If you could boil the Edmonton Oilers entire season down to four games, it would be this road trip.
Their week-long trek through Vegas, Denver, Dallas and St. Louis had it all — rousing wins, crushing defeats, bewildering mood swings and at the end of it you still aren’t sure what to make of them.
They looked strong and composed in beating Vegas (4-2) and Colorado (4-3), holding the other team to three or fewer goals for just the third and fourth time in the last 14 games.
But just when you thought they might be turning the corner, they get beat down 7-2 in Dallas, where it looked like they’d forgotten everything. The defence was terrible. The goaltending was terrible. And when they were getting their butts kicked, Connor McDavid had to be the guy who lit the fuse physically.
Sixty-seven games into the season, and three games into the trip, the jury was still out on these guys.
Friday in St. Louis was going to shed some light on the situation, right? Nope, it only made things cloudier.
For 52 impressive minutes, the Oilers played tight, disciplined playoff hockey and built a 2-0 lead coming home. It was a rock solid road game, played in the exact style they’ll need to employ going forward.
Then, boom! They cough up two goals in the last 7:38 and lose 3-2 in the waning seconds of overtime.
Seriously, what do you make of these guys?
“I don’t know, it’s really a shame,” said winger Kasperi Kapanen, the shock of what just happened still setting in. “Throughout the whole game we were playing pretty well.
“Teams are going to have their push if we’re leading, we just need to learn to how to play with a lead. I just hope that the one extra point that we lost today isn’t going to come back and haunt us later.”
Edmonton Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram (39) stops a shot by St. Louis Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich (89) during the second period of an NHL hockey game Friday, March 13, 2026, in St. Louis.
With the one point gained, the Oilers sit third in the Pacific Division (19th overall) heading home for four games in seven nights at Rogers Place. There are teams tracking them from behind with games in hand and the way they’re going they can’t take anything for granted.
The consistency issues that have plagued them all year don’t seem to be going anywhere. The Oilers were outshooting St. Louis 10-1 in the second period when Kapanen scored at 15:41, and it looked like they had it in the bank when McDavid scored 10 minutes into the third period.
You couldn’t have asked for much else.
“I don’t think it could have gone much better for us in the first 40 minutes,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “And we had a nice lead in the third period. Then they got their goal and maybe we got a little nervous and backed in a little bit.
“It’s unfortunate. It could have been an outstanding end of the road trip, getting three out of four. Only getting one point in the last two games is disappointing for us.”
Considering the level of opposition, going 2-1-1 is still pretty good. That’s one way of looking at it. The other way is they just lost 7-2 and blew a 2-0 third-period lead.
“The positive is that we played some pretty good hockey at points,” said Knoblauch. “The first two games of the road trip were really good. The Dallas game? No. And most of the game tonight was good but not all of it.”
However you slice it, that’s how the Oilers roll. Just when you think you’ve got them figured out, they change lanes.
“It sucks right now, but we just have to forget this one and move on,” said Kapanen. “This trip as a whole has been a positive one. We obviously would have wanted two points today and our game (in Dallas) certainly wasn’t our best, but it’s certainly better than it has been of late.”
Connor Ingram, who’s been the starting goalie for nearly a month now (starting six of the last eight games since Feb. 26) solidified his role as the new No.1, stopping 22 of 25 shots. The Oilers were much better defensively, but nobody is perfect and when St. Louis got its clean looks Ingram made the saves he needed to make — like when the Oilers gave two shorthanded breakaways on a horrendous third-period power play.
LATE HITS — Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was a late and unexpected scratch, having to fly home to tend to a personal matter … Colton Dach’s Edmonton homecoming lasted all of two games and two shifts before an injury in Colorado put him long term injured reserve.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com