Things are getting ugly in Edmonton, and it isn’t just the weather.
The Oilers lost to the New York Rangers by a score of 4-1 on Monday, extending their losing streak out of the Christmas break to four games. All told, Edmonton has dropped 10 of 12 dating back to the beginning of December and they now sit eighth in the Western Conference standings.
After the game, a visibly frustrated Dave Tippett told reporters that goaltender Mikko Koskinen, who allowed four goals on 28 shots, wasn’t good enough.
“I thought we did a lot of things well tonight,” Tippett said. “Our goaltender wasn’t very good and we didn’t find enough pucks at the net to get us back in the game.”
Tippett went on to slam New York’s first goal, which came five minutes into the first period after Koskinen made a mistake playing the puck behind the net.
“It’s a brutal mistake,” Tippett said. “It’s a brutal mistake. What are you gonna do? Call it was it is. We’re playing well. It’s a brutal mistake.”
YLE, a Finnish media outlet, reached out to Koskinen on Tuesday to get his take on Tippett’s comments…
“That’s how it usually goes in this business,” Koskinen said. “When a team is doing badly, either the coach or the goalkeeper is sacrificed. It doesn’t feel nice to anyone when thrown under the bus, … but you just have to go to the next game.”
Koskinen added that while his play needs to be better, he isn’t the sole reason why the team is struggling right now.
“It must also be said that in the six games I lost, the team has scored seven goals,” Koskinen said. “I can’t score goals. It’s not always up to the goalkeeper alone to win or lose. The whole team needs to play better in the future.”
Only once in Edmonton’s four games out of the break has the team scored more than two goals. That came in a 6-5 loss to the New Jersey Devils in which Mike Smith allowed six goals on 41 shots, including a game-tying goal in the dying moments of the third period.
There was no comment about goaltending by Tippett after that loss.
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