“In the third, there were a couple easy goals against,” Foegele said. That’s what happened almost every time the red light went on in Minnesota, and each time it happened over the final 20 minutes. There’s routinely a man open for a chance in the home-plate area when a goal is allowed. The Oilers look like they’ve never played together before. It sure beats whatever the heck they’re doing now. Maybe they should revert to their old ways. A switch to zone defence from man to man was supposed to be the ticket to lowering the goals against that ballooned to 3.5 per game in the playoffs and led to their demise.

There was so much chatter during training camp about the Oilers wanting to be a tougher team to play against in the neutral zone and a more structured unit on their blue line.

There might have been one or two goals he’d want back - Ryan Hartman’s hat trick tally is front of mind - but he kept the Oilers in it with a few big stops. It’s not often a goaltender allows six goals on 30 shots and is on the shortlist for a team’s player of a game. The way things unravelled Tuesday was perhaps their biggest failure of many just two weeks into this campaign. “It’s back to the drawing board, but I believe in this group.”įoegele and the Oilers had better hope this is rock bottom because, if it isn’t, what had the makings of a dream season could lose all meaning very quickly. We’ve got one win,” winger Warren Foegele told media in Minnesota when asked about his two-goal performance. “I don’t think there’s anything to be proud of. They’re now 1-4-1 and just a few days away from the national spotlight being thrust upon them when they host the Heritage Classic against the Calgary Flames on Sunday.

Including an empty netter, they surrendered five goals in the final frame. Instead, they stood around and watched their advantage turn into a two-goal deficit not even 11 minutes in thanks to shoddy defensive work.

Fixing open neutral outlet