The Edmonton Oilers’ highly anticipated game against the Toronto Maple Leafs wound up being a frustrating one, as they fell by a 6-3 final. The loss snaps a brief two-game winning streak for the Oilers, who were coming in with victories over the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres.
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With the result, the Oilers and Leafs split their season series with two wins apiece, while the Oilers see their season record drop to 42-22-4. This was a disappointing game for Oilers fans, which we will get into below. Here are the three main takeaways from this outing.
Too Little, Too Late for Oilers in the 3rd
The Oilers are a team that often struggles to put full 60-minute efforts together, and tonight was no different. They went down 1-0 less than five minutes in and found themselves down 5-0 heading into the second intermission. The score being 5-3 with less than a minute remaining in the game made this one seem much closer than it was for the majority of it.
The Oilers were able to battle back in the third, making it 5-3 while still having roughly four minutes to go. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a great opportunity to cut the Leafs’ lead to one, but somehow rang a shot off the post despite having an empty net in front of him. That miss summed up this entire game for the Oilers.
Skinner Yanked After Two
It’s hard to place much blame on Stuart Skinner in this one, as the team in front of him simply didn’t show up for the first two periods. That said, the 25-year-old wasn’t very good, allowing five goals against on 23 shots before being pulled at the end of the second period.
Calvin Pickard was between the pipes for the third, making a few big stops and kicking aside all five shots the Leafs put on him. It will be interesting to see who Kris Knoblauch goes with for tomorrow’s game, though with how well Pickard has been playing as of late, he probably serves as the better option given the quick turnaround.
Hyman Just Short of 50 in Toronto
Though Zach Hyman didn’t want to make a big deal of it when speaking to reporters, you know he would have loved to have scored his 50th of the season in front of the fan base he spent the first six seasons of his career playing in front of. He was able to find the back of the net early in the third on a power play marker, but that was as close as he’d get.
Though he fell just shy of getting 50 against his former team, you still can’t help but be amazed at the season he is having. He is on pace for 59 goals, and will no doubt be chasing 60 as the 2023-24 season closes out. Not bad for a player with a $5.5 million cap hit.
Looking Ahead for the Oilers
As mentioned, it will be a quick turnaround for the Oilers, who are back in action tomorrow versus the Ottawa Senators. The Sens have struggled this season, though they have plenty of skill in their lineup which could hurt the Oilers if they start the game as slowly as they did tonight. It will be interesting to see which team shows up tomorrow, as it has seemingly been a roll of the dice as of late.
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