Last game, Edmonton went up 2-0 against the Colorado Avalanche... that was good.
The Avalanche then went on to score 6 unanswered goals.... that was less good.
Edmonton played poorly basically from the second period onward but a number of the goals could once again be placed on the shoulders of Mikko Koskinen.
The handling of Koskinen is one more bizarre decision by the Oilers coaching staff. While the Oilers were technically in contention for a playoff spot, I understood why they kept going back to him in net. However they have continued to pile on the starts onto him and given him back to back games on several occasions. Koskinen is clearly struggling right now in the starter job and going back to him again and again is not helping him improve.
I suppose it doesn't matter as much now, considering there are only two games left in the season but this does not breed confidence that the staff knows how to handle it's players.
The signing and timing of Koskinen 3 year, 4.5 million dollar contract continues to not make sense. No other team can talk to him until July 1st giving the Oilers plenty of time to continue evaluating him and see what they have. With how the last couple of months have gone the team should be looking to either move on from him completely, or offer him a small term deal as a backup. They don't have either option there now.
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LINEUPS
OILERS
Draiaitl-McDavid-Kassian Lucic-RNH-Rattie Rieder-Cave-Chiasson Gambardella-Gagner-Currie
Klefbom-Larsson Nurse-Russell Sekera-Benning
Stolarz
SHARKS
Meier-Couture-Pavelski Kane-Hertl-Nyquist Sorensen-Thornton-Labanc Haley-Goodrow-Donskoi
Middleton-Burns Vlasic-Heed Dillon-Braun
Dell
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4 KEYS TO VICTORY
1) Play For The Fans. Tonight is the last Oilers home game of the season. The fans have suffered through this season. Give them something to cheer for tonight.
2) Struggling. The Sharks have the worst record in the NHL through the last 10 games going 1-8-1. Erik Karlsson is still injured and while we will likely see him in the post season he likely won't be 100%. Once the playoffs start, the regular season doesn't mean anything but I'm sure the Sharks coaching staff wants to see more out of their team tonight.
3) Quest For 50. Leon Draisaitl is goalless through his last three games and the quest for 50 goals is fading by the day. Through 20 career games against San Jose Leon has managed only 4 goals. He will need to pot at least one tonight to have any chance of reaching the big 5 0.
4) Quest for 30. Not as exciting as 50 but RNH who already is having a career year, is only two goals shy of the 30 goal mark. There is going to be plenty of time to talk about this over the summer but I see almost no trade involving Ryan Nugent Hopkins making sense for the Edmonton Oilers.