From Todd McLellan, to Dave Tippett, to Jay Woodcroft, to Kris Knoblauch, it’s a trap they all fall into. A drug they each succumb to, sending Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl over the boards together the moment things start to get a little bit desperate.
It ends the same way for all of them: Down and out, with a two-man team that can’t win and a bench full of players wondering what their role is supposed to be.
“Obviously, that’s something we’ve gone to quite a bit. We haven’t been getting offence from other guys,” Knoblauch said after yet another loss, this time 3-2 in New Jersey, as the Oilers spiral towards third place in the Pacific Division, their dreams of first place now seven points in arrears to Vegas. “When those guys are together, you control the offensive zone faceoffs. They don’t (spend time) in the defensive zone. You need a goal, most likely they can give us one.”
It creates a Catch 22, however, where the coach demands of his depth players, “Do more!” While almost everyone not named Connor or Leon say, “How much am I supposed to accomplish from the bench, coach?”
Example: In a tepid loss to the Devils Thursday, Jeff Skinner opened the night on a line with Leon Draisaitl.
In a game that featured just one Oilers power play, Draisaitl played 24:48 while Skinner played 10:10, given no more than 15 shifts to show the coach he can help. The eternally ineffective Viktor Arvidsson, Draisaitl’s other winger at puck drop, played 11:16.
The funny thing is, for the most part, Knoblauch abstained from The Great Temptation last season. Perhaps because his depth players afforded him that abstinence, or maybe because he was new to the gig and could see more clearly how the habit had crippled his predecessors.
But he’s hooked on it now, with a struggling Oilers team full of second-, third- and fourth-liners whose collective confidence you could fit inside a shot glass.
“The big guys, they score all the time,” said Adam Henrique, who has a grand total of two goals and four points in his past 22 games. “For the depth guys, (they need) to try and find some ugly goals to be momentum boosters. Trying to find that next one. You get the one-goal lead, you want to get the two-goal lead. Try to put the game out of reach.”
The Oilers have now lost eight of their past 11, and dropped six of their past seven on the road. They’re in the kind of death spiral that ends on the golf course before April is up, and they’ve now got 17 games to find some semblance of the game that took them into June a year ago.
“Everyone knows we’re going through a tough stretch right now. Things aren’t easy,” said defenceman Brett Kulak. “We talk amongst ourselves in the room, and we’ve got to stick together. We can’t start pointing fingers at anyone. None of us are happy, and that’s the easy thing to do when you get frustrated. We’ve got to stick together and we’ll dig ourselves out.”
The head coach pointed a finger at the fourth line for the game-tying goal, though we think he’ll change his mind when he watches the video.
“The turning point in the third period was … we turn the puck over in the neutral zone against their top line,” Knoblauch said. “It’s our fourth line against their top line, and we turn the puck over, which they capitalize on — something that just absolutely can’t happen, especially with a 2-1 lead.
“The top line, they controlled most of the play when they were on the ice. The Henrique-Arvidsson-Skinner line in the third period, I thought they had some good opportunities. It was just fortunate that the turning point (came) when we’re up 2-1, that we make that kind of mistake.”
Yes, Max Jones turned a puck over, but he was inside the New Jersey blue line and there were four Oilers behind the puck. New Jersey took nearly 20 seconds to score after cycling the puck.
Again, when Knoblauch watches that play again, he’ll dislike his team’s work in front of its own net a lot more than the Jones turnover, a play that happens 15 times a game or more.
Stuart Skinner was scored on twice on long shots through a maze of players, as Jersey won the net front in Edmonton’s zone, and subsequently, the game.
OIL SPILLS — Draisaitl extended his point streak to 16 games with a goal. He has 12-12-24 during the streak, the longest active point streak in the NHL, and second longest in the NHL this season.
