Edmonton Oilers’ crisis shifts to embarrassment after loss to the Sharks

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Leon Draisaitl sat despondent in his stall in the visitors dressing room with a thousand-mile stare. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Evander Kane at times struggled to answer questions that perhaps didn’t have rational responses.

The demotion of highly-paid goaltender Jack Campbell isn’t enough, it turns out. The Oilers need a bigger shakeup than that.

A dispiriting 3-2 loss to the lowly Sharks — who sat in last place in the NHL before Thursday’s game and allowed 10 goals in successive games last week — represents the lowest of lows for a team that’s seen many of them.

“I don’t really know what to say,” Draisaitl said to start his postgame scrum.

The game went like so many others have for the Oilers this season.

They outshot and out-attempted their opponents, but they couldn’t score enough. The chances they allowed were whoppers — and almost all of them ended with the red light flashing.

The Oilers sit 2-9-1 through 12 games. They’re now tied with the Sharks, who’ve played an extra time. The start of the season has been an unmitigated disaster.

“It’s confusing,” Kane said, “but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

“This is a good team. We are not playing like a good team.”

The easiest option is to fire coach Jay Woodcroft, the guy who stands behind the bench of this tire fire. The Oilers are in cap hell and it’s a lot simpler to can a guy whose salary doesn’t count against it.

The thing is the Oilers haven’t quit on Woodcroft — at least not from this vantage point.

“We’re all in this together,” Kane said. “We’re all trying to figure this out.

“If you look at the goals we’re giving up, they’re one-offs. … We can’t afford to make any mistakes. That’s just how it’s gone.”

Canning the coach with three playoff series wins and a .640 points percentage in 132 regular season games seems drastic. That’s just 19 games more than the infamous tenure of Dallas Eakins — granted, expectations on this team are much higher.

“I worry about taking care of my daily business and my daily process and making sure I give my players something to focus on and concentrate on,” Woodcroft said. “No one is happy with where we’re at, we all own it, we can be better and that’s where my focus is.”

Before any possibility of firing Woodcroft comes to pass, it’s on GM Ken Holland — the person responsible for this suddenly slow, aging, and disjointed roster — to give his coach a trade.

That’s a challenging proposition, to be sure. The Oilers have just three players with any trade value who aren’t making gobs of money and don’t have trade protection — Warren Foegele, Cody Ceci, and Brett Kulak. The Oilers are far from the only team that’s capped out.

It’s on Holland to get creative. That’s what he’s been paid $5 million per season to do.

Dumping Campbell in the minors on Wednesday was a start. Campbell has been on the short list of the worst NHL goaltenders since he first put on an Oilers jersey last fall. His first AHL game for the Bakersfield Condors was horrendous, too.

But waiving the backup netminder only accomplishes so much. Skinner, the starter, has been just as bad for the Oilers — maybe even worse. That’s why their NHL-worst team save percentage fell to .860 after Skinner allowed three goals on 18 shots.

They need someone who can provide league-average puck-stopping.

Things would be bad enough if goaltending was their only fault. It’s not. Not even close.

The Oilers had players like Mattias Ekholm and Ryan McLeod start the season hurt and not find their games.

They don’t defend as highlighted by their 4.17 goals against per game. The evidence was clear based on Fabian Zetterlund being left wide open on San Jose’s first goal and Filip Zadina scoring on a two-on-one to put the Sharks up 3-1.

Their penalty kill is lousy, ranked third last. They can’t finish the chances they’re generating. Their first power-play unit has disappeared; they were 0-for-4 on Thursday and couldn’t find the equalizer with the man advantage late in the third.

“It just seems like we’re getting chances, getting some good looks and they’re not going in for us,” Kane said. “And then, we make a bigger mistake than we should and it’s always – 100 percent of the time – in the back of our net. That’s how I see it.”

Go right on down the list; no one is playing up to their potential. Few are even close.

It’s all baffling, almost unexplainable.

“We say the right words. We go into every game with the same mindset,” Draisaitl said. “I think we out-chance and outshoot a lot of teams and it seems like we’re not deserving of bounces right now.

“But not scoring enough and obviously giving up too much.”

Making matters worse is the play of Connor McDavid and Draisaitl.

McDavid showed bursts of speed early but fizzled out as the night wore on. He hasn’t scored in seven games and, if he’s not still battling an injury, he looks off, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Draisaitl is completely out of sorts. The league’s top goal-scorer over the last five seasons entering this one and arguably the sport’s top passer, can’t do either of those things. He has one tap-in goal in nine games. He might be the Oilers’ worst player.

“Just the way it goes sometimes,” Draisaitl said. “Obviously, there is not too many guys in this room that have confidence right now. I’m part of that group, so we just have to keep trying to get better every day.”

It must happen fast for Draisaitl and the rest of the group.

The grim reality is the Oilers are in the basement with almost 15 percent of their season complete. This team is too good to be in this spot. Things can course correct almost on their own with a group of this calibre, but the sands are moving quickly through the hourglass.

Kane was trying to look for a silver lining. He noted that his 2019 Sharks lost in the Western Conference finals to the eventual champion St. Louis Blues, who were at the bottom of the standings into January.

“There’s no mindset that we’re out of this thing or we’re giving up,” he said. “It’s a disastrous start, but we have to find a way out of it.”

Missing the playoffs at this period in the team’s arc isn’t an option. That outcome would be an absolute travesty and would raise serious questions about the futures of their two best players. Draisaitl has just one year left on his contract; McDavid has only two.

Something must be done to alter the direction here.

Getting rid of Woodcroft would be something and might have to happen at some point. But until something tangible is done to alter the roster, banking on having a new coach come in and turn things around seems like little more than wishful thinking.

It’s up to Holland to find the answer. The players and coaches are out of them.

(Photo: Kavin Mistry / NHLI via Getty Images)