March 26, 2022 by Ryan Lotsberg

As much as it sucks to re-live this pain, I’m going to break down every goal that the Edmonton Oilers gave up against the Calgary Flames on Saturday to see what exactly happened.

Elias Lindholm scored the first goal on a partial breakaway. Darnell Nurse was covering Matthew Tkachuk on the left side in the neutral zone. Derick Brassard was skating with Lindholm through the neutral zone. The pass went from Johnny Gaudreau on the right to Tkachuk on the left (from the Oilers’ perspective), and Nurse slid all the way over to Tkachuk. That’s when Lindholm turned on the jets and blew by Brassard.

You can see that Brassard was pointing to Ceci looking for help, but Ceci had been delayed after challenging Gaudreau at the Flames blue line earlier in the sequence. Ceci should’ve just kept moving back and controlling the gap between him and Guadreau in the neutral zone instead of challenging, and Brassard should’ve kept moving his feet. You could also argue that Nurse didn’t need to slide over to Tkachuk and he could’ve covered for Brassard’s mistake on Lindholm. I’m not going to be too hard on him for failing to fix someone else’s mistake, but he could’ve stayed put and defended Lindholm.

The next goal came off of a turnover in the offensive zone. Ceci had pinched, and Nurse was the only man back. The puck came to Blake Coleman, who was cheating up the ice on Ceci’s side. Nurse came over to the right side to defend Coleman. Chris Tanev saw an opportunity to join the rush on Nurse’s vacated left side, and he created a two on one with Coleman.

If you’re a defender that’s caught up ice and trying to skate forwards to get back to cover an odd man rush, you skate towards the net. Ceci skated straight back towards Nurse and Coleman. You can even see that he motioned for Nurse to take Tanev in the middle. That was a poor read by Ceci that eventually made Nurse look bad. The puck ended up going in off of Nurse after desperately trying to get to Tanev.

A couple of things happened on the third goal. Connor McDavid’s read was that the puck was going to be played back behind the net, so he went to the wall in the corner to try to intercept the pass. He was correct on the read, but he missed the puck. His decision left him without the puck and without a man.

Kailer Yamamoto, the right winger, was covering the slot. He was in a position to get to the eventual goal scorer Mikael Backlund, but Yamamoto did two things wrong. He got sucked too high, and he turned away from Backlund once the puck was cycled to Andrew Mangiapane. That along with McDavid being out of position gave Backlund all the space he needed to bury it.

The fourth goal started with Ceci getting beat up the ice by Gaudreau. A stretch pass to Gaudreau created a two on two that the Oilers were able to defend. Gaudreau made a smart pass back into the slot, and Oliver Kylington beat Evander Kane to the puck. It was that simple.

Evan Bouchard lost his footing twice on the fifth goal. Tanev passed the puck to the open wing up the ice. Bouchard was right there with Gaudreau, but then he stumbled for some reason, which gave Gaudreau space.

Duncan Keith came over to help on Gaudreau, which left Tkachuk open. Bouchard should’ve gone straight to Tkachuk, but he got caught watching the puck. The pass ate him up and went through him to Tkachuk, and Tkachuk made no mistake on the finish.

The sixth goal was a mental lapse by Nurse. Leon Draisaitl and McDavid did good work to strip Gaudreau of the puck at the right faceoff dot. That created a race for a loose puck between Draisaitl and Noah Hanifin. Hanifin was able to keep it in and pass it to Gaudreau. Nurse left his position by the net thinking that Draisaitl would be able to get the puck out.

Barrie’s role was to step up and challenge Gaudreau there. He had his head on a swivel and saw Tkachuk lurking below the goal line. Tkachuk was Nurse’s man. Nurse got caught cheating for offence, and Tkachuk was wide open in the slot for the goal.

Warren Foegele won a race to the puck in the corner in his own zone on the seventh goal. He had two choices. He could’ve moved it up the wall or into the corner. He chose to go into the corner with it, and he gave it away to Tkachuk. Bouchard was already there covering Tkachuk, but Bouchard wasn’t able to tie up Tkachuk’s stick before he made a pass to Gaudreau in the slot. Ceci was caught in no man’s land, and Gaudreau was wide open.

Lindholm had retreated up the wall to give support to Tkachuk. Lindholm was Foegele’s man, and he got separation from Foegele the instant that Foegele chose to move the puck into the corner. Once the puck came to Gaudreau in the slot, Lindholm was wide open for a goal. 

The eighth goal was a simple three on two rush for the Flames. Tyler Toffoli crossed with Backlund just inside the Oilers blue line, and Backlund was able to walk into the middle for a clean shot. Nurse let the goalie have the shot, which is the right thing to do in that situation. That’s a save you’d like your goalie to make.

The ninth goal was a two on two rush that went horribly wrong for the Oilers. Dillon Dube carried the puck over the blue line. He dropped the puck for Backlund just inside the blue line, and cut to the middle. He was able to get inside position on Bouchard, which created a problem for the Oilers.

Bouchard was able to break up the pass from Backlund to Dube as Dube went to the net, but Dube stopped and parked himself to Mike Smith’s left. Bouchard drifted to Smith’s right and left Dube open. Brett Kulak was able to tie up Backlund in the slot, but the puck went right to a wide open Dube who buried the goal.

To summarize:

• Six goals came off of the rush. Three were the result of stretch passes. This was a clear tactic by the Flames, and it caused many issues for the Oilers.
• Three goals came off of errors in the defensive zone. That wasn’t the biggest issue of the night, but that’s too many in one game.
• Forwards were factors in five of the goals against (Brassard, McDavid, Yamamoto, Kane, Draisaitl, and Foegele).
• Ceci was a factor in four of the goals. Bouchard was a factor in three of the goals.
• Nurse’s -4 rating looked worse than it actually was. The second one went in off of Nurse, but that was the result of a poor read by Ceci. He made a major mistake on one goal against, and he could’ve potentially prevented the first goal by covering for Brassard’s mistake.
• It would’ve been nice to get a few saves from the goalies after these errors, but there were simply too many glaring defensive mistakes to pin this loss on the goalies.

That was the first game in which Jay Woodcroft’s Oilers struggled to defend the rush, and it was by far their worst effort at even strength. This was a tough lesson, but it’s one I’d rather they learn in March than in May.