Montreal skated toe-to-toe with Edmonton and defended strongly in the second and third periods as the game went north-to-south, getting a second goal from Kaiden Guhle 5:52 into the third and keeping the Oilers to the perimeter for much of the contest.
An empty-netter from Jake Evans confirmed Edmonton’s second shutout defeat of the season, losing their second straight game.
"A lot of credit to them defending and keeping us out to the outside, but we can work for our chances too – whether it's making a few more passes, not turning the puck over the blue line, or getting a little more presence around the net," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said.
"There's some stuff that we can do a little bit better, but a lot of credit to Montreal, because they did a lot of good things.”
The Oilers are a perfect 8-for-8 on the penalty kill since Nov. 10 after operating with the League's worst PK percentage (59.0 percent) in their previous 14 games, knowing they'll need to continue that trend tonight against Ottawa to get a favourable result in the final game of their three-game road trip.
Edmonton will have to do a better job getting to the hard areas of the ice to score the greasy goals after spending most of Monday’s loss on the outside. Gallagher’s go-ahead goal fit what the Oilers are looking for themselves, hoping to put more pucks on goal with bodies in front and traffic coming through the shooting lanes.
"In the O-zone, I thought we had a lot of puck time, but there were moving parts and pieces going everywhere and a lot on the perimeter," Derek Ryan added. "So more of a mentality change where we know we can't score pretty goals all the time. We've got to kind of grind it out and get a greasy one every now and then."
