From bad to worse: Edmonton Oilers going the wrong way fast

Head coach Kris Knoblauch, lamenting his club’s “atrocious” puck management in Saturday’s humiliating loss to Philadelphia, issued a pre-game warning Sunday in Washington.

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“I’m certain it’s going to be better than last game,” he said. “If not, we’re in a lot of trouble again today.”

Well, they weren’t any better and they were in all kinds of trouble.

A day after being trounced 6-3 by the Flyers, the hapless Oilers took an even worse beating in Washington. In what was supposed to be an opportunity to see how they stack up against the first-place team in the NHL, the visitors found out in a hurry that they didn’t.

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The bigger, deeper, better Capitals slapped Edmonton around all afternoon, running up a 5-1 lead through 40 minutes before cruising to a 7-3 victory over 20 minutes of third-period garbage time.

Edmonton actually led 1-0 on Leon Draisaitl’s league-leading 42nd goal of the season (and fifth-straight game with at least one goal) but five-straight Washington goals settled the argument for good.

“They came at you in waves, wave after wave,” said Connor McDavid, who’s gone from the ultimate high of scoring the 4 Nations gold medal goal on Thursday to back-to-back soul-crushing defeats on the weekend.

“They have four lines, six D men and they just roll them. They’re an impressive group, they’re having a great year. Is there a way to play against that? Push back, I don’t know. It was just not good.”

Two losses in a row doesn’t necessarily mean much, even when the team allows 13 goals against, but the sample size is growing. This makes it 5-6-1 in Edmonton’s last 12 games, 2-4-1 in their last seven and three losses in a row (18 goals against) for the first time since the first three games of the season.

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‘The little things’

There is still time to make things right, but there is no question that something is wrong.

“Where do we start,” sighed Oilers veteran Corey Perry, who is always on point when it comes to evaluating this team. “It just comes down to the little things, the little battles, the little moments and those are not there right now. They’re lacking.

“Everybody knows how we can play, how good this group is when everybody is playing the right way. The last six and a half periods (dating back to the third period against Colorado before the break) are not the right way.”

What do they need to clean up?

“Everything,” said McDavid. “It’s two (games) that haven’t been very good. We had the puck more against Philly and just gave them offence (with turnovers) and today we struggled all around. They played really well, we struggled all around.

“(Calvin Pickard) did a great job keeping them to what he kept them at. We weren’t very good, obviously.”

They were bad. Against a big, heavy team that likes to lean on its opponents, the Oilers should have been able to rely on a speed and transition game, but none of that was there. They were smaller and slower, which always means a loss.

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“They were out-skating us, we looked like a slow team today,” said Knoblauch. “Everyone needs to dig in a be a little bit better. I can’t think of anybody who is saying ‘I really like my game.’ Everyone in that room can be a little bit better. Some more than others. Collectively we step it up.

“Whether it’s on our back check, our breakouts, our passing, our penalty kill, everything can be a little bit better.”

McDavid hopes this is just a case of the Oilers being flat because of the extended layoff.

“Sometimes this happens after breaks,” he said. “Some teams come out flying and some teams come out flat. We’ve obviously done the latter. We have to get back to it.”

Ovechkin bathes in oil

To add insult to injury, if there is any team in the league that wants to stand in the way of Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky’s scoring record it’s Edmonton. But Ovechkin notched a hat trick to move just 13 goals away from the NHL’s all-time record.

“If you give the best goal scorer in the world that kind of time he’s going to put it in the back of the net,” said Perry.

The penalty kill is leaking badly right now. Washington scored twice on the man-advantage Sunday to make it eight power-play goals against on the last 13 chances over the last six games.

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Edmonton sits 27th in the league on the penalty kill and is dropping fast. It can get hot (17 kills in a row in November and 41 of 48 in December-January) but it’s a weak link right now.

This is an element of their team that was integral in getting them to the Stanley Cup Final last year and if it’s not a strength this time around they’re in trouble.

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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