"Be Some Deep Discussions..." Says Oilers' Coach Following 8-3 Loss to Stars

The Edmonton Oilers were making a pitstop at home as they played a depleted Dallas Stars lineup on Tuesday night. No Thomas Harley and no Mikko Rantanen meant the visitors were down two of their best players and 2026 Olympians. After a so-so seven-game road trip, the question was whether Edmonton could string a solid 60 minutes together and take advantage.

It's fair to argue the team barely strung together five.

Another absolute rout on home ice left the leadership group of the Oilers at a loss for words. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Darnell Nurse all spoke after the game. None was happy. All believed that figuring this out had to start now, but no one had any way to describe how it would begin.

Draisaitl said, "Start to finish, not good enough." He added, "It's very concerning, everything is very concerning. We're nearly 30 games in and still don't seem to have it down or know what we are." He added, "I don't really know what to say, we're just not good enough right now."

He admitted the team is not on the same page. "We're not in tact right now, we're not in sync as a group."

McDavid said, "I don't have many answers for you right now." He added, "It's the whole thing... If you're asking me to measure the gap, I don't know what the gap is right now between us playing our best and the way we're at right now. Obviously, it's pretty far."

When asked about what's gone wrong, "If we had that answer, we wouldn't have played the way we did tonight."

This is a team that feels like it's back at square one. Head coach Kris Knoblauch mentioned prior to the game that the team was working on some minor system changes. If those changes were introduced against the Stars, this game was a lesson learned the hard way.

"We have to go through the checklist of what we're doing; our breakouts, our forecheck, defending, emotion, ya. So, there's a lot of things to fix. We're going to have to find our priority, what we're going to addresss. We're not going to be able to fix everything immediately," Knoblauch said. He added, "They'll be some deep discussions in the next couple of days."

He noted that the team has a few days to go through everything and assess what they're doing before heading out on the road to face the Seattle Kraken on Saturday. "We've been playing so many games lately, we haven't had any practice time, very little. This week we do have some time... to address things."

"We have a lot of guys that are just frustrated. It's not that they've checked out or don't care. That would be concerning. These guys do care, they haven't checked out, but they definitely are discouraged. We don't see much optimism right now."

"We have to instill some hope," the coach added.

Brutal Schedule Done, Narrative Changes, And Oilers’ 30-Game Audit A Warning With the schedule easier, excuses vanish. The Oilers will now face tough decisions and a 30-game audit, with player performance dictating management's next moves.

Game Notes:

Jamie Benn got the 400th goal of his career to start the scoring. Evan Bouchard lost his guy behind the net, and Vasily Podkolzin missed swiping at the puck.

Roope Hintz made it 2-0 on the power play. Stuart Skinner made a great save on Miro Heiskanen, but couldn't get the rebound.

Nathan Bastian made it 3-0 when he took the puck off the wall and walked in uncontested. That was three goals on six shots for Dallas. Bastian scored again, but the officials waived it off as a result of a high stick. He took it out of midair as Skinner was going to catch it with his glove. The officials took a second look at the review. The ruling was confirmed.

Sam Steel made it 4-0 when the puck bounced off Skinner, off the crossbar and sat in the crease for Steel to bang home.

Calvin Pickard started the second, and with every save, the crowd gave the most sarcastic loud cheers. It was arguably more audible for the basic saves than anything else the Oilres were doing at that point in the game. It was clear the fans were frustrated.

Connor Clattenburg got his first NHL goal at the 4:39 mark of the second. He was pumped, and the hope was that his motion and energy would be a pick-me-up. It didn't. Jack Rosolovic got hurt blocking a shot and went down the tunnel. He didn't return until the third period.

Dallas got a 5-on-3, and Jason Robertson buried an easy one standing at the edge of the goal. That's seven games in a row for Robertson. 5-1 Dallas.

6-1 Dallas when Wyatt Johnston potted a goal home. The Oilers got one to start the third, as Evan Bouchard blasted one home.

The Stars went up 7-2 as Justin Hryckowian scored with 11:37 left in the third.

Roslovic made it 7-3. He buried a rebound off a McDavid shot.

Bastian got his second of the game to make it 8-3.

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