What led to the Edmonton Oilers 6–1 loss in Game 3 against the Florida Panthers

The Edmonton Oilers lost a tough 6–1 game last night to the Florida Panthers in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.

There is frankly nothing good to say about that game. At no point did the Oilers look like themselves and from the start of the second period on it was just hard to watch.

Not everything can be blamed on the Oilers themselves though as the Panthers played a strong game and it would be hard to say that the refs didn’t play a role.

Here are some of the major points of the game:

Did poor officiating wreak havoc?

It has been an undeniable theme recently in the NHL that penalties are becoming softer. The goal is obviously player safety and that is admirable but it comes with its own repercussions. It is a universal law that the more strict you try to make the rules, the more likely the refs are to make mistakes, and that’s all the more true in a fast paced game like hockey. Not only that but it makes it easier for players to embellish calls, which is a penalty itself but is rarely called and I’ve never seen it called as a standalone.

Whether or not that was the cause last night, the first period contained such a ridiculous amount of penalties that only around eight and a half minutes were played at even strength. Even though the Oilers were given the same amount of penalties as the Panthers in the first period (there was one penalty called against the Panthers with no time left in the period), a number of the penalties were questionable to say the least, especially in a playoff game. It seems as though the refs were more worried about keeping the game from getting out of control than calling the game accurately. The first period is not the time to be exercising that much control though.

Wes McCauley, whose penalty calls have been entertaining for fans in the past, has, and is doing nothing to relieve himself of, a reputation as a ref who calls too many penalties. Last night was certainly no exception.

Poor defensive play from Edmonton

As I said earlier, the Oilers were not solely responsible for last night’s disastrous outcome as Florida did play well, but they did nothing whatsoever to help themselves out. The first period was decent, but they could gain no traction with the constant penalty calls and went to the dressing room down 2–0.

The second period was just altogether bad. The defence had more holes than a block of smelly cheese, more first passes were incomplete than complete, and they held the puck in at the blue line with the attitude of Cale Makar without any of the skill.

Evan Bouchard had 14 shot attempts and I was astounded to find out that 10 of them actually hit the net. If you’re the team’s premier offensive defenceman and you get that many good looks you just have to do more with them.

Unfortunately the offence wasn’t a whole lot better. From the second period on the puck was rarely within 15 feet of Sergei Bobrovsky.

Come the third period the Oilers descended into spite, anger, and hopelessness, taking unnecessary penalties and half-heartedly attempting desperate passing plays. It was a night where almost nothing went the Oilers way.

The Oilers have penalty killing woes

Frankly I’m not even remotely worried about the bad penalty kill stats because of how the game went down and because of all the other severe gaps in the Oilers game. However, the penalty kill was still only 72.7% last night.

By the time Evan Rodrigues scored his power play goal, the Oilers were down 5–1 and looked like they just wanted to go home so I don’t really blame them for that one. My first instinct was that it’s hard to blame anyone on the Aaron Ekblad power play goal because that play was executed so flawlessly and, though it wasn’t as pretty, the same is true about the Carter Verhaeghe goal. Yet both goals exposed poor coverage, mobility, and play recognition from the Oilers penalty kill. Obviously there is a limit to how much you can do when you’re down a man, but in both cases the Oilers’ penalty kill was seriously over committed to the wrong player.

Better discipline is the first step to having better success on the penalty kill.

The only good news to come out of this game is that the Oilers played badly enough that they will be galvanized for next game, eager to prove that they deserve to be there, anxious to prove that they are to be taken seriously. Game 4 will be Thursday night in Florida.