The Edmonton Oilers losing streak moved to four after a 5-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Rogers Place on Tuesday night.
The Oilers started poorly again as defenceman Oscar Klefbom was caught pinching and Hurricanes forward Teuvo Teravainen capitalized, scoring on a two-on-one just 20 seconds into the game.
“We haven’t forgotten how to play; we have moments when we’re brain dead, but I still think we know how to play,” said Oilers head coach Todd McLellan. “A lot of it’s fundamentals. Twenty seconds in pinching without anyone to cover, that’s a fundamental thing that teams just know from day one.”
“I mean it was just a bad pinch by me. We said we were going to be aggressive, but I can’t go down there if we don’t have coverage from our third guy high,” added Klefbom. “It’s just a bad play by me so if we are going to win some games it’s pretty tough to start playing right when we are down 2- or 3-0. It’s not good enough.”
Less than five minutes later Teravainen punished another Oiler error. He added a power play goal with Patrick Maroon in the box for an undisciplined interference penalty.
Late in the first, winger Zack Kassian took another bad penalty and it once again cost Edmonton. Carolina forward Elias Lindholm scored on the man advantage to make it 3-0 Carolina after one period.
The Oilers finally got on the board late in the second period as Mark Letestu notched a power play marker.
The Oilers went on another power play early in the third, but Klefbom fumbled the puck at the blue line leading to a Jordan Staal shorthanded breakaway goal.
“I think our power play got us a pair tonight. They finally got on the board,” McLellan said. “The killer is the shorthanded one. We throw a grenade into the d-man’s feet and he doesn’t keep the puck in front of him and they’re gone the other way just as we are establishing some momentum in the game, so the timing of our mistakes is hurting us as well.”
A minute later, Ryan Strome scored his first as an Oiler before veteran Milan Lucic snuck a shot under Cam Ward’s arm to pull the Oilers to within one with 11:54 to go.
Maroon had a chance to tie it on a breakaway with 10:19 to go, but Ward made a glove save on his backhand deke. Jacob Slavin iced the game by putting Carolina up 5-3 with 9:24 left.
Staal finished with a goal and three assists.
The Oilers outshot the Hurricanes 51-21. Ward made 48 saves. Laurent Brossoit took the loss for the Oilers in his first start of the season.
“Sure we could have used one but their scoring chances were grade-A again, ” McLellan added. “When you’re giving up five goals on 21 shots, there’s something wrong.”
The Oilers sink to 1-4 on the season. They’ll visit Chicago on Thursday.
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