Even strength? More like even weakness.

Once again, an element of the Edmonton Oilers game that is supposed to be their greatest weapon turned out to be the reason they lost.

Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

There was plenty of blame to go around Saturday, but at the root of it was Edmonton’s inability to generate offence.

For the eighth time in their last nine games the Oilers were held to two or fewer even strength goals, this time just one in a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken. And it simply wasn’t enough on a night when Evan Bouchard’s hat-trick of blunders set the table for Seattle’s win.

When you can’t score goals and you continue to give the other team free rush chances, things are never going to go your way.

“There were a lot of things I liked,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “But line rushes for and against are such a big part of the game and if you can’t score off the rush and you’re giving up goals off the rush it makes a big difference.”

The Oilers rank 27th in the league in five-on-five offence and 21st overall in goals per game.

“There were lots of looks today,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse, who scored his first of the season to close the gap to 3-2 late in the third period. “It felt like when we got in the O-zone we were creating. It’s just a matter of making that one extra play and bearing down a little bit.

“We have to keep nailing away at that. There is no secret formula or secret solution to it. We have to put our hard hats on and try to put one home.”

The Oilers fell to 4-4-1 on the season, the same record they had last year at this point, but they’re 2-4 in their last six and needed a 5-1 power play advantage to edge Montreal last game. So this team still has some work to do.

“We have to keep plugging away at our game,” said Nurse. “It’s upping our work ethic and winning our battles. It’s the simple things, the cliche things that allow you to work yourself out of slumps.”

Oilers captain Connor McDavid had 23:52 of ice time, didn’t register a point or a shot on net and went 2-10 in the face-off circle, but he took a back seat to Bouchard in the ‘what went wrong’ department.

It was another miserable night for the Oilers defenceman. It was his ill-fated pinch on his first shift of the game that set up a Seattle two-on-one and put the Kraken up 1-0 on Jordan Eberle’s goal at 1:23.

From there, Seattle went up 2-0 on what would have been a nothing play if Bouchard picked up the trailer on a two-on-two. Instead, he veered over to Adam Henrique’s man, leaving Tye Kartye wide open on main street for the uncontested shot.

Then, just when you’re ready to pull your hair out, Bouchard got Edmonton back in the game when he scored his first goal of the season on a power play point shot.

Then, just when you think Bouchard might be back, he turns the puck over, makes a bad pinch, loses track of Eberle again and the former Oiler’s second goal of the night made it 3-1 with 7:49 to play in the game.

That dropped Bouchard at a team-worst minus 10 in his ninth game of the season, tying him for dead last in the NHL.

The Oilers looked better in this loss than they have in some of their wins, showing more pressure and intensity, but they can’t finish unless it’s on the power play (where five of their last 11 goals came from) and those bad decisions at the blue line are killing them.

“It was just some mistakes on giving up chances off the rush,” said Knoblauch. “Whether it was a bad pinch or the forwards not coming back, we’re just out of sync there and that’s where Seattle had pretty much all their chances — off plays like that.

“Most of (the game) was good, but that part, and it’s a very important part, we need to get better at.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com