McDavid back but Oilers wilt in third period, cough up loss to Vegas

It’s a pretty massive news week when Donald Trump and Connor McDavid launch their comebacks in a span of two days.

After the Republicans rolled through America, Edmonton Oilers fans were hoping for a landslide win of their own in McDavid’s first game back from an ankle injury Wednesday, but instead found themselves on the wrong end of a recount, watching a 2-1 third-period lead deteriorate into a 4-2 defeat.

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“It’s very frustrating,” said Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm, after the Oilers fell to 6-7-1 on the season with their second-straight loss. “I thought we played, I wouldn’t say a really good game, but we played a really good team well for 59 minutes. It was a heart-breaking loss on that side of it.”

Vegas Golden Knights defenceman Noah Hanifin turned Edmonton’s win into a tie, scoring on the power play midway through the third period, then turned their tie into a loss when he made it 3-2 with 49 seconds left in regulation. Vegas added an empty-netter to hand Edmonton to round out the dejection.

“I thought we played a good game,” said Oilers defenceman Brett Kulak. “We were having fun and working hard, winning battles, doing all the right things. But any chance they got they were putting the puck in the net and that was kind of the difference in the end.

“I don’t think we folded or got away from our game plan at all, it’s just that they ended up scoring more than we did.”

The Oilers prided themselves on closing out these types of close games last year, but when 2-1 halfway through the third period turns into a 4-2 loss it’s tough to take.

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“We knew it was going to be a one-goal game,” said Ekholm. “It’s 2-2 late and at that point we had our chances, but then obviously we gave it up. We can’t have somebody walk down (for the winning goal) when we are four-on-two in the D-zone, plain and simple.”

Goals have been hard to come by for the Oilers. They’re 30th in the league in offence, have been shut out twice and had another game where they broke the shutout with 27 seconds left in the third period of a 6-1 loss.

And they went scoreless for the first 32:18 of this one, making it 4 1/2 periods without a goal after their shutout loss to New Jersey.

But the dam finally burst when Kulak, standing in the slot for some reason, deflected a Darnell Nurse point shot to make it 1-1. Kulak, who had three goals in 82 games in each of the last two seasons, now has three in the first 14 games. His career high is six.

After all those snake bites on his hands to begin the season (zero goals in his first 10 games) Zach Hyman deserves a break. He got one in the second period when a freak bounce off the end boards landed right on his stick for the easiest goal he’s had in a while. He’s also heating up with three goals in his last four games.

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Edmonton’s penalty kill left its mark on another contest. A rare kill from the 32nd-ranked PK in the NHL kept the momentum from swinging back to Vegas after Kulak’s goal in the second period. But the Oilers needed to kill another minor (offensive zone on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) midway through the third period to preserve a 2-1 lead. Alas, Vegas scored to tie it. Going 1-2 on the PK makes it 15 goals against in 14 games and lowers Edmonton’s league-worst 60 per cent efficiency to 59.4.

Stuart Skinner can run hot and cold at times. In his previous three games he had a 27-save shutout against Pittsburgh, gave up six goals on 25 shots against Columbus and stopped 29 of 31 shots to beat Calgary.

Wednesday against Vegas was both sides of his game. He didn’t have much chance on a world-class breakaway deke from Jack Eichel that made it 1-0 Vegas in the first period. He was lights out in the second period, especially on the penalty kill, but he let a harmless looking wrist shot from Noah Hanifin tie the game on a third-period PK and the winning goal wasn’t great, either.

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