The Edmonton Oilers gave up three third period goals in dropping a 4-1 decision to the Dallas Stars Monday night. The loss at the American Airlines Center ended their three-game win streak and ran their losing streak on the road to four games.
Jason Dickenson opened the scoring for Dallas with an even-strength goal at 10:59 in the first period. The play started when forward Brett Ritchie beat three oiler defenders to the puck in the Oilers’ end. The same defenders watched him take a hit as he spun around feeding the puck to Mattias Janmark positioned by the face-off dot. Janmark’s stick snapped when he relayed a pass to Dickenson who finished the play sniping a one-timer past startled goaltender Mikko Koskinen.
Brett Ritchie scored the winning goal at 1:51 in the third period and added an assist for a two-point night. Janmark also picked up two assists as they led the Stars to victory. Jamie Benn added a power-play marker giving him 12 goals on the season. Esa Lindell rounded out the scoring with a short-handed empty-net goal with just over two minutes left in the game.
Khaira scores first goal of season
Jujhar Khaira’s first goal of the season got the Oilers on the board at 14:36 of the third period. Khaira took Leon Draisaitl’s pass as he streaked through the slot, knocking in his own rebound after Dallas goaltender Anton Khudobin stopped his backhand attempt. Draisaitl’s assist bumped his points streak to four games, giving him 30 points on the season. He is five points behind team leader Connor McDavid. Picking up the other assist was recently acquired defender Chris Wideman.
Despite the first period goal, the Oilers’ executed their plan to near perfection holding an 8-4 shot advantage over Dallas. Looking at a glass 2/3 full Oiler coach Ken Hitchcock said the team played well for nearly two periods.
“When they got their second goal, it took some wind out of our sails…We dropped a little bit after that,” said Hitchcock. “We played a (great) hockey game for almost 40 minutes (and) no reward for that.”
Hung in there until the third
The 2-1 shot-ratio first period evened out in the second with the 11-10 advantage going to the Oilers. The Oilers playing well for two out of three periods but that was not good enough to get them a win. The train went off the rails in a disastrous third period where Dallas scored three answered goals, including an empty-netter.
“I think a lot of it is zone time…we didn’t have enough zone time. Dallas is a really good team, and they don’t let you spend a lot of time in there if you can’t handle the puck. We had a couple of really good looks, but we didn’t sustain enough zone time,” Hitchcock added.
All the guys need to step up
Having Connor McDavid on the sidelines opened the door of opportunity for other players to step through. Draisaitl (on pace for 40 goals and 90 points) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (third in team scoring) got pats on the back, while total team effort was missing as some players efforts were less than stellar.
“We had a lot of guys above the bar and then we had guys below the bar. If you’re going to win on the road, especially the way we’re built, we’re going to need a lot of participants.”
The Oilers’ next game is against the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night.
By Verhomme