Though the Oilers celebrated a 7-4 victory over the Calgary Flames in their Rogers Place Inaugural Season opener on Wednesday, there were also a few key moments that shouldn't have happened.
According to Oilers Head Coach Todd McLellan, the mishandling and carelessness of puck possession during a few power plays cost them two goals against.
"[They were] gifts we gave them," he said.
"Obviously, when you talk about a power play and you give up two short-handed goals you're really disappointed…we just got sloppy and lazy around our net and from the goaltender to the forwards and [defence] - everybody has to take care of that. We have to have a sense of urgency or sense danger when we don't have the puck and be prepared to recover."
Oilers defenceman Oscar Klefbom, agreed with his bench boss.
"That's one part we've got to sharpen up for tomorrow's game," he said. "That's not good enough."
The blueliner, who played his first regular season game since sustaining an ankle injury in December 2015 that prevented him from playing the remainder of the 2015-16 campaign, chalked up almost 25 minutes of playing time, six of which were spent on the power play.
"I think we created a lot of chances," said Klefbom. "We're going to [have to] bury, we're not going to get that much power play time in the future, so we've got to be a little bit more sharp I think. We just have to reload here and have a really good game tomorrow night."
Always room for improvement
© Andy Devlin
