Adam Henrique<\/a>. \u201cIf you want us to come running around without our sticks then sure, we could do that. But we were out there to play hockey.<\/p>\n\u201cOur focus was on those two points at this time of year and pushing for the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
We get that. But sometimes, against some opponents, it takes a little extra emotion.<\/p>\n
Not only did Florida have it, they\u00a0knew\u00a0they were going to have it at the morning skate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the juice is going to be here tonight,\u201d Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said before the game. \u201cThe regular-season juice that neither one of us gets easily, it\u2019s going to be in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to get up these games, right? It\u2019s hard not to get up for this one,\u201d reasoned Matthew Tkachuk, a face that should ignite every player on this Oilers roster all on its own. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who you play in a playoff series, there\u2019s going to be dislike. When you play a team two years in a row, no matter what round, the dislike just seems to ramp up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edmonton played the Panthers as if they were the Columbus Blue Jackets. Or Seattle.<\/p>\n
The Oilers played with the passion of a guy shovelling his walk. They were no more aggressive or physical against this so-called hated oppressor than they would be in the second game of a pre-season back-to-back against the Flames rookies.<\/p>\n
Of all the places to roll out a disinterested, dispassionate, dispirited effort, a game against 20 guys wearing that Panthers logo is the last place we would have expected to see an effort as flaccid as this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys worked really hard. I thought the effort was there but couldn’t find a way to score a goal,\u201d said head coach Kris Knoblauch, in a post-game presser that had more deflections than a net-front clinic hosted by Joe Pavelski, Tomas Holmstrom and Dino Ciccarelli.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t see it that (his team) didn’t show up and play tonight. We came out strong, first 10 minutes. I thought we had the majority of the play,\u201d defended the coach. \u201cMaybe I’d criticize us for not shooting the puck enough. The effort was there but we couldn’t find a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides the fact the Oilers are now 1-9-2 in games they entered with a two-game winning streak, this effort would have been more easily forgotten about if it were against anyone else. The turtle derby that is the Pacific is still up for grabs, and there\u2019s no doubt Edmonton\u2019s found a much better game of late.<\/p>\n
But characterizing a visit by Florida as just another game, or rolling through an increasingly irretrievable contest without even a scrum \u2014\u00a0let alone an actual scrap or two \u2014\u00a0reeks of a team that is so even-keeled, it borders on comatose.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019ll leave it to Nurse to conclude the evening. A guy who seldom gets caught up the emotion gave the media an impassioned defence of his team, a club that has still not proven it has what it takes this season, through 70 games played.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, everyone comes to the rink with the right mindset. This team, we want to win,\u201d pleaded Nurse. \u201cYou want to beat whoever’s on the other side, whether it’s the Florida Panthers or the Calgary Flames.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome nights we come out and we’re flat, and that’s on us. We\u2019ve got to find another level to get to. But it’s not for lack of effort, especially with this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how much each and every one of these guys \u2014 all of us in here \u2014 want to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good thing he knows, because it was surely not visible Thursday night against Florida.<\/p>\n
Only one team wanted that game, and it plays in Calgary Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0They ripped your heart out, two Stanley Cup Finals in a row. Left your captain in tears,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-548657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"32](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/32THOUGHTS_500X500_ICON_V2-500x360.jpg\"){kind=icon}
32 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n