RALEIGH, N.C. — The Edmonton Oilers are broken.
How else to describe a team of professional hockey players who routinely make the calibre of defensive mistakes that this one makes?
What else would you call a team of NHLers who eschew the basic defensive tenets of the sport that are taught to Canadian kids long before they are able to drive themselves to the rink? The very things they mastered so long ago that paved their path to this level of the game?
Defensive details like getting a puck deep, clearing a zone with certainty, boxing out with authority — all are foreign concepts here, on the team the standings forgot.
“We haven’t played 60 minutes…” said Evander Kane, his voice trailing off — as if he knew it was a worn-out plea following a 6-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday. “It’s … it’s … I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.”
It is a team full of forwards who are not mindful to take on a defensive posture when their defenceman rushes right past them, up ice with the puck. It is that same defenceman who enters the offensive zone, then passes the backwards, catching everyone unaware, a cardinal sin.
It is four Oilers milling about the slot as if on a smoke break, not one of them aware enough to tie up the fifth player — an opponent who finds the rebound that has eluded the puck-focused Oilers.
It’s a Smarties box of defensive miscues every night for an Oilers club that is better only than the pointless San Jose Sharks as the second worst road team in the NHL this season (.222). They allow 4.56 goals per game away from home, which sets out the unrealistic task of requiring five goals on the road to win a game.
“We have to learn to limit our mistakes,” said Kane, exasperation dripping from his words. “I think everybody in this room has gotten out in front of the media and said the exact same thing. It’s coming to a point where we’ve got to get sick of talking about it and just go and do it.
“We’ve got to simplify our game. We have to just get pucks behind (the opposing defence) and grind. Because if you look at our third period, that’s what we did. And we had some success.”
The Oilers had blown early 2-0 leads in losing the first two games of this Southeastern U.S. road trip. This time around, they trailed 4-0 before the game was 15 minutes old.
On a Wednesday in Raleigh they made many of the same mistakes they’d made Monday in Sunrise, Fla., with some new ones salted in since that Saturday debacle in Tampa.
“I mean, we’re just not finding ways to get the job done,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “Tampa played really well — (we) didn’t find a way to win. Florida? Pretty even game (5-3 Oilers loss). Same thing tonight. A poor start, and we’re trying to claw our way back the whole game.
“There’s not a whole lot to say.”
Like all pros do, the Oilers will now try to build off a dominant third period in which they scored a goal.
But score effects had taken over, one team embarrassed and desperate, the other busy planning its “Storm Surge,” the Hurricanes’ post-game treat for their home fans.
The 4-0 deficit was built by a quick, agile and skilled Carolina team against one that just could not handle the task at hand. Edmonton is like a ghost ship at sea, careening rudderless around the defensive zone like a vessel with nobody aboard.
How would you like to be new coach Kris Knoblauch right now?
His task is to coach this team up at Thursday’s practice, in time for Friday’s game against the smokin’ hot Washington Capitals. Alas, even he sounded like the job is far more detailed than that.
“Coaching is in the systems,” began Knoblauch. “Making sure everyone’s doing the right things and being in the right spots. Whoever has the puck, he knows his outs and he knows where the support is. Where you make those plays.”
The reality is, no system can work when the basic elements of defensive hockey are not adhered to.
“A lot of it’s just feel,” Knoblauch said. “Knowing when to hold the puck and what the next play is going to be.”
This one, perhaps, was doomed from the start.
Goalie Stuart Skinner fell down in warmup and slid tumbling into the Hurricanes zone, as puzzled Carolina players watched. Moments later, as a helmetless Darnell Nurse unleashed a warmup wrist shot from the slot, an errant puck shot by Philip Broberg ricocheted off the crossbar and hit Nurse in the face, opening up a cut.
And the game hadn’t even started yet.
When it did, Skinner lasted just 14:48, entirely abandoned by his group of skaters.
Upstairs, general manager Ken Holland assessed. He is searching high and low for a goalie, but his team’s defensive game is the true problem.
Unless he can trade for a four-by-six sheet of plywood, that won’t fix what ails this outfit.
