After the Edmonton Oilers lost their second game of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Stars 3-1, head coach Kris Knoblauch took his time to call out the NHL for its lack of consistency in penalty calls.
Coach Knoblauch took exactly 11 seconds to come up with a candid answer to the question of why the Oilers find it hard to draw penalties against the Stars. Knoblauch pointed out discrepancies between regular-season and playoff officiating standards.
“The standard gets changed a little bit,” Knoblauch told reporters on May 25. “They (the NHL) would definitely want to make sure it’s a penalty when in the regular season, maybe some things get let go. That’s obviously unfortunate for us. We’ve got a very good power play, and we win a lot of games on the power play.”
Knoblauch also noted that the Oilers have faced more challenges in drawing penalties in the playoffs compared to the regular season.
“It’s unfortunate for us that it’s tougher to draw penalties in the playoffs than it is in the regular season,” Knoblauch said. “That being said, I think the standard is the same for both teams. I’m not saying it’s unfair for us, but we would like the same standard.”
Edmonton Oilers Frustrated Over Officiating
A few key Oilers players echoed their coach’s sentiments and voiced their confusion regarding the inconsistencies in penalty calls.
Oilers franchise player Connor McDavid responded to a reporter’s questions about the lack of penalties drawn by Edmonton in the conference finals by answering “That’s a good question” during his postgame availability.
Similarly, Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm praised a reporter for bringing up the topic and asking him about the lack of penalties in favor of Edmonton in the series against Dallas.
“Great question, Ekholm said on May 25. “I have no idea.”
“I look at Darnell Nurse’s penalty today (h/t @NationNMedia for the clip above). Then five minutes later, I get cross-checked right in the same spot in the paint,” Ekholm told reporters in their post-game presser. “It just seems we need to kill more than we get power plays. Whether that’s just the way it has happened or not, I don’t know. It’s not up to me to really comment on that, but obviously, we need to work harder to draw more penalties.”
The Oilers have maintained a sky-high penalty-kill percentage of 92.8%, preventing opponents from scoring on power-play opportunities 39 out of 42 times. For context, according to Stat Muse, no team in the regular season killed more than 86.4% of their penalties.
However, the Stars have nullified the Oilers’ power play, preventing them from scoring a single goal on the man advantage through Game 2.
Oilers lose Game 2, Stars Tie Conference Finals at 1-1
During the playoffs, Edmonton has converted 34.9% of their power play chances through 14 games. They have had 43 power plays, second only to the Florida Panthers, scoring 15 times.
The Oilers converted 9 out of 18 power play chances against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round. They scored 6 goals on 22 opportunities against the Vancouver Canucks one round later.
In Game 2 of the conference finals, the Oilers had two power plays while the Stars had one, a shift from Game 1 where the Stars had five power plays compared to the Oilers’ single opportunity. However, both teams combined to go 0-for-3 in the power play on May 25.
Mason Marchment scored the game-winning goal for the Stars with 16:19 left in the third period, tipping in a shot from teammate Ryan Suter. Esa Lindell added an empty-net goal, securing the Stars’ victory, while Jamie Benn had put Dallas 1-0 ahead 3:39 into the game.
Edmonton outshot Dallas 29-25 but they could only score once on Saturday as the Stars kept McDavid and Leon Draisaitl off the scoreboard. Connor Brown scored the Oilers’ lone goal to tie the game less than a minute after Dallas opened the score.
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