After a brutal loss to the St. Louis Blues two nights ago, the Edmonton Oilers headed south to Dallas looking to make up for mistakes made in that game. The Dallas Stars, while rested, did not start Jake Oettinger in this one, and were missing three skaters. In theory, this is the perfect game for Edmonton to bank two points from every time. But, as the St. Louis game showed us, there’s seldom an easy Oilers win this early in the season.

Once again, that’s the case. As if to foreshadow, the Sportsnet telecast showed a graphic showing the five (!) blown two-goal Edmonton leads on the season. Make it six now, as the Oilers had a 3–1 third period lead before seeing it disappear within minutes. Eventually, this game went to a shootout, and at this point, this observer favours bringing back ties. The Oilers seem to struggle with shootouts in recent years. Thank goodness those aren’t a part of playoff hockey.

Stars win, 4–3. Edmonton at least is tied for third place in the Pacific Division now thanks to the standings point. The caveat, of course, is that they’ve played more games than the teams around them. Still, foreign territory for the Oilers in early-November. Here’s the game story.

Roslovic lovin’ it, playing with Podkolzin and Draisaitl

Since being signed in the middle of opening night by the Oilers, Jack Roslovic has been a revelation. He’s proving we don’t need six preseason games for players to get back up to speed. The contract, shrewd as much as it was a result of happenstance, has paid dividends.

Roslovic didn’t score tonight, but he did pick up two first-period assists, both of them of the “earned” variety. The pass to Vasily Podkolzin alone is a true, spirit-of-the-stat assist. What a saucy dish.

And then for good measure, he gets the secondary assist on the 2–0 goal by making an expert feed. Connor McDavid received the pass, then sent it down to Leon Draisaitl in the corner. If you guessed Draisaitl did anything besides shoot from a near-impossible angle, you don’t follow the man closely enough.

2–0 Edmonton after one period of play. This looks eerily familiar. Oh, dear…

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A passable start to the game for the defence comes undone

Through the first period, the Oilers did allow 11 shots on goaltender Stuart Skinner. Nothing supremely dangerous, though some chances were still Grade “A”. It could have been much worse, but the defence actually did defend really well to start tonight.

The cracks in their game didn’t start showing in the second period; they had shown early on. But they were amplified on a penalty-kill, following a questionable penalty call against Draisaitl. Both Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm were on the same side of the goal here, which is bad. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was late covering his man, Wyatt Johnston, which is also bad. Mikko Rantanen was left uncovered and cashed in on the third chance for career goal number 300. Yikes.

The defensive play would again contribute to calamities on the second and third goals, to be discussed momentarily. Therein is a problem the Oilers have: they can play a decent enough game to start the game. But finishing games strong is currently severely lacking and needs to improve going forward.

Once again asking for the Oilers to hold a two-goal lead

As a young kid in about 2007-ish, this observer was told that 3–1 was the worst lead to have in hockey. The Toronto Maple Leafs would edit that phrase to “4–1 lead” six years later. However, the 2025–26 Oilers seem to be trying to revert the phrase back to “3–1.”

McDavid scored in the third period after previously hitting a goalpost to restore Edmonton’s two-goal margin. This was crucial because too many times, the Oilers have failed to muster more than two goals in a game. The third goal in regulation that’s so often eluded this team showed up tonight.

The margin went back down to one goal barely 45 seconds later thanks to Mikko Rantanen. It does not matter that the Stars are without Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene and Roope Hintz. As long as Rantanen is in their lineup, he can still be lethal, just like here.

To this point, Skinner had had a good game, all things considered. If your team leads and the only opposing guy to beat you is Mikko Rantanen, that’s good. Even better when you have an above .900 on the night. Skinner’s lone mistake of the night came in failing to read the hometown bounce off the end-boards correctly. Despite a Braden Holtby-esque dive across, it was not in time to stop Miro Heiskanen from converting. Random question, who was supposed to cover Heiskanen anyway?

This game isn’t gonna see fault assigned to any one party, as the whole team ran out of steam at the end. The whole team didn’t have a perfect night, even if a few came close. For what it’s worth, Skinner was called upon a lot in the first two periods to help maintain Edmonton’s lead. He also made a couple really good saves in Overtime, only to see there was no more offensive juice. He could have been better on the third goal against, this much is true. However, he helped the Oilers secure a standings point despite the third-period drop-off.

Player perspective

“It’s always tough to play against (Dallas); they have some good stars on their team, they play more physically,” Vasily Podkolzin at the first intermission

What’s next for the Oilers

Off for three days, and boy do the Oilers need it. They have the most games played in the Pacific Division right now. They’ll be at home to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night, the first of two home games before a marathon seven-game road trip.

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