Player grades: Edmonton Oilers dig another deep hole, can't climb their way out – Edmonton Journal

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Oilers 1, Rangers 4

Edmonton Oilers talked the talk about getting off to a better start in Madison Square Garden on Monday, but when it came time to walk the walk, that was another story entirely.

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For the 11th time in 12 games, the Oilers allowed the game’s first goal, this one on a dreadful mistake by their netminder. For the 7th time in 10 games, they allowed the game’s first TWO goals, the second coming on a 4-on-2 jail break early in the middle frame. From there the Oil pushed back a bit, even cutting the deficit to 2-1 for a time. But despite dominating the shot clock 14-5 in the third period, the Oilers were outscored 2-0 as the New York Rangers won going away, 4-1.

The Oilers didn’t help their cause with some loose defensive play, nor by beating a steady path to the penalty box. On the other side of the sheet they encountered a disciplined defensive squad that played a physical game (hits were 29-12 Rangers) and filled the shooting lanes (blocked shots were, get this, 22-3 Rangers). They defended Edmonton’s top stars in layers and with plenty of puck support, while attacking the soft underbelly of the visitors on the counter attack. Indeed, in a spell of not much more than 3 minutes of the middle frame, New York had 3 breakaways and a 3-on-1 against an utterly disorganized, and increasingly dispirited, crew of Oilers.

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By night’s end shots on net were 34-28 Edmonton, but yet again score effects ruled the game. Consider that the shot clock stood at 16-9 Rangers when the home side opened their lead to 2-0, after which they largely concentrated on taking care of business at the defensive end. Our preliminary count of Grade A shots had NYR with a slim 13-12 edge, but were we to count Grade A+++ looks it would have been less close, what with all the odd man rushes and unchallenged deflections from the slot. The home team benefited from a couple of good bounces, and had the stronger performance between the pipes as Alexandar Georgiev outduelled Mikko Koskinen.

Coach Dave Tippett singled out Koskinen’s costly error in the post game avail and professed that otherwise his team had done many good things, but the sad fact is the Oilers have lost the last 9 games that their head coach has been behind the bench with no apparent end in sight.

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Player grades

#2 Duncan Keith, 4. Oilers carried the play when he and Ceci were on the ice, but Keith found himself on the wrong side of the puck on the second Rangers goal when he was victimized by a weird bounce. The man he was trying to pinch on the play, Barclay Goodrow, got behind him, won the race up ice, and wound up scoring the game winner.

#5 Cody Ceci, 5. He was back but unable to cut out the key pass on the 2-0. Started the play on the lone Oilers goal with a good pass of his own.

#8 Kyle Turris, 6. Made a fine spinaround shot that went through Georgiev, landed on its edge and literally  curled away from the post. Did earn an assist on McLeod’s tally with a slick aerial pass in the offensive zone to spring Benson.

#10 Derek Ryan, 4. Had little impact on the game. 0 shot attempts or contributions to Grade A shots in 7½ minutes. Didn’t give up a whole lot, unlucky to be tagged with a dash-1 on the opening goal. Went a perfect 4/4=100% on the faceoff dot.

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#13 Jesse Puljujarvi, 5. Shafted early when his powerful one-timer beat Georgiev above the blocker but caught the shaft of his stick, knocking it right out of the stopper’s hand. 4 shots in all including a couple more dangerous ones. His bad line change in a 4v4 situation left a teammate on an island leading to a dangerous Rangers chance.

#14 Devin Shore, 4. Played 11 minutes, over 5 of them on the penalty kill. His miscommunication with Nurse resulted in a failed clearance that led directly to the killer 3-1 goal. Had nothing going on at evens with 0 shot attempts and 0 involvement in Grade A shots. Did muster 3 hits to lead the Oilers.

#16 Tyler Benson, 7. His best game as an NHLer. Benson was dangerous all game long on an effective bottom six line with McLeod and Turris, who combined to score Edmonton’s lone goal of the night. Benson was the key to that, sending a perfect backhand pass to McLeod on the lip of the crease for the tap-in. On the night Benson chipped in on 4 Grade A shots by the Oilers, had 0 problems at the other end of the sheet and ended the night 0-1-1, +1.

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#18 Zach Hyman, 4. Ran his goalless string to 9 games, of which the Oilers have lost every one. (He missed the same 3 games to a shoulder injury that Tippett spent on COVID protocol.) Over that span his boxcars of 0-3-3, -6 tell a bit of a sorry tale. He spent a whopping 5:36 on the penalty kill on this night, and had his struggles on that unit. Also was beaten by Ryan Strome’s centring pass on the opening goal.

#19 Mikko Koskinen, 2. The Oilers desperately needed their big stopper to stand tall in the early going but got precisely the opposite. First he lobbed a puck over the glass, putting his team shorthanded after just 15 seconds of play. Then he made a fatal blunder just after the 5-minute mark when he left his crease to field a slow-moving puck, but misjudged both how long it would take to reach the trapezoid where he could safely play it and how quickly Strome would be in position to challenge for it. The result was disaster, a gimme open netter for the Rangers that opened the scoring and put them ahead to stay. Koskinen made a few good saves thereafter, but leaked in the 3-1 goal when Chris Kreider’s deflection found a hole and dribbled in. Now has lost his last 6 starts after a promising 12-2 beginning — kind of like the Oilers’ season in microcosm — and has just an .866 save percentage in that span. 28 shots, 24 saves, .857 in this one.

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#20 Slater Koekkoek, 4. Got absolutely crushed by Ryan Lindgren in one of the hardest hits in any Oilers game all season. Otherwise OK in a third pairing role, logging 12:40 with 2 shots, 1 block, 1 hit. Took a penalty

#22 Tyson Barrie, 4. Had some OK moments offensively, leading the Oilers with 8 shot attempts. But had a couple of bad moments defensively, being on the wrong side of a couple of breakaways, one after an ugly turnover at his own blueline. Unlucky on the 4-1 which deflected in off his skate, but by then the outcome was no longer in doubt.

#25 Darnell Nurse, 4. Led the Oilers with 26:37 TOI, but just so-so on the night. Had some odd stats that suggest the Oilers carried the play on the perimeter but not the middle of the ice: shot attempts were 28-15 during his time at 5v5, but actual shots on goal were 13-14. That’s right, every Rangers attempt but 1 resulted in a shot on net, while fewer than half of Oilers attempts were on target. Natural Stat Trick  also recorded this odd split on his watch of scoring chances at 12-7 Oilers but high danger chances of just 1 for, 5 against. His toughest moment came on the penalty kill when he and Shore got in each other’s way trying to clear the puck, then Nurse was unable to prevent Kreider from tipping home the subsequent point shot.  Rang the crossbar with a wicked drive in garbage time.

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#29 Leon Draisaitl, 5. Got smoked by big Ryan Reaves in the first period, though to his credit he landed a pretty decent (though somehow uncredited) hit of his own on the same opponent later that same shift. Was bamboozled by heavy checking all game; on one sequence in the second period he busted his tail in the corner trying to beat one, two, eventually three Ranger defenders, and while he sawed them off for a good 15 seconds or more there were no happy endings of Leon or the Oilers coming away with the puck. Not a lot of magic in his giant blade on this night; his passes weren’t quite clicking until the third period when he first set up Foegele for an excellent shot, then made a fine play to steal the puck off Lindgren and feed McDavid for a one-timer that forced Georgiev’s best save of the game. Had a couple drives of his own but nothing doing. 13/18=72% on the dot with excellent shot shares, but no points to show for his night’s work.

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#37 Warren Foegele, 3. A couple of innocuous turnovers inside opposition territory both got turned into odd-man rushes and ultimately, New York goals. A couple of shots on net, but zero hits on a night the Oilers needed a little more pushback. Took a penalty in garbage time.

#56 Kailer Yamamoto, 3. 0 shots and about that much impact on the game. 0-0-0, -1, 2 PiM. Outworked by Mika Zibanejad in the neutral zone on one telling sequence, with the New York star stripping a slow-moving Yamamoto of the puck and turning it back the other way. Did challenge Jacob Trouba at the end of the second when the Rangers d-man tried to take some liberties with McDavid. Took a slashing penalty with 12 minutes left in the third which didn’t help the cause.

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#70 Colton Sceviour, 4. He and his line of Ryan and Shore made precrious little impression on this game and decisively lost the battle for bottom-six minutes to Benson-McLeod-Turris.

#71 Ryan McLeod, 6. Scored Edmonton’s lone goal by going to the **** net for the finishing touch on a pretty four-way passing play. His line had the better of play. But he took a tripping penalty early in the third and watched the third NYR goal from the sin bin.

#75 Evan Bouchard, 5. Not a major force in this one. Did make a couple of decent outlet passes and had 1 good shot on net. Made a better door than window on the Rangers powerplay goal, where Kreider got behind him for the unchallenged deflection.

#97 Connor McDavid, 6. A quiet first period, but came on in the second half of the game, ultimately generating a team-high 7 shots on net. Among them, a couple of doozies, one with a hard rush to the goal mouth from inside the zone, the other with a strong one-timer of a Draisaitl feed that forced a brilliant glove stop by Georgiev. But ultimately a pointless night for both the captain and his team.

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