Nothing special about Edmonton Oilers third straight defeat

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As Tuesday night’s game against the New York Islanders slipped deeper into the quicksand, it was hard to tell which part of Edmonton’s game was worse, the power play or the penalty kill.

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Is going 0-for-4 on the man advantage, including a lengthy five-on-three, and giving up a shorthanded goal as bad as it gets?

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Or did giving up two power-play goals on New York’s first three chances sink the Oilers for good?

It would be a fun little debate if it hadn’t been such a costly result.

A 3-1 loss at the UBS Center is Edmonton’s third-straight defeat and leaves them sitting in 13th place with just two games before Christmas.

Edmonton came out strong and took an early lead, but there was no undoing the damage of their special teams.

CHANGE ‘EM UP

With his middle six stagnating and the Oilers coming off back-to-back losses, head coach Kris Knoblauch shuffled up his lines, moving Evander Kane up with Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with Leon Draisaitl and Warren Foegele. 

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It paid early dividends when Draisaitl, who’d been stuck in a miserable five-on-five slump, with just one even-strength goal in his previous 12 games, he made it 1-0 on his first shift of the game.

NET RESULTS

Goaltender Stuart Skinner had a great run during Edmonton’s eight-game winning streak, going 7-0 with a 1.70 GAA and .934 save percentage, but he wasn’t good against Tampa Bay. That prompted concern in the market that he might be slipping back into his lukewarm early-season form.

Skinner had a decent enough night against the Islanders, which included stopping Matt Barzal on a breakaway. But he did bobble a manageable puck during an Islanders power play early in the second frame and Anders Lee slid in an easy one to make it 1-1.

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He had no chance on the next Islanders power-play goal, a tic-tac-toe play that Bo Horvat (who extended his points streak to 11 games) converted to make it 2-1 Islanders at 11:30 of the middle period.

After giving up back-to-back goals on the penalty kill, Edmonton’s power play was next to stumble, giving up a shorthanded goal at 14:10 and then failing to convert on a minute-long five-on-three against the worst PK team in the league.

Edmonton had the first 14 shots of the third period, and then pulled Skinner with five minutes left in regulation, but they were held to one goal for the second straight game.

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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