At some point the Edmonton Oilers have to start winning games and putting together streaks or the season will be a loss.
On Saturday night, the Oilers hosted the Calgary Flames and surrendered five goals in a 5-2 loss.
Johnny Gaudreau extended point streak to 11 games with a goal – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
“They capitalized on their chances, and we didn’t,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. “We didn’t generate too much. We didn’t really create too many chances for ourselves. We hung in there for a while, but you aren’t going to beat a team like that by playing half a game.”
It seems to be the same refrain from the same hymnal night after night for Edmonton and no coaching change is going to have an impact on the ice.
David Rittich made 22 saves for the Flames to help them improve to 32-13-5.
Johnny Gaudreau extended his point streak to 11 games with a goal.
“I feel good right now, playing hard, playing well,” said Gaudreau, who has 10 goals and 12 assists during his point streak. “Our line (with Sean Monahan and Elias Lindholm) has some good chemistry, and our team is playing well, so it’s a good recipe right now. We’re coming together as a team, and it’s a lot of fun to be a part of.”
The Flames are 7-0-1 in their last eight.
“He’s (Gaudreau) elite,” Calgary coach Bill Peters said. “We’re blessed in our league with the quality of players we have. We’re blessed in the province of Alberta with the stars we have on each respective team. It’s worth the price of admission. That’s a fun game to be part of.”
Mark Giordano, Mikael Backlund and Sean Monahan also scored for the Flames.
“We were really coming on and we had them on their heels,” Oilers head coach Ken Hitchcock said of Backlund’s goal off a turn over. “Those are lessons that, unfortunately, you have to go through. It’s a tough lesson, he’ll learn from it, and he’ll get better from it. We were mounting a comeback, and that one kind of took the wind our sails.”
Edmonton’s goals came from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Milan Lucic.
“Our play wasn’t good enough, and that’s what got us into a 3-0 hole,” Lucic said. “It was a really good play at the end of the second to give us some momentum going into the intermission. We had lots to look forward to going into the third.”
Edmonton dropped to 23-22-3.
Oliver Kylington also scored for the Flames.
“I thought 5-on-5 we played really well,” Giordano said. “We didn’t give them any scoring chances against all night. I thought their looks came 4-on-4 or on their power play. We did a great job, we had some big timely goals, a couple of power-play goals, and I thought [Kylington’s] goal was big to make it 3-0.”
WATCH:Â All Flames vs. Oilers highlights]
Mikko Koskinen made 29 saves in the loss.
“It’s a tough one. It happens, I made the play, he knocked it out of midair. I could have probably just turned and made a harder play out of the zone right there. I’ll learn from it,” Caleb Jones said of his turn over leading to the Backlund goal.
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