PREVIEW: Oilers at Canucks
VANCOUVER, BC – The Oilers will look to respond 24 hours after their 3-2 defeat to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday when they finish off a back-to-back set in the Pacific Northwest on Sunday with a visit to Rogers Arena to take on the Vancouver Canucks.
The Blue & Orange aren’t rushing the process, but there’s a concerted effort being placed on limiting chances off the rush after they proved to be the difference in their defeat in Seattle on Saturday night, despite there being some better moments all around from the Oilers in a losing result.
“I thought our process was a little better than the other night,” Darnell Nurse added. “But we forced Stu to make some big saves, especially off the rush, and probably gave up a few. So for us, we gotta keep plugging away at our game.”
Outshooting the Kraken 33-23, the Oilers were beaten similarly on three separate rushes over the full 60 minutes – twice by Seattle captain Jordan Eberle – as the hosts were opportunistic in scoring their goals off misread pinches from along the blueline and Edmonton giving up too many odd-man breaks.
“There were a lot of things I liked,” Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We had more scoring chances than probably all but one game this year, especially in the third period. I thought we had a lot of pressure, but we made some mistakes, giving up chances off the rush. Whether that’s a bad pinch or the forwards not coming back, we’re just out of sync there.”