‘We’re A Fragile Team’: Oilers Unravel In Brutal Loss To Ducks

Rock bottom is a long way down.

The Edmonton Oilers aren’t quite there yet, but it’s feeling closer. After a 6-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night, the Oilers have now lost six of their last seven games dating back to before the 4 Nations Face-Off break. And they’ve deserved it.

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 Things were looking up for the first ten minutes. The Oilers were buzzing, and Connor McDavid found Leon Draisaitl with a filthy assist on the powerplay to put them up 1-0. The Oilers were back.

That was the end of the good times. Leo Carlsson answered right back, capitalizing on a Draisaitl to tie the game at 1 two minutes later. Mason McTavish gave the Ducks the lead soon after, beating Calvin Pickard with a softie to make it 2-1.

Then the wheels really came off. Late in the first, a point shot pinballed off Anaheim’s Sam Colangelo and Edmonton’s Brett Kulak past Pickard to make it a two-goal deficit. 12 seconds later, McTavish picked up his second of the game as three Oilers lost a puck battle behind the net. The rout was on.

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The rest of the game was mostly immaterial. The Ducks added two more off of Oilers defensive breakdowns, while Connor McDavid scored a beautiful — if meaningless — powerplay goal in the third period to make them two-for-two on the man advantage.

McDavid’s reaction after the goal said it all: he didn’t celebrate one bit, skating straight onto the bench and foregoing the usual celebratory fly-by even as the crowd erupted around him.

Tuesday’s loss solidifies the Oilers’ needs before Friday’s trade deadline: defense and goaltending. Pickard only lasted 20 minutes, allowing four goals on 11 shots, though Stuart Skinner was solid in relief.

The real problem was on the blueline, where none of the Oilers’ six defenders pulled their weight. Though they needed better play from Pickard, he and Skinner were left out to dry. The Oilers can’t afford to come out of this week without an upgrade on defense, as Tuesday’s loss made clear.

“We’re a fragile team,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said after the game. “Out start was exactly how we want to play, guys were ready, then we hit a little bit of adversity and we were a shell of ourselves.”

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