The Oilers need to flip a switch before the playoffs – and fast

Following back-to-back losses and having fallen to third place in the Pacific Division, the Edmonton Oilers appear poised to begin the upcoming Stanley Cup Playoffs on the road versus the Los Angeles Kings.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen recapped Monday’s loss to the Anaheim Ducks and outlined that, even in the absence of top players, the Oilers must show better defensively in order to return to the win column.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I want to talk a little bit about the Oilers. Last night, they lost a game to the Ducks, which coming into the night it was largely inconsequential for the Oilers. It felt like they were kind of locked in to that third spot in the Pacific Division. Then all of a sudden, the Kings lose to the Seattle Kraken while Edmonton is down 3-1 in the third period to the Ducks. You’re sitting there going, “If Edmonton would have won this game, they would have been only two points back of Los Angeles.’ They still have a head-to-head game against the Kings and maybe home ice still could have been within reach. But Edmonton fell short [against the Ducks]. They hit a post at the buzzer and it was a 3-2 loss. But perhaps the biggest story is the continued run of injuries in Edmonton. There is still no Leon Draisaitl, still no Connor McDavid. Trent Frederic made his Oilers debut, played seven minutes, and now it sounds like he’s going to be out until the playoffs. There’s still no Stuart Skinner, Mattias Ekholm, and Evander Kane. Keep going down the list. How concerned are you with this Oilers team and are the concerns just injury related?

Colby Cohen: They’re not just injury related, but we’d be crazy to pretend that it doesn’t matter when you’re missing the two maybe best players, or dominant players, in the NHL on any given night, so I think that’s fair. You have Ekholm who, down year or not, is still Ekholm. He can still do things better than 85 percent of the defensemen in the NHL. Here’s my problem looking at the way Edmonton lost last night. I know they had some pushback late in the game and they almost tied it, but Evan Bouchard, he looks lost on two of the three goals last night. This is a guy who is looking for a big, fat contract extension. It’s just so uninspiring to watch the Oilers puck-watching the defensive zone, mismanage the puck around the defensive blue line, just things that even if you’re playing with guys who don’t normally get those minutes, they’re still NHL players and they’re still plays that you know that, at this time of year when you’re gearing up for the playoffs, it’s not going to fly. You can’t flip a switch in the playoffs. It doesn’t work like that. Now is when you have to start tightening up your game. And this is ugly. The flybys, the miscommunications around the net, puck-watching. It’s not good. Nobody is defending hard within the house. Everybody is two or three feet away. It’s really ugly. Again, sure the injuries matter, but to me, it’s more of what we have seen out of this team for the majority of the year, so why now do we think they’re just going to ultimately flip a switch and go on a playoff run?

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: