The Edmonton Oilers poor play on home ice continued Wednesday night at Rogers Place as they were beaten 4-2 by the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Oilers killed off two penalties in the first period but didn’t generate much offensively, getting outshot 13-7. Laurent Brossoit, coming off a rough third period in Calgary on Saturday, made a couple of solid saves.
“We can’t seem to start two good games in a row and it’s kind of setting us back every game,” forward Leon Draisaitl explained after the game. “We always have to come back in games and it takes a lot of energy to do that.”
“We’re three minutes in and we go to the penalty box so it doesn’t even get you a chance to get all your lines out,” Oilers head coach Todd McLellan added.
“You throw on top of that I didn’t think we had any type of passing execution, a lot of pucks bouncing in our feet, so we weren’t clean at all. The desperation level went up a little bit in the third but obviously that’s not enough,” McLellan said.
The Oilers struck shorthanded 3:21 into the second. Connor McDavid broke in down the right side and sent a pass across to Draisaitl, who was able to beat a sprawling Brian Elliott. It was the Oilers’ fourth shorthanded goal in the last 11 games. The Flyers went on their fourth power play five minutes later and finally made the Oilers play, with Jordan Weal tapping in a cross-crease pass. Dale Weise snuck one through Brossoit’s five-hole with 5:15 left in the period to make it 2-1 Philadelphia.
“I want to give a little bit more. Maybe that second one is eliminated,” Brossoit said. “It eliminates a little bit of pressure on our forwards.”
“Pretty good play by Giroux there. He pulls up, I’m coming off the change there, kind of used the defenceman as the screen and put it on net,” Weise added.
Darnell Nurse hit the cross bar 11 seconds into the third. Michael Raffl converted a breakaway to make it 3-1 with 15:54 to go. The Oilers finally cranked it up offensively with 10 minutes left, leading to a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins goal with 6:40 left. They went on a power play with 3:43 to go but couldn’t find the tying goal.
“Our power play was on the ice for four minutes tonight and it got one puck to the goalie’s pads,” McLellan said. “Their power play looked dangerous and ours didn’t.
Wayne Simmonds iced it with an empty-net goal in the last minute.
Brossoit made 29 saves while Elliott made 23 stops. The Oilers sink to 11-15-2 on the season and 5-9-0 at home.
The Oilers visit Montreal on Saturday.
-With files from 630 CHED’s Brenden Ullrich and Scott Johnston
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