They play defense like a beer league team. Absolutely lost out there. But why put in huge effort when the goalie can’t stop a beach ball? The angles are absolutely piss poor.

That first period was awful by Edmonton. They ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. The defensive play was awful. They were outworked and their were terrible turnovers. McDavid and Draisaitl were a combined -7 as well.

I think it’s strange that Edmonton fans feel sorry for McDavid and Draisaitl - when they are such a big part of the problem. Their defensive play, and their leadership SUCKS.

it's not just "2 generational talents". The oilers have received TONS of 1st overall picks in the last 10 years and have ruined all of those players' careers.. they are horribly managed and it won't change unless sold.

No defensive mindset, goaltending not on NHL level and Superstars who can't get the Team together and on top of all that, horrible Management.

McDavid was a -3 last night and Draisaitl was a -4. They didn't have a shot until the 3rd period. They have just as much blame as the rest of the team

Drai and McDavid tapping eachother on the bench will be a symbolic image after free agency

Living in Calgary, and having 3 hard core oiler fans work with me. I can tell you i am here for this tire fire. the amount of shit i have taken from these 3 and any oiler fan for that matter over the last 18 months. This is just AWESOME!!

This team was a problem last year and the year before and so on. This is a team with 0 defensive responsibility that was covered up by the most successful power play in league history. This is a team that routinely gets desperate and needs to pair McDavid and Draisaitl together instead of making them drive their own lines. This is not a strength to pair them together; it's a dependence. There is a failure there. I don't care what anyone says; McDavid and Drai are not leaders.

I wonder if McDavid will want to go to market instead of resigning if this is how the team operates. That would be the biggest blunder since the Wayne trade to LA.

Liane would be a really good fit in Edmonton. He doesn't try either lol

To be honest, I never understood the hype as a Cup favorite so many media outlets were throwing the Oilers way; rickety goaltending and questionable defensive play are typically not the way to win in the playoffs. But nobody could have predicted just how bad the Oilers have been. It really is stunning.

A good goalie does not make the defense in front of them good. A good defense however, can make a bad goalie look great. It all begins with defense. Just look at Vegas and LA. In my opinion, the Oilers should take the year off, fire Ken Holland (and probably some other people in their management), and focus on creating a new defensive system with Knoblauch or maybe even a new head coach in the off-season, while also making some dramatic changes to their lineup. Not saying trade McDavid or Draisaitl per se, but you have to consider all options here. No matter how insane it may sound.

We are witnessing the end of the McDrai era in live time

I'm not surprised. This was the issue for a while. Oilers managed to outscore their problems in the past. But, a 4 year process on getting players to play to with McDavid was pipe dream, instead addressing a solid defensive core. I think letting them grow and win with defensive, instead trying to embarrass weaker teams, would have benefited them better. They traded away young talent and overpaid for free agents to play with McDavid, instead of defensive depth.

I am loving it. No one has pissed away more talent than the Oilers, and they keep on trucking.

Oilers going for that high draft pick. I feel for this team. They got two Ferrari's and with having high end cars if you drive them hard everyday those engines get shot. You can fix them, add budget parts but someday you might need to replace the engine or car. Might be bad methaphor but that's what I see with the Oilers

Edmonton is what happens when you pay a couple of players way to much money and there is no cap space for an actual team. 3 or 4 players are way over paid and none of them have even won a cup. The NHL pays players based on excitement, crowd pull and news coverage a player has, not their actual accomplishments.

such a shame that Vancouver has already beat them 3 times and won't see them again till late in the season a guaranteed win night would be nice lol

Bouchard's play on the 2 v 1 was terrible. They tell you in fricking peewee's as a D-man you never, ever, ever leave your feet on an odd man rush and especially at the NHL level. Not only did Bouchard lay down, he didn't even do it right. You're supposed to effectively slide right at the puck carrier so his only option is to try and stop and toe drag or have to try and sauce it over you at an impossible angle. Instead, he laid down like a pencil, allowing an NHL caliber player to have a simple sauce pass to his partner anybody at the Bantam level can do. All he had to do was play the 2 v 1 like you always do. Give the goalie the shooter, take away the pass and hope your goalie challenges the shooter and he either a) has to make a perfect shot to score, b) carries the puck around the net in which case you can now switch and take him or c) makes a bad pass into the corner. Its staggering to see how this team has lost even the basic fundamentals of hockey in the ways their losing now.

Can we all just come agree that you need defence more than you need offence...

LOL 4 dudes around and not one person covering Necas. Inclduding McJesus and Craisaitl 0:19 🤣 Man I love the oilers leaking oil all over the league. This is great.

As a canes fan this was an interesting game bc the oilers are a fun team to watch when they’re in a good mindset

Watching McDavid have like nervous breakdowns is hilarious

At what point is Ken Holland going to be held accountable? Chiarelli has been long gone, can't blame his mistakes forever. Sure Holland got cups for the Red Wings but he also left their empire in utter ruins by not letting Yzerman take over and having a horrendous stint thereafter. He's done next to nothing right for the Oilers.

Edmonton Angels

It's so unbelievable that a team that has sucked it for 32 years would suck it for one more LOL

Very upsetting to see this. I’m a leafs fan, but I loved watching those oilers last year and mcdavid dominating. Team looks like an abomination this year. Very upsetting that 2 of the best players on the planet being wasted rn.

It’s like if the Canucks used the shame option in Shadow of War to make them perform worse. Every game against the Canucks has ended in humiliation in some way. First it was a 8-1 blowout at the Canucks home, then a 4-3 cockblock at the Oilers home, and then a complete domination after the Oilers were leading 1-0.

Honestly I have only been a hockey fan for a couple of years, so my knowledge about the sport from 10 years and back is not that great. However, I really can't help but think that if Edmonton can't win a cup with McJesus and Drai, it will probably be one of the most embarrassing things any franchise would have gone through. Hands down two of the best players ALIVE and they are struggling this much? I really feel for those two, it really feels like these two are stuck in some kind of Sisyphean hell where they always end up back at square one no matter how many times they put the team on their shoulders.

Watching this video, they cut multiple times to the same clip of Draisaitl and McDavid sitting next to each other on the bench. You see Draisaitl tap McDavid's leg and Conner immediately taps him back. That is a quiet, private signal between the two best players on the team that they know they are in this alone but for each other, they're all each other has. It's cool to see and heartbreaking at the same time.

Flyers fan here , so I understand how frustrating it is for Oilers fans after the shi* show we went through last year with Fletcher as GM. Not sure what the answer is , but the whole hockey world needs to see the Connor and Leon chemistry back. They are amazing to watch .

And they’re one win away from the Stanley cup finals. What a turnaround.

Okay that Nurse getting hit in the head during warmup thing is kind of funny. I remember when that happened to Taylor Hall, while playing for the Oilers, and thats why the NHL started making helmets mandatory in warmup.

I’m a Canes fan, and this game was hilarious to watch. Sorry for your pain though Oilers fans.

What did they expect with the human pylon known as Ceci.

McDavid is a phenomenal talent, and I want him with a Stanley Cup in his hands. But ever since their first appearance in the playoffs in 2021, I thought McDavid was not a good leader. We see it in his body language, he just give up everytime things go the wrong way. I've never seen Crosby, Jonathan Toews or Paul Kariya do this when things were getting ugly. It doesn't inspire resilience to the rest of the team. Oilers have a huge problem between the pipes, but even with all the right pieces, I believe they cannot win with an attitude like this from their captain. McDavid should stop lowering the shoulders and inspire courage and will to his team.

First 3 goals skinner had barely a chance to save those! And sometimes a coaching change does wonders, we loved Bruce in Vancouver and at the start hated getting Rick T but that’s exactly what we needed and it doesn’t help our backup goalie is vey good as well, we also got Adam Foote and Sergey Gonchar helping which also helps!

I am loving EVERY. SINGLE. SECOND. of this torture that Edmonton's organization is going through (note my careful word choice; I live in Calgary, but love the city of Edmonton and Edmontonians) but hate the Oilers' front office. This is the hockey gods ramping up their punishment for Edmonton choking for first pick for almost 10 years straight (in order to get McDavid and tons of other 1st round picks). What they did was so classless and inexcusable, I still burns with anger over their moves, moves so inexcusable the NHL had to institute the "Edmonton rule change" that restructured the entire way we give out the first overall pick. The Calgary Flames have only had one first overall pick in their history, and that was when they drafted Jarome Iginla in 1996. Vancouver has only ever had one pick, too; this isn't BoA sour grapes talking, here. Hell, Montreal has only had SIX picks. Edmonton has had four. AFAIC, I hope this curse will never be lifted until Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Darnell Nurse, Leon Draisaitl, and Connor McDavid have left the NHL. That's what the hockey gods would want. :)

The thing is though, and as a canuck fan I don't follow the Oilers very closely until now because this is FUN!, but the thing is, it was obvious in our first beat down of them opening night and the other games we won as well, that McDavid and Dri, didn't back check hard in THOSE games either. So it's not like you can blame their lack of defensive effort on the depression of losing so many games. They were doing this the FIRST night. It didn't look any better in the second game either. Sure they played better offensively, but the nucks broke them down defensively and you could see lack of effort on from the two of them. Especially McD. The guy is a hyper talent on O but he certainly seems to be very suspect on D. And very fragile with the emotions. He's quite sulky.

Incredible breakdowns, some of the best on KZfaq, thanks!!

As a sharks fan I just watch these to feel better

Whatever. People want to see different teams, teams trying to win, teams built from top to bottom. Not teams anointed to win because this guy or that one’s been deemed The Chosen One.

It is very possible that McDavid Drisdile needs a new place to play. Reminds some how the Leafs were a few years ago. Problem what other team has space and can afford one or both. The signs were there before but somehow managed to pull out of the crashlanding before it happened. Some of, if not all, is on Hollandd signing of Campbell as lack of defense for years

I im mcdavid im walking off the ice and in pulling a Patrick Roy and demanding a trade mid game

McDavid is eating up 14% of the Oilers entire salary cap. 14%. Of the remaining $71m, Draisaitl eats up 11% of that. Nurse then takes up 14% of the remaining $62m. On top of all of that, they are paying Zach Hymen the 5rd largest contract on the team at $5.5m. More than RNH or Kane, and more than some elite point scorers across the league. They're a hockey team that's trying to be ran like an MLB front office that have no idea how a salary cap works. It doesn't help the team leaders like McDavid and Draisaitl haven't stepped up for pay cuts like a lot of cup winning stars have done. Oh and every single one of the players mentioned here are on NMC so good luck shedding a single one of their contracts.

I cant figure out why all these channels claiming to be oilers experts somehow have no recollection of 5 years ago when this exact same collapse happened after an overachieving playoff run and consensus that the team should be a cup contender.

It's so sad to watch, I really hope they can turn things around... but I doubt it.

"This can't be the defensive effort from their two best players" - yeah, well it's been like that their entire NHL career. When have they ever had a coach who demanded more? Bergeron or Crosby did more to help their teams succeed than either McDavid or Draisaitl have done on 100ft of ice.

We forget how much idiotic pressure is on the players to perform in the NHL. It happens every year to all the bottom teams in the league. When you have a player whose wage is over 1Million% higher than the average wage in Alberta, everyone knows nobody is worth that friggin' much money in relative terms. This is what happens when the player realizes he isn't worth that much.

They all tend to float around the D zone, hoping someone else is back checking. Same shit that got them in the playoffs.

It's almost like playing defense is important to winning...

I LOVE OILER TEARS!!!! Please bring me MORE!!!!🤣💗😭😭😭😭

They consistently form an ineffective team in Edmonton, and it begins with management. They acquire goalies without a notable track record, hand out contracts casually, and persist in prioritizing offense when building their team. In previous years, when Edmonton faced teams with strong scoring abilities, those opponents demonstrated superior defensive skills to compliment their game. Additionally, the frequent turnover of coaches raises questions about team stability. At what point should management be held responsible for their shortcomings

I am literally laughing so hard at the fact that Nurse, during warmups, with NO HELMET, gets injured hahahahaha

I wonder if mcdavid and draisaitl starting their season prep weeks early created a culture of pressure on the team, and they started clutching their sticks too tight. Mcdavid’s solution to everything is to train harder. But he was good enough. What they needed was to stay confident, which would be served by playing loose. In over prepping, they appear to have over thought the season, and it has collapsed about them.

All thanks to Ken Holland. Detroit was a disaster at the end of his time there too. Dont blame Steve Yzerman for still not making the playoffs with the mess he had to clean up

I mean....it's hard to feel bad for Godzilla and King Kong if they lose confidence in their ability to wreck an entire city.

The Oilers are like the New York Mets of hockey. Have lots of talent and very high expectations but turn out to have bad luck and be terrible.

One of the best, if not the best NHL hockey channel on KZfaq. Thank you for your in deep breakdowns !

3/4 of those goals were not skinners fault. They let the canes pass the puck across the net, skinner can't expand his mass to cover both sidea

I just can’t seem to blame Stuart skinner no matter how I feel. The teams defense is so unbelievably lackluster. That he may as well be in a shootout half the game

How can the franchise centerpieces escape blame for the meltdown? They can’t. Edmonton has underachieved for years now. All are to blame

As an oilers fan it’s really tough to watch odd man rushes night in and night out.

I miss watching their powerplay last season. It was almost a guaranteed goal every time and typically in highlight reel fashion. I hope with a better situation in net they can turn this around..

remember when stuart skinner was nominated for the calder last year instead of wyatt johnston, matias maccelli, jake sanderson, and mason mctavish?

Their defensive structure is so brutal. Communication sucks and the forward SUPERSTARS not helping out and gliding around the defensive zone looking just to get out instead of helping. Good luck oilers.

How on earth can you go through all of this and then say that the problem wasn't Woodcroft? Almost every one of these goals are players out of position, not paying attention, or just a complete lack of effort and compete. That 100% falls on the coach in this case because he had never once held a single player accountable for poor play. And I'm not talking about punishing mistakes but Bouchard is a huge problem and his decision making and lackadaisical play has cost this team games. Yet, game after game, shift after shift, he's out there starting on the top line. What message does that send to a player lower in the lineup like Broberg even if he's playing lights out? He's never getting that same shot and that's what's ruining his development. He also seemed to favour Campbell early on despite horrendous play. I don't care how much they're getting paid, Skinner was an all-star last year and is far and away the better goaltender. He should've started the first game of the season and been shown that confidence. Woodcroft also decided to arbitrarily change up the defensive strategy but apparently forgot to tell the players because no one knows what to do in any circumstance. This team succeeded in spite of Woodcroft because, having watched every single game, I can't think of any single thing he did that was a catalyst for things to improve. It was simply the 2 best players outplaying the league. And what did the contributions look like from almost every other player during his time, particularly the bottom six? Almost nothing. So insignificant. That's not good coaching. They should have a role, be shown confidence and be able to contribute on some level even if that's not scoring. He made them completely irrelevant.

What's even worse is that management fired the coach who every player seemed to like, thinking that would fix the problem, when the problem isn;t bad coach, just that the team overall is just built bad.

i have never seen a team this defeated on the ice in forever. this is the NHL's equivalent of the Angels of the MLB....generational talent being WASTED by a team of bums around them and bad management.

I've said for a few seasons that the Oilers are fake good and they won't win a cup with this roster structured like it is. And who is responsible for the roster they put out on the ice? All eyes really should be on the gm, Ken Holland has given Edmonton a puzzle with missing pieces and told the coach to make it work. They have no depth, their defense is awful from their forwards and their defense men with Nurse leading the way with his abysmal contract. Goaltending won't save this team, even if they went out and acquired a new goalie it's only a matter of time before his confidence would be shot from being left out to dry by himself too many times by this Oilers defense and his play would suffer from it, and they would be back to square one. This Oilers team needs more depth, and veteran leadership players, it's just so paper thin, if McDavid and Draisaitl don't play out of their mind the team seems to collapse.

The coaching changes haven’t made the difference so now the players are next, cap or not !

Been a fan since the 80’s and I’ve never been more upset at this team.😢

Much like Ovechkin, Leon and Connor need to LEARN how to play defense a decade into their career…

Mega ouch. I’ve been playing hockey for three whole months and already know better positioning than the Oilers D.

This team is trash from top to bottom. Horrible management that goes back years (just take their 4 number 1 draft picks. Only McDavid would be drafted number 1 again in hindsight. Hall would still be top 5 but not 1, Nail was a bust, and RNH wouldn't even be in the top ten from his class). Then the team itself, has star players who refuse to play defense. No leadership. Bad goaltending. It's just ugly to watch this team.

It’s interesting it’s always the coaches fault. Perhaps the ‘Star’ players and ‘Leaders’ with ‘C’ and ‘A’s’ are also just as much at blame. This team will crumble soon enough.

Not here for the “Oilers need a better goalie” take. The Oilers have had such a goalie carousel during the McDavid era, and none of them have looked consistently good. The problems obviously blend into each other, but the key here is defense. Team defense. They have a D corps that includes two of the lowest hockey IQ defensemen in the league in Bouchard and Nurse. Ekholm looks five steps slower from last season. Kulak and Ceci are serviceable but should be chained to bottom pairing matchups and minutes. And the team’s forwards are largely not committed to back checking and helping out. Connor Hellebuyck and Igor Shesterkin would have sub .900 save percentage on this team. You have to either find a defensive system that works for your extremely flawed D corps, or you have to hit the phones and change the personnel. Until you do that, you might as well save cap space and put a shooter tutor in net.

Welp, looks like McDavid isn't a Crosby tier multi Stanley Cup winning Captain afterall.

they need a coach to say "i dont care how many we score, i want to see a 0 on their sheet"

I once heard McDavid say in an interview that he needed more Crosby in his game.

Thank you Hockey Psychology. It been forever since I found a solid reliable hockey source. I’ll be subscribed for a long time

You have a captain who is hogging more than 22 minutes of ice time per game just to sit on exactly one point per game; half of those points come on the PP. He plays zero defense and looks completely uninterested when he's not on the PP. Where is the criticism for the guy who is supposed to be the best player in the world?

Good. Both of these players act as if they're better than the rest of the team. It completely destroys the mental of the group & nobody wants to play for each other

great video. shows a lot. clearly players do not make it a priority to be 'in position' or to win 'their battles' for position or for the puck. but the lack of accountability could have been w the coach - or perhaps is just the players.. & that would be on the GM & BobNicholson -not seeing or hiring character.

Not that it would have made any difference, but that was a bad call on the McDavid penalty. The guy backs up into him and falls down and a penalty gets called. About the defense, I know fans don't like guys like Nurse and Ceci, but they're still NHL level players, which means they should know what to do on basic plays and should be able, physically, to do them. Put Nurse on a team like, say, Boston or Dallas or Florida and I'm sure he would carry out his assignments just fine. The fact they always look so confused tells me it's not entirely the players, and since they've changed coaches and hasn't gotten better shows it's probably not entirely the coaches. It's a systemic failure and the only thing I can think of is scrapping everything they're trying, going back to the absolute basics, the most simple systems, and building from there.

When your superstars are just giving up, I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s entirely on management

How long will it be before McDavid moves to an American team where he will have a chance at a Cup?

Everyone keeps saying they feel bad for mcdavid and drai when they are equally as responsible for this mess. Thy're not producing, they lack defensively and are always caught puck watching and giving a half-assed effort. You can just see the frustration when they are playing. The team team needs to see leadership from these two. As much as the rest of the team sucks, you gotta hold the two highest paid players on the team somewhat accountable, especially when they're also not playing their A-game. A lot of other teams in the league are succeeding because they changed what didn't work. Whether that means star players taking pay cuts so the team can sign better players, signing veteran players for leadership, etc. It seems like edmonton tries the same formula every year and it doesn't work

Best vid I've seen on oilers woes so far. (Yours & others)

I know that knoblauch wanted his first shot in the NHL, and I’m happy he got it- but being thrown into this dumpster fire midseason, you gotta feel for him

So goalie and head coach was a problem they already solved, right?

It's like they imported the Sabres old mojo.

Most good teams best players and Captains are 2 different people. See Colorado, Vegas, Toronto, Tampa, Dallas, etc. Sure sometimes your best player has the intensity and leadership to be the captain, see prime Crosby and Ovechkin. But McDavid is clearly not it, and im not sure if the oilers have someone to step up like that.

Watching some of the highlights, I really couldn't fault goaltending. Their defense is terrible and they have so many overpaid middle/bottom players. As a Canucks fan, I share the same dread feeling Edmonton is feeling this season. It's over before it even began. I feel Edmonton can't fix this during this offseason. It could cost Draisaitl leaving before it's finally resolved. Edmonton is out of cap space and will need time to rebuild their defense and buying out a bad contract won't fix it. Trading a 1st round pick for a goalie won't fix it. Their defense and bottom 6 need to be rebuilt.

And the next night...They SMOKE Washington 5-0 in Washington It is there,it just has to be given a kick.

Major changes..major trade i can see between the Oilers and the Sens that could potentially include Draisatl, Chabot, and Korpisalo.

3:30 That’s what? Like $22mil (97 & 29) just standing watching the puck?

Draisaitl is going to want out of there so badly at the deadline. So many teams would want him, too!

Agreed. Hockey psychology dude probably doesn’t even watch the Oilers games regularly if he doesn’t think coaching was the problem. Now that coaching has changed literally all the criticisms he levied against the Oilers have been solved. No more dumb defensive mistakes, goalies seeing a normal rate of high rangers, PK at elite levels, and players looking better than they’ve ever looked (Nurse and Bouch).