Follow @SMaloughney First off Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers. To all my American readers I hope you enjoy your fake Turkey Day in November.
Now onto yesterday afternoon's game.
Stop me if you've heard this before. The Oilers allowed the first goal on the first shot, they were out-chanced and looked sluggish, they fell completely apart in the second, and then tried to make a comeback when it was far too late. Despite saying they had learned from their mistakes the Edmonton Oilers did nothing to prove that.
THE GOOD - Connor McDavid clearly. #97 was his usual self creating chances and flying all night. The PP goal the Oilers scored was generated entirely on McDavid pushing into the zone unchallenged and making a sublime pass to Lucic's stick.
- It feels good to put Milan Lucic here. Lucic scored only his second goal of all of 2018 dating back to January of last year. Lucic said himself he felt most of his own issues last year were psychological so hopefully this is a sign of good things to come. - Despite the 4 goals scored against him Cam Talbot ensured the score wasn't worse than it was. Talbot made one bad play behind the net but the defence in front of him should be criticized more for allowing the Devils to pick pocket the puck.
- Jesse Puljujarvi made the most of the few chances he had. At the end of the second period Puljujarvi had the one decent scoring chance once he was paired with Draisaitl.... so of course in the third period McLellan put Puljujarvi back on a line with Strome.
- Klefbom wasn't as bad as the rest of the defence so I guess he goes here.
THE BAD - The defence as a whole. Larsson made a number of suspect plays including some blatant giveaways. Evan Bouchard played a typical rookie defender first game, he made a few good plays but also got caught, including one moment where he almost scored on his own net.
- Leon Draisaitl is still struggling. He connected with McDavid to score a nice goal but he looked sluggish most of the night, including missing his man which resulted in one of the Devil's goals.
THE UGLY - The Nurse-Benning pairing was not good. I've said for a long time I felt Benning was not a top 4 option and that was on full display. Benning was a turnover machine as was Nurse. The two were caved in possession and outchanced all night.
- The PP is still awful. The 5 left shots has been brought up by most media as a strange option and it looked awkward on the ice. The one PP goal that was scored was entirely because of McDavid and not a set up PP unit. What was even more mind boggling is that the second unit was running Bouchard, Benning, Rattie, and Puljujarvi...aka 4 right shots... maybe take one of those and put them on the top unit?
It is too soon to hit the panic button. The Bruins lost 7-0 to the Caps in their first game and then won 4-0 their second game. One game will not ruin this season but seeing that kind of play creep into the Oilers game is concerning.
The team now has 5 days to sit on their loss before beginning a 3 game road trip starting in Boston. Hopefully fans will be able to watch a real game then.