, but the Oilers’ 5-on-5 play was disastrous again. And it isn’t anything systemic. Two goals against started with errant passes in the offensive zone. Two goals came from lost board battles, and another was on Draisaitl over skating the puck and turning it over behind the net. Only the seventh goal was unlucky, where you couldn’t really find the main culprit.

Edmonton’s puck management has been dreadful all season, and many are coming from top players. Draisaitl has 17 defensive zone giveaways. He had 22, 20 and 24 the past three seasons, but already has 17 in 25 games this year. It is wild how often we’ve seen them mishandle pucks or make bad decisions with the puck, in all three zones, which leads to chances against and goals against.

They look mentally tired. They lack energy to the point that a 20-year-old rookie, who was a fifth-round pick two years ago, was their most engaged player last night. That is awesome for Connor Clattenburg, but concerning for the group.

Edmonton only plays one game in the next six days — a matinee game in Seattle on Saturday. They have to use the time off to get in the right frame of mind mentally, physically and emotionally that allows them to win games. There is no guarantee last night was the low point of the season, and they will only improve. Many thought the worst was 17 days ago, but that wasn’t the case. Another horrific outing can happen if the Oilers don’t increase their energy and focus.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU…

The seventh annual Pizza Pigout was a sellout. It was a great night supporting KidSport. Thank you to all who purchased tickets, to our title sponsor GS Construction, all of our other sponsors and to the Icehouse for hosting. And a massive shout-out to the pizzerias that donated all the pizza. It was amazing.

Here are this year’s winners. I highly recommend trying the pizza at these places. They were great.

Some highlights from the evening.

• $45,000+ net was raised, which subsidizes sport registration fees for kids to play sports.
• Over 300 guests and volunteers made the evening special.
• 20 Pizzerias participated by donating their dough to help KidSport raise some dough
• 363 pizza boxes were placed on the glorious pizza buffet, totalling at least 2,900 pizza slices.
• You can click here to see the pictures from the night.

Thanks again, and we look forward to you joining us next year.