Well, that was a strange one in Anaheim.
The Edmonton Oilers came out on the wrong end of a 5-4 loss to the Ducks on Thursday night, dropping to 11-3-3 in a game that spent far too much time in the penalty box and not nearly enough in actual five-on-five hockey. By the time the dust settled, the first two periods had turned into a whistle-heavy mess, and the Oilers were left trying to claw back from a hole that got too deep.
The scoring started with Anaheim on the power play midway through the first period, when Cutter Gauthier beat Matt Tomkins five-hole. Edmonton answered late in the period, though, as Evan Bouchard snapped a wrist shot past former Oiler Laurent Brossoit in the final minute to send the teams into the intermission tied 1-1.
Edmonton briefly grabbed the lead early in the second on a Connor McDavid short-handed gem. McDavid turned a Ducks pinch into a breakaway look, used a toe drag to freeze the defender, then pulled the puck back and fired on Brossoit. The first shot was stopped, but McDavid stayed with it and batted it home for a 2-1 Oilers lead.
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From there, though, Anaheim took over. Pavel Mintyukov got a friendly bounce to tie it a minute after McDavid’s goal, then scored again a few minutes later after collecting a loose puck and burying it. Beckett Sennecke added another in the final minute of the second period to give the Ducks a 4-2 cushion after 20 minutes.
The Ducks stretched it to 5-2 early in the third when Filip Hållander was whistled for tripping 50 seconds in, and Sennecke finished off a passing sequence to make it a three-goal game.
Edmonton did make things interesting late. Kasperi Kapanen scored on the power play with just under five minutes left, giving him his third power play goal of the season and continuing his unexpected role on the Oilers’ man advantage with Zach Hyman missing most of the season.
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Then, with 43.3 seconds left and the net empty for more than two minutes, McDavid found Leon Draisaitl across the ice for a one-timer that pulled Edmonton within one. The comeback stopped there, and Anaheim held on through the final stretch.
The officiating was a major part of the story, and not in a good way. Drew Helleson shoved an airborne McDavid into the post, and while McDavid was able to get back up after spending about a minute on the ice, Vasily Podkolzin took exception and landed several heavy punches.
Podkolzin was handed a “one-man” fight call and a game misconduct, though it looked more like a fight with an instigation penalty. Either way, it was the moment the game really got away from the officials.
Over the first two periods, the teams played only about 23 minutes of five-on-five hockey. The game had its moments before the Podkolzin incident and again in the third, but the parade of penalties in the first half of the night turned what could have been one of the best games of the season into a slog.
Edmonton did a decent job on the penalty kill, killing off five of seven Ducks power plays and giving up just one goal on a five-minute major in the first period. The Oilers’ power play also delivered, going 2-for-6.
McDavid still put together a big night despite the hit that briefly sent him off the bench. He finished with three assists and his 10th goal of the season, and his point and assist streaks are both up to 17 games. He now has 44 points and is on pace for 217.
Bouchard also reached a milestone, scoring his 10th goal of the season and finding the net in three straight games. Since the mid 1940s, that puts him in a tie for the fifth-fewest games needed to get to 10 goals among defencemen.
Tomkins had a rough outing in goal, allowing five goals on 21 shots for a .762 save percentage. Even so, Hockeystats had him at -1.33 Goals Saved Above Expected, so it wasn’t Edmonton’s worst goaltending night of the season. Some of the goals came on ugly bounces, and as the team’s fourth-string netminder, the bar for expectations is different.
The two teams won’t see each other again until December 20th. Edmonton’s next test comes Saturday at 9:00 PM MT against the Vancouver Canucks, a team the Oilers have already combined with for 27 goals across their first two meetings.
In Other News...
McDavid Took A Heavy Hit And Oilers Tempers Boiled Over
Connor McDavid took a heavy hit at Rogers Place and, as often happens when the Oilers captain gets roughed up, the temperature in the building rose fast. Edmonton was already in a chippy game against Anaheim, with penalties piling up and bodies finishing every play, and Evan Bouchards power-play goal late in the first period had already helped steady things on the scoreboard.
The hit on McDavid set off the kind of reaction the Oilers have been trying to channel all season, with Vasily Podkolzin jumping into the scrum and the officials sorting through the aftermath. Edmontons frustration was obvious as the physical play kept building, and the sequence left the Oilers facing the kind of discipline questions and emotional fallout that can linger well beyond one shift. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Debut New Look With One Awkward Trend Hanging Over It
The NHLs new Hometown Remix jerseys have already started making the rounds, giving all 32 teams a fresh look built around pieces of their own cities. Around the league, clubs such as Florida, Chicago, San Jose, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Columbus have already worn the design in recent games, and the early results have been rough enough to turn the rollout into a minor curiosity.
Edmonton is next up, set to unveil its version in an upcoming home game, and the timing comes with a little extra baggage attached. The first wave of Hometown Remix appearances has produced more frustration than fanfare, so the Oilers will be hoping the new threads land better in the building than they have for several of their peers. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Fans Have Every Reason To Be Furious Over This Call
A strange sequence during the Oilers-Ducks game left plenty of people in Edmonton shaking their heads, and not just because of the fight itself. Vasily Podkolzin and Drew Helleson got tangled up in an altercation that quickly turned into one of those moments where the NHLs rulebook seems to matter less than the interpretation on the ice, especially when the explanation coming back from the officials was anything but clear.
For Oilers fans, the frustration goes beyond a single whistle. The league has long wrestled with inconsistent standards on fighting and supplemental discipline, and this was another example of how murky those calls can feel in real time. The Aggressor Rule has been floated as a cleaner way to handle situations like this, but for now Edmonton is left with the same old complaint: too often, nobody seems to know exactly what the punishment should be until after the damage is done. [Read more 🡒]