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Well, let’s put it this way:
Some 18,000 fans braved minus-25 temperatures, paid the usual inflated NHL prices, and dug in to watch their team play hockey.
The team that greeted them was colder than a city sidewalk, and had a give-a-care level that was lower than the subway that brought those fans to the rink.
Don’t care, don’t win. That’s life in the National Hockey League, and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat that lesson home Thursday, smoking the Oilers 6-2 in a game that was far more lopsided than the score indicated.
“There’s 30 games left. We’re coming down the home stretch. There’s no February (games) this year,” McDavid said, when asked why a team that’s so good in April and May can be so bad in January and February. “The sense of urgency has got to go up in our group. The playoff race is real tight, and we’ve got to find a way to get points here. Especially at home.”
After barely putting in 20 minutes of labour in a 2-1 loss to New Jersey on Tuesday, Thursday’s game opened with a franchise record three goals against in 37 seconds. Pittsburgh led 3-0 three minutes into the game, the Oilers’ urgency level on par with your kid cleaning up their bedroom.
“It starts with me,” McDavid said. “I think last two games, probably not my best (zero points). I could be better, and when I’m better, usually the whole group responds. So that starts there.”
That’s a captain letting his group off the hook. No more, no less.
“Our puck play has been real bad — real, real bad,” he continued. “Not really connecting on passes, and when we do it’s sloppy, bouncing, whatever. When you’re playing that way it looks slow and clunky. I thought we’ve looked that way for the last two games.”
A team that McDavid routinely carries owes him a few games along the way where they move the needle. Alas, the only needle on Thursday must have felt like it was being driven into the eye of head coach Kris Knoblauch.
“The last two games the puck play has been horrendous,” Knoblauch admitted. “As for the urgency, that’s one of two things: Players find it within themselves to play harder and find a way, or the coach just chooses the guys who are playing with that urgency and can dictate ice time.”
Lazy? Not anywhere bear desperate enough? A lack of care? An unwillingness to put the work in?
Pick your poison, Oilers fan. Your team has seldom stunk worse — or put in a more delinquent effort — than it did Thursday night.
Particularly with their new goalie, Tristan Jarry, facing his old team in Edmonton for the first time. That his teammates hung him out to dry this badly, on this night, is criminal.
“Very disappointing, especially for Jarry,” Knoblauch said. “How many breakaways, two-on-ones, Grade A scoring chances? Look at the shots against and it looks bad, six goals on (22) shots. But the shots we were giving up, not an easy night for a goaltender.”
“You always want to beat your old team,” Jarry said. “It doesn’t matter who or when, so obviously it always does mean a little extra. But I think we obviously have to change some things and get better in some areas. I think if I could keep one or two of those out early it gives us a better fighting chance.
“I think just our puck management tonight hurt us a little bit.”
Edmonton has won just eight of its last 17 games. They’re 12-8-4 on home ice, 6-6-2 since Christmas, and after a first half fraught with travel they are leaking away their cushy January schedule, losing once again to a team that played the night before in Calgary and on its third game in four nights.
In seven home games in January, the Oilers have two wins. If the playoffs open and they’re hopping on a plane for Game 1, this will be the stretch of games that is responsible.
Leon Draisaitl flew back from Germany and was a surprise starter after arriving mid-afternoon in Edmonton. He was less than sharp, but he gets a pass, having spent the week in Cologne with an illness in the family.
As for the rest of the team, the Oilers hemorrhaged chance after chance after chance the whole night through.
Right now, they’re a club looking for an easy night on most nights.
A team that works eats them for lunch, and the Penguins left Edmonton well fed Thursday night.
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