One can almost imagine what it would be like to be a fly-on-the-wall inside the Oilers locker room. According to the documentarians of "Oil Change", a few too many F-bombs were dropped tonight rendering their "behind-the-scenes" footage to be unairable.
As the profanity lingers in the heavens above St Paul, Minnesota those young, disheveled Oilers are just looking for one lousy win to close out the season.
11 straight losses is just too much.
“We’re not packing it in, we’re not quitting in any games and we’re not quitting in a shift,” said Renney. “As much as that seems like cosmetic surgery, it’s real. And if you’re going to redefine your team and you’re going to rebuild an organization, you better start with that first and foremost and we have that.”
What they have is a patchwork akin to that of a ripped quilt. After tonight, the Edmonton Oilers will battle against the newly anointed league champions Vancouver Canucks, on Hockey Night In Canada this Saturday.
Here's hoping that the Oilers will have their sewing kit ready after that match, since the very fabric of this Oilers club is about to tear to shreds.
"I felt like we just gave them a couple of opportunities and they made them count,” said Oilers Andrew Cogliano. “We had a lot of opportunities and I thought our effort was there for a lot of the night, but that’s the way it goes sometimes I guess.”
Two quick goals ended the night for the Oilers. And it all happened 35 seconds apart from each other; and to make matters worse, both goals were bank shots off of Smid and Petry.
After the two quick goals by Antti Miettenin and Marek Zidlicky, the Wild added two more from Brad Staubitz and Martin Havlat put the game out of reach late in the second.
Tom Gilbert scored his first goal in 48 games to put the Oilers on the board. Late in the third and on the power-play, Swedish rookie Linus Omark wristed a laser to pull the team within 2, but that's all folks.
"I thought we had a really good start to the game and then they scored their first one that was off a skate and then they scored their second one that goes off a skate,” said head coach Tom Renney. “That being said, there were a couple of coverage issues that have to happen before you get a bad break at your net.
The Oilers did however win in shot department lead by Khabibulin. The Oil posted 35 shots to the Wild's 22.
"He stands on his head a lot when he's playing against us, and that's why he's a great goalie." said Gilbert of goaltender Niklas Backstrom. "He's tough to beat."
And so are the Canucks.
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