Thump!!!

Last night’s 8-2 thrashing handed the Edmonton Oilers what is essentially perfect bookends to what truly has been a season to forget. 

While game No. 78 on the schedule was a drubbing to remember, it was also the perfect complement to the 6-1 thrashing Edmonton received back on October 14th, against the very same Los Angeles Kings. On both occasions, the dogs were called off in what could have easily turned into games in which the Oilers coughed up double digits in goals against. 

Ben Scrivens was downright awful in his forty minutes of work on Thursday night, allowing three pucks to slip in behind him that simply had no business going in, while Tyler Bunz looked about as over matched as one might expect an ECHL netminder to look against the defending Stanley Cup Champions….never mind the fact he was playing behind one of the worst teams in all of hockey. 

It was beating no one in this organization should forget any time soon but something tells me it may be dismissed as nothing more than “one of those nights”. There is no question the goaltending was dreadful from the drop of the puck and it snowballed from there but let’s be honest here. Allowing that game to get out of hand to the extent it did, with next to no push back, was more than a little embarrassing. 

Yes the Kings desperately needed the two points and the Oilers are what they are but that performance simply cannot happen. No one should have expected Edmonton to walk into to LA and win but again, being absolutely crushed by a team that hasn’t exactly been lighting it up of late is not acceptable. 

Obviously the level of goaltending Todd Nelson’s crew received made this a near impossible situation to deal with but folding like a cheap suit should not be the response we should have seen…especially after delivering what was a rather lack lustre performance against the Anaheim Ducks roughly twenty-four hours ago. Outside of possibly Anton Lander, who played his ass off in celebration of his newly signed two-year extension, this was a complete team effort. 

In the end, the result was never really in doubt but man was that ugly to watch. It was so bad that you almost started to feel bad for the guys out on that ice, as they were clearly in over their collective heads, but after watching the vast majority of them simply go through the motions…that feeling quickly subsided.