Maple Leafs teach Edmonton Oilers a humbling lesson in how to compete

It was Black Hole Night at Rogers Place Saturday as the Edmonton Oilers got pulled into the Centre of the Universe and swallowed whole.

In a humbling defeat that saw many of the concerns Mike Babcock has been warning them about rise to the surface against the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs, the Oilers endured a lopsided 7-2 beating from the darlings of the national sports networks.

With the Oilers 8-1-1 and McDavid on a historic scoring rampage, the stage was set for an epic coming out party on Hockey Night in Canada. Instead, it was a grim reminder that this team still has a lot of work to do.

Starting with its heart. If you can’t get up for this game, and it looked like the Oilers never were, you’ve got problems.

“In your own building on a Saturday night, that should be automatic,” said a bewildered Babcock. “I thought we were going to be (ready) but we weren’t. Give (Toronto) credit, they came in ready. They came in here and played harder and longer and faster than we did. Better defensively. Better offensively. Just better.”

Both teams came into the contest on three-game win streaks but they looked to be heading in opposite directions on this night. Toronto had the kind of jump everyone wanted to see from the Oilers, and they used it to press the home team until it broke.

“We’re capable of playing way better and being way more competitive,” said winger Zach Hyman. “I think we can play heavier. There are a lot of things that we can clean up and be better at. They were just better than us. They were more competitive and won more battles.”

That’s kind of inexcusable given the circumstances, isn’t it?

“It’s a shame,” said winger Kasperi Kapanen. “Saturday night against these guys is what we live for as hockey players and it just wasn’t enough today. I don’t really feel like going into it any more than that, they were just better.”

In beating Minnesota and Carolina, the Oilers had six power-play goals and 15 points from Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but they couldn’t summon any magic against the Leafs. Draisaitl scored twice but it wasn’t enough.

In fact, Edmonton’s top line was sitting minus-2 after Toronto’s first two goals. And, on nights when the top line isn’t carrying this team, there is nothing there. The Leafs had free reign.

On a night when 13 different Toronto players had points, only three Oilers did — McDavid, Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard.

The Oilers looked a lot like they did for much of last season — a two-man team. It’s a formula that can yield some fantastic performances and it can hide a lot of mistakes, but Saturday night is the other side of that coin.

“Their bottom six was better than ours, but the bottom line is they were better than us, they were more competitive than us,” said Babcock. “They were quicker than us, they were better. We can blame anybody we want. As a group, as a coach, Jim Hiller had his group playing harder than I had my group. That’s on me.”

The Oilers trailed by two goals (3-1) at the second intermission — just like they did against Carolina — but there wasn’t going to be any coming back in this one. Toronto ran away with it in the third period.

“We can’t keep coming back from 3-0 and 4-1, we can’t do it every time,” said Kapanen. “It’s just not the right way to play. Hopefully this wakes us up and we bring our best on Monday.”

Babcock is not at all happy with what happened Saturday and he’s been seeing red flags all week, but he doesn’t see it as the Oilers slipping back into their age old habits. He actually loved how hard they competed against the Hurricanes.

“My hope for today was we were going to match that level of compete and then raise it. We didn’t do any of that. So that’s a step back. To say that we haven’t played hard or this is a trend, I don’t buy any of that crap.

“But tonight wasn’t good enough, period.”

LATE HITS — The Oilers were without Mattias Ekholm (concussion protocol) and goaltender Devon Levi (undisclosed), but Tristan Jarry was scheduled to start anyway … Trent Frederic was healthy-scratched, along with Ike Howard. They were replaced on the fourth line with Max Jones and Filip Hallander.

Bookmark our website and support our journalism:Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here. 

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.