A Missed Opportunity For The Edmonton Oilers
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
In the morning calm, Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft talked about the ability of his team to manage swells and troughs, and not let their emotions ride the steep waves of winning and losing.
Sunday, they were caught in a Los Angeles typhoon.
We won’t know how well they’ve navigated until their next playoff game, on Tuesday. But in losing 4-0 to the Kings, the Oilers were nothing like the deep, offensively-dominant team they had looked like the previous two games. They lost their National Hockey League playoff series lead along with Game 4.
The shutout represented a massive 10-goal swing from Edmonton’s 8-2 win in Game 3 on Friday. The Oilers stopped dead in the water, and now face a best-of-three with the first-round Stanley Cup series tied 2-2.
Woodcroft doesn’t believe momentum carries over from game to game. We’ll see about confidence.
“It’s one game at a time for us and today we dropped a game,” the coach said late Sunday. “It’s a missed opportunity, and that’s what it is. As I said, we’ll do our work, we’ll digest the game and give our players something that will be a focal point heading into Game No. 5.
“I just didn’t think we skated at the level we needed to skate at. I didn’t think our (puck) battles and stick fights were where they needed to be. We have to be better, we’re capable of more.”
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Highlights are below....
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