The Edmonton Oilers’ struggles continued Monday night, suffering a 4-1 loss on the road against the New York Rangers.
For the 20th time in their last 24 games, the Oilers allowed the first goal of the game. Five-and-a-half minutes in, Oilers goaltender Mikko Koskinen misplayed the puck behind the net leading to a goal by Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere.
“I thought we did a lot of things well tonight,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said after the game.
“Our goaltender wasn’t very good and we didn’t find enough pucks at the end to get us back in the game.”
The Rangers added to the lead early in the second when Lafreniere set up Barclay Goodrow for his seventh goal of the season.
After the Rangers missed a couple of golden chances to extend their lead, Oilers forward Tyler Benson set up Ryan McLeod for his fourth with 6:00 left in the second.
“We’ve been trailing every game so far so it’s been tough to get back into games when teams are playing pretty tight against us,” McLeod said.
“Hopefully, next one we can get the first one and start rolling.”
In the third, Rangers forward Chris Krieder tipped a point shot on a power play. The puck hit Koskinen in the chest but then dropped down, trickled through his legs and into the net.
With less than six minutes to go, New York forward Ryan Strome’s pass deflected in off Edmonton defenceman Tyson Barrie to make it 4-1.
The Oilers are 2-8-2 in their last 12 games and 18-13-2 for the season season. They’ll visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday.
“I think there’s a lot of adversity — (we’re) learning a lot about our team,” Tippett said. “We’ve gone through a lot of injury issues, COVID(-19) issues.
“We haven’t played as well we’d like to as a group. There’s lots to improve on.”
–With files from James Dunn, 630 CHED
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