Sputtering Oilers aim to find form as they face hot Lightning

Edmonton Oilers centre Connor McDavid, left, flips the puck past Tampa Bay Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman during NHL action on Nov. 18, 2023, in Tampa, Fla. (Chris O'Meara/AP)

The Tampa Bay Lightning: On a five-game winning streak, their longest all season.

The Edmonton Oilers: Losers of three games in a row for the first time since the start of the 2024-25 campaign.

The Oilers don’t want to add to their misery and extend the jag to a season-long four straight losses Tuesday night (5:30 p.m.) in Tampa, of course, but they have to be sharper all over the ice. That starts with speed, head coach Kris Knoblauch said after the morning skate.

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“We need to be playing a lot faster,” Knoblauch told media.

“We’ve been standing still too much ... We’re in the right positions, but we’re not closing quick enough, and it’s allowing the other team to be given a little more time to make plays.”

Edmonton has been uncharacteristically cold since returning to action after the two-week 4 Nations Face-Off break, dropping 6-3 and 7-3 decisions on the weekend to the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals, respectively. Before it, the Oilers had gone 12-5-1 since Jan. 1 and were first place in the Pacific Division.

The Vegas Golden Knights have snuck ahead of them by two points now, but the Oilers are still among the National Hockey League’s better teams in seventh overall with 25 games left in the regular season.

Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said Tuesday he expects himself and his teammates to respond.

“Something that we’ve done well over even the past couple years is not letting this kind of feeling linger on,” he said.

Edmonton has two more road games following Tuesday’s tilt in Tampa: against the eighth-overall Florida Panthers on Thursday and the ninth-overall Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday.

Trade-deadline chatter

With the NHL trade deadline a week and a half away, what the Oilers might try to do depends heavily on the status of Evander Kane.

The 33-year-old forward who scored 24 goals in 77 games last season hasn’t played this campaign and had knee surgery a month and a half ago.

In the fall, he underwent abdominal surgery to repair both abductors, two hernias and two abdominal tears. Recovery from that extensive operation was expected to take at least five to six months.

The latest procedure, a knee scope, came with a recovery timeline of four to eight weeks, according to the Oilers.

Kane often plays among the Oilers' top-six forwards and provides a physical edge that the team has been decidedly lacking.

Jason Gregor, radio host on Sports 1440 and blogger on Oilers Nation, said Tuesday other players who provided “more grit and hardness” last season – such as Dylan Holloway, Warren Foegele and Vincent Desharnais – are no longer on the team and that their replacements don’t bring that dimension.

“They were physical, and they were fast, and Jeff Skinner, Viktor Arvidsson and the other replacements just don’t have that element,” Gregor told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

If Kane were to miss the rest of the season, the Oilers would have “a lot more” shopping options.

“In an ideal world, they’d like to get a fourth-line centre, somebody who’s good on face-offs, can kill penalties. I think they need a scoring winger,” Gregor said, adding minor-league call-up Matt Savoie, who’s been playing on a line with Leon Draisaitl the last two games and has an assist, could fill the scoring role but to “temper expectations” for him.

“Rather than come in and say, ‘He’s going to be a top six guy’ – and then if he isn’t, everybody’s mad – it’s always better to come in lower and then if he exceeds it, then awesome," Gregor said.

Projected lineups

Oilers

Forward

• Viktor Arvidsson • Connor McDavid • Zach Hyman
• Vasily Podkolzin • Leon Draisaitl • Matt Savoie
• Mattias Janmark • Ryan Nugent-Hopkins • Connor Brown
• Kasperi Kapanen • Adam Henrique • Corey Perry

Defence

• Mattias Ekholm • Evan Bouchard
• Darnell Nurse • Troy Stecher
• Brett Kulak • Ty Emberson

Goal

• Stuart Skinner • Calvin Pickard

Lightning

Forward

• Jake Guentzel • Anthony Cirelli • Nikita Kucherov
• Brandon Hagel • Brayden Point • Zemgus Girgensons
• Mitchell Chaffee • Nick Paul • Gage Goncalves
• Mikey Eyssimont • Luke Glendening • Cam Atkinson

Defence

• Victor Hedman • JJ Moser
• Ryan McDonagh • Erik Cernak
• Emil Lilleberg • Darren Raddysh

Goal

• Andrei Vasilevskiy • Matt Tomkins

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Kenny and The Canadian Press