Sometimes, it’s just not your night
Thursday certainly wasn’t the Oilers night. It was clear from the first puck drop that they weren’t at their best, and though they bounced back later on they couldn’t dig themselves out of an early 3-0 hole, eventually falling 5-3 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The first period was all Penguins. They outshot the Oilers 13-7, leading 3-0 after just ten minutes and eventually heading into the intermission with a 4-1 lead. Their first line was particularly dominant, with Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell combining for six points in the first period alone.
After Crosby added a goal of his own to make it 5-1 early in the second (moving him up to ninth on the all-time NHL points leaderboard with 1,642), the Oilers could’ve been forgiven for laying down and accepting their fate. But they didn’t.
First Leon Draisaitl, who scored his 30th of the season in the first period, added his league-leading 31st to make it 5-2. Then, with less than a minute left in the second, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored on the powerplay to extend his point streak to five games and cut the lead to 5-3 heading into the final frame.
That turned out to be all the Oilers could muster, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. They were all over Pittsburgh in the final two frames, outshooting them 36-13, but the early deficit proved too large, and the comeback stalled out at 5-3. The end result is their first loss to the Penguins since December 20th, 2019.
For that, the Penguins can thank goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic. He made 40 saves on 43 shots, not backing down an inch despite getting shelled by the Oilers’ top unit for two-thirds of the game. He even made what was very briefly the save of the year, robbing Zach Hyman on the breakaway before Draisaitl tapped home the rebound.
(He made other huge saves, too, but not ones that were clipped on Twitter. Such is life).
While the Oilers couldn’t come away with a win, they can be commended for their hard work in even making it interesting after the first period. Their best players were their best players; Draisaitl scored two goals to bring his season total up to 31, while Connor McDavid picked up assists on all three goals. They answered one of their worst periods of the year with two of their best, and just couldn’t crack a hot netminder. Burn the tape from the first period and move on.
They’ll get the chance to move on on Saturday, paying a visit to Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks to finish off their four-game road trip.
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