Coming into the season, the Edmonton Oilers were expected to be one of the best teams in the NHL. They have so much talent all over the ice to the point where they should be competing for the Stanley Cup.
Everything starts and ends with Connor McDavid when talking about the Edmonton Oilers. Of course, he is injured right now which is not good. He isn’t going to be out for very long but any time missing is bad news for the Oil. He needs to come back as soon as he can.
Leon Draisaitl is almost as productive as Connor McDavid. The last time McDavid was out for a stretch, Draisaitl stepped up and won the scoring title and the Hart Trophy. With other studs like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Evander Kane, Evan Bouchard, and Zach Hyman around, you’d expect much more.
Coming into Thursday night’s game against the New York Rangers in Edmonton, the Oilers were 1-4-1. They were hoping for a good effort to get themselves back on track but that didn’t turn out to be the case.
The Edmonton Oilers took a hard loss to the New York Rangers on Thursday.
The Rangers took a 1-0 lead early in the second period. Adam Fox scored on the power play. It was the perfect way for the Rangers to get on the board first. From there, the Rangers did a very good job of possessing the puck and keeping Edmonton at bay.
Braden Schneider and Alexis Lafreniere each scored after that so the Rangers had a 3-0! Lead. They love seeing these young guys all get on the board. In the case of Lafreniere, that is the third straight game with a goal. He’s having a good start to this season for sure.
Jonathan Quick also made 29 saves on 29 shots to shut the Oilers down. They couldn’t do anything to get one past him and were shut out. It was a bad look for them in every way. Now they are 1-5-1 which is not what they envisioned when they started the season.
So how do they get out of this early season funk? Well, for one, it would be nice for them to get McDavid back. Second, they need to find a way to have that tenacity that made them so good last year. It is early in the year so there is plenty of time but they don’t want to fall too far out of it.
The Oilers are now off for a couple of days as they head into the Heritage Classic on a down note. They are going to face the Calgary Flames in the Battle of Alberta outside edition. They also lost on Thursday 3-0 so they have some things to fix too. It will be a great game to watch for a lot of reasons.