The Edmonton Oilers are stuck in a nasty loop as they approach the midway point of the regular season.
They seem to get two or three good games and they start looking like the club that won two playoff rounds in the spring. Then, a loss, another loss. They’re plagued by the same old mistakes.
“The big thing to realize is we’re in 2023 right now. Patience sometimes has an expiration date, too,” said head coach Jay Woodcroft.
After falling 5-2 to the Seattle Kraken Tuesday night at Rogers Place, the Oilers are 0-4-1 in their last five home games.
“You like, at the five games we’ve lost at home, we’ve probably been in control of most of them and played fairly well,” said defenceman Tyson Barrie.
“It seems to be biting us in different ways. We’ll be taking too many penalties one night, an odd man rush another night. Last night, probably box outs and D zone.”
That’s been the theme for the Oilers: they know what they’re doing wrong but just can’t seem to fix the errors for any length of time.
“You talk through it. You rep it out in practice. You have meetings and an understanding of what other teams are trying to do,” said Woodcroft.
“I think what you’re talking about is moments that were in our control, where pucks might have been on our stick and we can make better decisions with pucks. We can be harder in certain areas.”
The Oilers have had two-goal leads in three of their five home ice defeats. They lost in a shootout to St. Louis and fell 5-2 to both Vancouver and Seattle.
“We’ve been a little fragile maybe,” said Leon Draisaitl.
“We just have to man up and be a little more mature in the way we go about those momentum swings. It’s something we know we can fix.”
The Oilers are back at it Thursday night hosting the New York Islanders (630 CHED, Face-off Show at 5:30 p.m., game at 7 p.m.).