Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Edmonton Oilers defeated Utah Hockey Club 7-1, ending Leon Draisaitl's streak.
- Connor McDavid's late first-period goal highlighted Edmonton's dominant performance over Utah.
- Utah's playoff hopes remain, but they must recover from this significant loss.
EDMONTON, Alberta — Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl entered Tuesday's game with an 18-game point streak, the longest in the NHL this season.
That streak was also the reason Draisaitl played the entirety of a power play midway through the third period despite his team being up by six goals.
"He's in front of his fans and people pay to come to see him play. ... If that was my biggest problem today, I will take that day any day," said Utah Hockey Club head coach André Tourigny.
He especially would have taken it on Tuesday. Draisaitl's streak came to an end against Utah — everything else, though, went the Oilers way.
It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night for the Utah Hockey Club.
The first part of the nightmarish evening was obvious, a 7-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Tuesday in a game that was all but over at the first-period horn.
As the final seconds of the first ticked down, Connor McDavid raced through just about every white shirt and made a sweet move to beat Utah goalie Karel Vejemlka (McDavid went one way, the puck went the other) to score with three seconds left on the clock.
McDavid's late run through The Club was par for the course for the Oilers in the first 20 minutes. Edmonton completely controlled the run of play, practically living in Utah's offensive zone. McDavid's goal was just the cherry on top of it all, making it 3-0
"They had a lot on the rush," defenseman Sean Durzi said. "They're really good on the rush all year. We knew that and didn't prevent it. So it's just the performance is not up to our standard."
The late first-period goal also ended Vejmelka's night early, but not because of how he was performing (things, somehow, could have been even worse without him bailing The Club out in the opening minutes of the game). Utah went with Jaxon Stauber to start the second period to give their regular netminder some rest.
In a sense, it was Utah waving a white flag. The game was out of reach and Vejmelka had manned the net in every game since Feb. 23.
"At that point, it was an opportunity to give him a little bit of rest and get (Stauber) some work. You never know what can spark something — even if we're behind by 3 ... but it never sparked anything," Tourigny said.
Utah didn't fare any better with Staubner in net, and Edmonton extended its lead more and more seemingly at will. The Oilers' lead ballooned to 5-0 before Utah got on the board — a goal from Durzi in the second — and then Edmonton added a couple more in the third for good measure. The six-goal loss was the largest of the season for the new franchise.
Was it youth? Was it just one of those nights? Was it the team riding too high after a big win in Vancouver? All of the above?
Before the game, Tourigny that it can be harder to turn the page following a big win — like Utah had on Sunday against Vancouver — than it is to forget about a tough loss.
"You're kind of riding the wave, but you need to move on. You're not bringing anything in from that game," he said.
That certainly seemed to be prophetic in all the wrong ways for Utah. The Club certainly didn't bring anything with them. The puck control was gone, there was no forecheck, there was, well, not much of anything (save for Edmonton goals).
"What we're known for — the resilience and to be engaged and to be connected — there was none of that," Tourigny said.
So where was it? That was harder to answer.
"I don't think we had the right mindset, the right prep before the game," Tourigny said. "I think it's everybody. There's not one guy more than the other. At the end of the day, it's on me; so it's my job to make sure we're better than that."
Utah picked a pretty bad one to lay an egg considering what happened in other games on Tuesday.
Calgary beat the New York Rangers, the Blues smoked the Predators, and the Canucks bested the Jets. Yep, every team Utah is battling with for the last playoff spot won. Even so, Utah is still just 4 points down for the final playoff spot. It's not over — unless Utah allows this very bad night to turn into a very bad end-of-season.
"Tomorrow the sun's going to come up," Durzi said. "Got to wake up, got to be ready for the next one. Can't afford to sulk, can't afford to lose confidence in this room."
