The sting remained two days after the Edmonton Oilers’ worst defeat in nearly 17 years. As it should. Saturday night’s 9-1 drubbing by the visiting Colorado Avalanche matched the eight-goal margin the Oilers lost by on Jan. 27, 2009, when the host Buffalo Sabres trounced them 10-2. But, of course, those Oilers aren’t these Oilers. Those Oilers were on the way to missing the playoffs for the third season in a row. Little did they know then that there would be seven more National Hockey League campaigns, in which they drafted the first overall pick four times, before Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl led the team into the post-season. These Oilers, still being led by the NHL superstar duo, are coming off their second straight year of making it to the Stanley Cup Final. And it’s these Oilers who were, as head coach Kris Knoblauch put it on Saturday night, “not even close” to the level of the Avalanche, the NHL’s top team that’s led by the league’s top scorer, Nathan MacKinnon. Defensive lapses and misreads played a chief role in Saturday’s collapse by Edmonton, who had started the game strongly but seemed to wither after Colorado’s second goal: a clear shot by defenceman Cale Makar from the top of the circle that fooled goalie Stuart Skinner blocker side. The question is, are these Oilers, who have a record of 6-6-4 and have lost three games in a row, simply suffering from yet another slow start to the season – the previous two years, Edmonton was not in a playoff position at U.S. Thanksgiving, usually an indicator of how a campaign will play out for any given team – or have they actually regressed? Are these Oilers like the 2008-09 Oilers or are they the 1983-84 version that lost 11-0 to the Hartford Whalers two months before the playoffs started, only to go on that season to win the franchise’s first Cup title? Draisaitl, who leads the Oilers with 10 goals scored, leans toward the latter scenario, saying Monday before their 6:30 p.m. home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, who also come into the clash on a three-game losing skid, that he hopes the lopsided loss to the Avalanche serves as a wake-up call. “Sometimes, it’s easier to get really whacked across the face instead of pity-patting around for another couple of weeks,” Draisaitl told media at Rogers Place, adding he and his teammates “have to be better.” “It’s very simple. There’s no magic pill to this.” Knoblauch said Monday that what the Oilers put on display on Saturday was something that he also saw in their most recent two road games through the Central Division in which they blew two-goal leads and lost. “There are a lot of details that weren’t being done or getting done, and certainly we saw it in the St. Louis game (and) the Dallas game, where a lot of things that are expected for us to do – no matter if you’re an all-star or if you’re a fourth line forward, whatever it is – it’s expected that everyone does it,” Knoblauch told reporters after the morning skate. “Right now, those little things aren’t getting done, so we need to pay a little more attention to those details. And after a game like Colorado, hopefully everyone’s on high alert.” Projected Oilers lineup Forward Mattias Janmark will make his regular-season debut for the Oilers against the Blue Jackets after recovering from an injury suffered in pre-season action, while forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been placed on the injured reserve list with an undisclosed injury. Forward Defence Goal
