Connor McDavid<\/a>, on a night where six Pacific teams played and six Pacific teams lost in regulation.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to play in this division. A lot of teams are fortunate to play in this division,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cWe\u2019re thankful not to have lost any ground. That being said we have to find a way to win some games here on the road. We have to make up some ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Oilers fell to a Florida team for the second straight game on home ice, this time a 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, they looked at the standings to see that they hadn\u2019t lost any ground to anybody on another Softball Saturday night in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
The same thing happened two nights before, if you can believe it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re very fortunate. The teams that we’re battling with are losing,\u201d said head coach Kris Knoblauch. \u201cThese last two nights in a row that we’ve lost, everyone else we’re battling with are not gaining any ground on us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got a lot of games against those teams, so we’re going to need to win those games. But, it’s nice that we lost a game on our schedule and we didn’t lose any ground. Certainly, it was a good opportunity for us to win and really move ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every Pacific team that played Saturday lost in regulation: Vegas lost 4-1 in Nashville, L.A. lost 4-1 at home to Buffalo, San Jose lost by the same score at home to Philadelphia, Seattle dropped a 5-2 decision in Columbus and Vancouver lost 3-1 at home to St. Louis.<\/p>\n
Then Edmonton got bested by the Lightning, yet held tight to second place in the Division despite a two-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
Six Pacific teams played games on Thursday. Three of them were shut out that night, while the six teams combined for six goals \u2014 three by the Kings and two by the NHL\u2019s last place team, the Vancouver Canucks. Together, they earned one measly loser point out of a possible 12.<\/p>\n
It is a cyclical phenomenon, and while the Pacific is rightly targeted for being “a pillow fight” this year, other Divisions take their turn.<\/p>\n
The Atlantic Division has been home to four separate rebuilds among its eight teams over the past decade, though their top teams \u2014 Florida, Tampa and Boston \u2014 have all helped to prop up the division.<\/p>\n
The Metropolitan\u2019s Carolina Hurricanes have been a great regular-season team, but they play in a division that houses a wholly average group in recent years. Neither very good nor very bad, the best teams in the Atlantic have held sway in the East for some time.<\/p>\n
Few, however, have been as bad a collection as the Pacific in 2025-26, where the first-place Anaheim Ducks\u2019 80 points would have them four points and three teams removed from a wild-card spot out East.<\/p>\n
Edmonton, it seems, just doesn\u2019t beat many of the NHL\u2019s top teams anymore. On Saturday against Tampa, their top unit got caved in by the Lightning’s top group in a mismatch that decided the game.<\/p>\n
Edmonton\u2019s top unit of McDavid, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm combined to go minus-14. Edmonton\u2019s top line had a 26 per cent shot share on a night where Nikita Kucherov danced his way to another four points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a great system, they\u2019re perfectly coached. They all know what they\u2019re doing all over the ice. They\u2019re a great team,\u201d complimented McDavid, whose team hung in there but just couldn\u2019t handle the Lightning.<\/p>\n
McDavid\u2019s praise for his Olympic coach Jon Cooper was effusive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re extremely well coached, they\u2019re extremely well organized,” he said. “They\u2019re very rehearsed in everything they do. It\u2019s very impressive. And when you do break them down they have a heck of a goalie to backstop them.\u201d<\/p>\n
With 11 games to play, Edmonton is fine as far as a playoff berth goes.<\/p>\n
Their game, however, is still a work in progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 Welcome to the Pathetic Division. Out here, losses grow on trees, and playoff berths fall from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-552744","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\/552744","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=552744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}