Trevor Moeller | Fighting for Stanley(Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NHLI via Getty Images)
Devan Dubnyk was stellar in net tonight despite the fact that the rest of the team seemingly forgot they were there to play a hockey game. The Oilers were badly outshot by the Kings tonight, facing 37 shots. Dubnyk managed to stop 35 of them and came very close to stopping all 37 shots. There was some horrible officiating but as bad as the Oilers played I doubt it would have made much difference. The Kings simply dominated the Oilers as they looked like the team sitting in 28th spot. Cam Barker once again showed why he will not have a contract, with the Oilers anyways, at the end of the season. Belanger will be lucky to have one as well in all likelihood and played that way tonight, normally I’m pretty supportive of Belanger but not tonight. The Oilers showed tonight defensively just how much they rely on Ladislav Smid and Jeff Petry, and how much they miss the offensive contributions of Taylor Hall.
NHL Desperately Needs to Fix Their Officiating
At this point I really don’t know what else to say about the officiating that we’ve seen this season. It’s been a joke and many of my fellow bloggers (both here on this site and other Oilers bloggers) have talked about it. It’s not like this is limited to one team, this is a league wide issue that needs to be addressed in the off season. This was easily the worst officiated game I’ve seen this season, and that’s saying something with how bad some have been this season.
Oilers Sleeping Their Way through Final Games of the Season
Aside from Devan Dubnyk there were maybe four other Oilers players that showed up to play tonight. Ben Eager tried to spark his team with an early fight where he pummeled Jordan Nolan; Andy Sutton was laying people out left and right and offensively Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins tried their best to solve Jonathan Quick. Dubnyk was the story for the Oilers tonight though as he did everything he could to keep the Oilers in the game. He faced 14 shots in both the first and second periods and nine more in the third period. The first goal for the Kings came off of a two on one play which Dubnyk came very close to stopping. Without Dubnyk in net this would have easily been a much different game with a score likely in the range of four to five nothing. I was a little surprised that Jonathan Quick beat out Dubnyk for the first star of tonight’s game even with his shutout. Dubnyk was clearly the better goalie tonight.
Two Guarantees after Season End
Two players are almost guaranteed to not be in an Oilers uniform next season and they are Cam Barker (if his fate wasn’t sealed before tonight his performance sealed it) and Linus Omark who was sat out again in favor of Darcy Hordichuck. Surprisingly Chris VandeVelde was sat tonight in favor of having Belanger back at center.
THREE STARS
1. Jonathan Quick – LAK
2. Devan Dubnyk – EDM
3. Slava Voynov – LAK
