Pack for former title contenders
Oilers lose nerve on restart and go under
November 7, 2023, 9:57 a.m
Leon Draisaitl starts the NHL season at least as a contender for the title. But after eleven games, his Edmonton Oilers are on the ground. The restart against the Vancouver Canucks is a complete failure.
Germany’s ice hockey star Leon Draisaitl is sliding ever deeper into crisis with the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL. The supposed title contender lost 6-2 to the Vancouver Canucks, who had a surprisingly strong start, thus suffering their ninth defeat in their eleventh game of the season. The gap to the last play-off place in the West has already grown to six points.
Draisaitl scored his fifth goal of the season to make it 2:3 (28th). However, when JT Miller conceded the decisive fifth goal (48th), the Cologne player was in the penalty box – next to his congenial strike partner Connor McDavid. McDavid received a penalty for a foul, Draisaitl received a ten-minute penalty during this scene. Seven minutes before the end, coach Jay Woodcroft also lost his nerve and was sent to the dressing room by the referee for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“We can all be better”
It was once again a used evening for the Oilers, whose veteran Derek Ryan had announced before the encounter: “We can all be better. We know that. We have to wash down this last 10-game stretch and start again on Monday.” Of course, they were also a bit unlucky: the supposed goal to make it 3:4 was denied at the beginning of the final period after an objection by the Canucks, the decisive 5:2 for the Canucks was only given after a review – after it initially looked like it as if the puck wasn’t in the goal when JT Miller shot.
But the problems remain fundamentally the same: too many goals conceded, too few own goals. Because the superstars Draisaitl (previously six games in a row) and McDavid (now the sixth game in a row) also don’t score, the Oilers can’t get back on their feet. “We need more saves. We need more goals,” Coach Woodcroft analyzed. “If you look at the fancy statistics, you can see that we are at the top of the league when it comes to creating scoring chances. But we are 31st in finishing. Finishing!” 31st means in the NHL: second to last. In Vancouver, his team has not yet been able to turn around these horror statistics.