Game 15 review – A terrible effort from the Oilers

Have you ever been told that you should wait for a while before responding to an email that upset you? Or that you should count to ten before you respond in an argument? It’s that logic that led me to sit on this post for almost 24 hours. That is how upset I was with the Oilers game last night; while I do want to be passionate I don’t want to come off like a raving lunatic.

I’m willing to accept a team that is struggling with the effects of the flu. If you’re worn down then it’s hard to compete at an elite level; to me that’s completely reasonable. In fact I have repeated stated that point here on this website. But while I’m willing to accept the flu as an excuse on some level, I also think I at least deserve is to at least see a team that is trying to compete. If you play hard and you lose, so be it. But if you don’t try and don’t compete, then to me there is no excuse for that.

Last night against the Islanders the Oilers were, to be totally honest, terrible. All night long the Islanders were the better team on the ice. For the most part it wasn’t even close. When the Oilers did have the puck they couldn’t make two passes in a row, often they couldn’t even make one.

When they had the puck in their own zone you could almost start the clock waiting for the turnover. All three Islanders goals were the direct result of not protecting the puck in their own zone – Grebeshkov and Chorney were the worst by a mile. The flu is not an excuse for forgetting how to play in your own zone. If the Isles pressed at all the Oilers just handed the puck over. On the Team 1260 the morning Nielson and Chase described how the Isles beat the Oilers to a tee – it wasn’t skill it was will.

With all due respect to the Islanders they’re not an elite team in the NHL right now. I would imagine that this statement comes as a shock to very few. So to see a team that is in the lower tier of the league dominate such that the Oilers weren’t even close in this game says an awful lot about the type of team that the Oilers are.

What is most frustrating to me is that Edmonton has a ton of skill but on most nights it looks as if there is absolutely no desire to do the little things that need to be done to win games in the NHL. Outside of Hemsky last night, in the first period especially, there was little reason to believe that any of the Oilers seemed even remotely concerned with winning the game. You’ve got to grind and battle and dig and care to win games. Nobody will hand you anything for free at this level.

At the end of last season I wanted significant changes to this team. I got a new coach (Quinn), goalie (Khabibulin), and Mike Comrie. Not exactly what I had envisioned. Nonetheless I said that I would give the team 20 games before I started calling for some actual changes. It’s been only 15 games so I’ll stick to my word but I’m just about ready to start working on a post for the day after game 20.