Knoblauch open to benching Bouchard as Oilers’ mistakes continue to mount

Even the Devil himself would be spooked by the way the Edmonton Oilers have been playing.

As an October full of ghastly mistakes kept adding up for the Oilers, Halloween Eve saw them leave the candy bowl outside for the neighbourhood kids to pillage. And that’s what the New York Rangers did, taking advantage of the full-sized candy bars coughed up by the Oilers, overcoming a 3-1 deficit to win 4-3 in overtime.

The first bar came thanks to Evan Bouchard, who turned over a puck on a failed D-to-D pass, giving Jonny Brodzinski a breakaway he made no mistake on. And while the Oilers would manage to get a 3-1 lead heading into the third, Jake Walman would turn a puck over at the Rangers’ blue line, leading to a Braden Schneider goal the other way and minutes later, Bouchard coughed up a puck at the Oilers’ blue line, leading to Taylor Raddysh’s game-tying goal.

Come overtime, Bouchard, Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid were left watching as J.T. Miller went end-to-end, beating Stuart Skinner for the game-winning goal.

On a night where the Oilers didn’t play a terrible game, one where they were able to fend off the Rangers chances, they couldn’t get out of their own way, leading to head coach Kris Knoblauch facing questions about the potential of benching Evan Bouchard.

“We gotta hold all our players accountable, and there’s a fine line on mistakes that periodically happen, because no player is going to play a perfect game and there’s always going to be a mistake,” said Knoblauch. “But if there’s accumulation of mistakes that are costing us regularly, then yes, we need to hold everyone accountable.”

Knoblauch hasn’t held players’ ice time back much during his time as head coach as a means of punishment, but he did Tuesday night against the Utah Mammoth. Nurse didn’t take a shift in the final two minutes of the first period, and didn’t take any shifts for the first six minutes of the second. He responded in a big way last night, as his pair of goals — as well as Matt Savoie’s first of his career — were a big reason why the Oilers were even handing around with the Rangers.

The biggest issue Knoblauch’s seen in Bouchard’s game is a failure to move his feet.

“With Evan, you know, sometimes your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness, and you have a great talent in making passes and feeling confident that you can do that, but when it’s not working, it’s costing with chances against,” he said. “Usually, when turnovers are happening, a lot of times it’s not moving your feet.

“You’re standing still, you’re making a pass where very rarely do I see any player, especially Evan, when he’s moving his feet, he’s opening up lanes. Then passes are usually made, but when they’re stationary and you’re locked in one spot, it’s a pretty fine line to execute a hard pass.”

Beyond the five-alarm fire’s the Oilers need to clean up, their general play needs work, too. There’s been too many games this season where they play a good or great 50 minutes, but are losing the game in 10 minutes of mistake-filled hockey.

The issue is easy to identify: a team not playing their own brand of hockey.

“Collectively, I think we’re a little disappointed,” said Knoblauch. “We feel like we take a step forward, but we take two steps back.

“Just because we talk about something and we do something well for a short period of time doesn’t mean we’ve got it solved, and we got to make sure it’s ingrained that we’re doing this all the time, and this is our identity and this is how we’re going to play.”

The 5-5-3 Oilers will welcome the 5-4-2 Chicago Blackhawks to town Saturday night, before a two-game road trip takes them to St. Louis next Tuesday and Dallas next Thursday.