In Edmonton, the futility of the new season is starting to show.
On Thursday night, the Oilers dropped to 3-6-0 with a 4-3 loss to the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs.
With just over six minutes left in regulation, Auston Matthews potted the game-winner and the Maple Leafs won their fourth straight.
Frederik Andersen made 26 saves to get the win.
“We got the win, which is all that matters,” Matthews said. “Obviously a lot of disruptive flow; we’re taking too many penalties right now. Special teams came up big, couple of big penalty kills, a couple of big power-play goals for us and sometimes that’s the way the game goes. Special teams got to come through and obviously we squeaked out with this one, but obviously some guys came up with some big plays on both ends for us tonight and ‘Freddie’ was a brick wall as well.”
Leon Draisaitl struck for two power-play goals and Zack Kassian added a single marker for the Oilers.
“I didn’t like our first two periods at all, especially our first,” the Oilers’ Connor McDavid said. “I thought our second period we did an all right job of just settling the game down. We found a way to hang around and I thought the third period was pretty good minus a couple of penalties and some PK goals against. Lots of power plays both ways and kind of a weird game, but I thought our game wasn’t where it needed to be at all.”
The best the Oilers could do was the tie the twice, 2-2 and 3-3.
Jason Spezza had a goal for the Leafs.
“I think there is definitely a belief that is growing within our group,” Spezza said. “I feel like we can still do better when we have leads. We’ve had lots of leads and given a few up but have been resilient and been gritty and find ways to win at the end.
“Winning breads confidence and we’re starting to believe that we can win every night and that’s a good feeling for a team, but we still feel there’s a little ways to go to lock things down better. But it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”
William Nylander and Wayne Simmonds also scored for the Maple Leafs.
“I like the way that we’ve found ways to come out on the positive side of it when it counts the most,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. ” … We give up the lead and we bounce right back and make sure we finish the job. That’s kind of been the theme.
“I think the thing I like most of all, for the most part we’ve defended really well as a team. Not perfect, [but] we’ve defended hard. The guys are working hard and have really significantly cut down on the high danger chances and odd-man rushes and the players have been really committed to that. It’s been far from perfect; we have a lot of areas to grow. We’re not even close to being the team I think that we can be and the team that we would need to be. But a lot of positive of things have gotten us to be 7-2. I think the greatest news of all is that none of the games have been perfect and there’s lots of room for growth.”
Mikko Koskinen made 23 saves in the loss.
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