Let’s face it: The Nashville Predators were due to beat Edmonton after eight losses in a row to the Oilers, most of them ugly.
It’s fun to kick sand in a team’s face night after night and all, but on Monday the Predators played like a team that has had enough.
Not to mention the embarrassment of hearing about how Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid had owned the Preds, combining for 54 points in their last 10 meetings.
It had to change and it did, as the Oilers got a point in a 4-3 overtime loss that they should be happy with. Nashville outplayed Edmonton at five-on-five, and the Oilers never led in a game they chased right to the end — and very nearly won in overtime.
Our takeaways from a night in Nashville, where the Oilers losing streak grew to three straight.
Warm Soup
On the day that Stuart Skinner signed a three-year, $7.8 million contract, he got to sit on the bench and watch Jack Campbell try to bring this one home. When it was done, and Campbell was beaten on a high danger chance by Alexandre Carrier in overtime, the Oilers goalie had given his team another game that was, well, alright.
Campbell always steals a few goals, and he did that with a couple large saves on this night as well.
But there always seems to be that seeing-eye shot that gets through, a goofy deflection or one where he goes for the poke check and misses. His numbers on the season — a 4.02 goals against average and an .876 save percentage — aren’t much different than his numbers in this game: 3.87 and .886.
Just once you’d like Campbell to steal a game for you. Just once you’d like to see him be so zoned in that you can’t get that proverbial pea past him. We’re nearly at Christmas, and Oilers fans haven’t seen that yet from Campbell.
On Monday he was good and earned one point. Were he great, he might have earned two.
Nuge On Fire
What’s gotten into Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? With two more goals Monday, he’s now got 17 goals in 33 games — on pace for 40-plus when Nugent-Hopkins’ career high is 28.
Both of his goals came on the power play, while all the Oilers could muster at even strength was a lucky goal from the sideboards that somehow found its way into the net.
“Our power play needs to be able to score goals in timely situations, and we feel like we’ve been doing that as of late,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “That should bleed into our five-on-five play too. I don’t think that we played poorly five-on-five. We just didn’t find a way to put it in.
“But I don’t think it was a bad hockey game for us.”
Nugent-Hopkins had five shots on net while Zach Hyman had seven and couldn’t solve Juuse Saros. It may be time to separate Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in the search for some more balanced scoring, five-on-five.
All Hail Jesse
The Bison Heads were celebrating a rare goal from Jesse Puljujarvi, drinking bison grass vodka shots and eating buffalo wings. The happy Finn threw a puck at the Predators’ net and looked more surprised than anyone when it found its way through Saros’ legs to open the scoring.
As they say, they don’t ask how — just how many. And this was the first goal for Puljujarvi since Oct. 26, seven weeks and 26 games ago.
You could see the jump in his step after finding that goal, and Puljujarvi worked pretty well Monday on a line centred by Dylan Holloway, with Warren Foegele on the left side. They’ll have a few more games to forge some chemistry, trying to convince head coach Jay Woodcroft that they should be left intact when centre Ryan McLeod (high ankle) finally returns.
“They contributed a few things,” Woodcroft said. “Foegele drew a few penalties with some speed and just hanging on to the puck. And then for Jesse to get on the board, getting our first goal, I thought that was real positive for him. And the bench was very happy for him.
“I thought they gave us good minutes.”
It’s a big, fast line that will hit you and should be able to score the odd goal. Again, the third-line centre spot will likely go back to McLeod when he’s healthy, but the 11:12 in ice logged by Holloway was two-and-a-half more minutes than his seasonal average, and the extra ice time suited him well.
He got crushed in the circle however, winning just two of nine draws. At this early stage in career, we’re not sure Holloway is ready to come off the wing and move to centre quite yet.
