Edmonton Oilers offence stuck in ice age in loss to Utah Mammoth

The message from head coach Mike Babcock after Edmonton beat the L.A. Kings 4-1 on Tuesday was pretty simple: Nice win, but don’t make a habit of it.

The Oilers, outshot 40-16 by the Kings, knew they got away with one and needed to up their game when they stepped up a weight class Thursday night against the visiting Utah Mammoth.

“You don’t want the L.A. game to be the blueprint of what we’re doing, I’ll tell you that right now,” the Oilers coach warned at the morning skate. “We have lots of work to do, obviously. We have to have way more time with the puck than we’ve had and play a way heavier game.”

Alas, it was more of the same against the Mammoth.

As a crowd of about 17,000 looked on in dismay at Rogers Place, the Oilers started poorly, dug themselves a hole and spent all night trying to crawl out of it. Unsuccessfully, as it turns out, as the Mammoth held on for a 4-2 decision, handing Edmonton its first regulation loss of the season.

After six games in a row against teams that finished below them in the standings last year, the Oilers met their first playoff team from last season and the 5-2-0 Mammoth came exactly as advertised — fast, skilled, structured and deep.

And with the Oilers minus four injured forwards and one defenceman, they were behind all night — 1-0 at the first intermission and 3-1 at the second.

This game featured the second-ranked power play in the NHL versus the 26th-ranked penalty killing in the league and the early results were as expected. With Josh Samanski in the box for high-sticking, Utah wasted no time making it 1-0 on the man advantage.

“We have a long way to go on the penalty kill, we understand that,” Babcock admitted. “It’s a new structure for the guys and a lot of our penalty killers have been in and out (with injuries) so we’ll keep working on it.”

As they did in the final two periods in Los Angeles (outshot 29-10), or in the first two periods against San Jose (eight shots), the Oilers spent the first period against Utah in an offensive quagmire, managing just two shots in the first 18 minutes and three in total, from Alex Formenton, Max Jones and Filip Hallander.

But the Oilers beat L.A. and San Jose by a combined score of 7-2, so there wasn’t much concern after 20 minutes. And even when they were scoreless with only had six shots through 30 minutes nobody was worried about the 1-0 deficit.

Then, with Samanski back in the box in the second period and the Mammoth scoring 31 seconds into the power play, things got a little tense.

You kept waiting for the Oilers to hit the gas, but when Leon Draisaitl made it 2-1, Logan Cooley made it 3-1 just 21 seconds later, leaving Edmonton down by two at the second intermission.

A fluke goal from Shakir Mukhamadullin early in the third period made it interesting, but the Mammoth sealed it into an empty net.

LATE HITS — There were some second-period fireworks when Utah’s Jack McBain drilled Draisaitl from behind and Mikhail Sergachev drilled McDavid with a cross-check across the ribs. Edmonton came out of it with a power play but couldn’t convert.

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