Depleted Oilers leave Nashville singin’ the blues
Bobby Roy♦
Edmonton drops seventh straight
Without seven of their regular starters playing against a desperate Nashville team in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race, the Oilers put up a fight, but it wasn’t enough Tuesday night during a 3-1 loss in the Music City.
Prior to Tuesday night’s game Nashville sat tied with Chicago in seventh spot, but with the victory over the Oilers they moved into sixth spot with 88 points.
For the Oilers, it was another night where there were positives from the mostly young and unexperienced team, but for the most part the Oilers didn’t really give Nashville much of a test.
The Preds got off to a quick start with a beautiful tic-tac-toe play with Martin Erat capping the play with his 15 goal on the season at the 4:08 mark of the first period. Joel Ward started the play by dishing it off to David Legwand, who garnered the first star of the night with a two-point effort.
The Preds added to their lead at the 7:40 mark of the first with a powerplay goal via Patric Hornquist’s 19 marker on the year. Sergei Kostitsyn and Ryan Suter added assists on the play.
Halfway through the period the Oilers could only muster one shot on Pekke Rinne, which didn’t give them much hope heading into the second period. By the end of the first the Preds had 15 shots to the Oilers five.
The Predators added to their two-goal lead with Legwand’s 14 goal of the year at the seven minute mark of the second period.
Down 3-0 the Oilers’ Jordan Eberle gave his team some hope with his 17 goal of the year at the 9:34 mark. Eberle’s goal was a powerplay marker for the Oilers with Andrew Cogliano and Jim Vandermeer assisting on it.
The Oilers were only able to throw seven shots on Rinne in the second, but Nashville didn’t do too much better with only five shots on Devan Dubnyk.
The third period didn’t see any scoring for either team, but with less than a minute later the Oilers’ Kurtis Foster was leveled by Legwand leaving Foster on the ice for several minutes before he was helped off the ice.
Foster had trouble getting off the ice and left for the remainder of the game. His status is uncertain.
With the loss the Oilers remain on the basement floor of the NHL with 56 points, seven better than the Ottawa Senators.
Dubnyk stopped 27 of the 30 shots thrown his way while Rinne stopped 19 of 20.
Next up for the Oilers are the also golf course bound St. Louis Blues on Thursday night in St. Louis at 6 p.m. Mountain time.
