Through 71 games, the Edmonton Oilers haven’t found much consistency. They’ve won three games in a row once, and they’ve yet to win four. Last season, they had nine winning streaks of three or more games, winning 3, 3, 5, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3 and 3. Winning often keeps morale high and frustration low, but when you are a team that expects to compete for the Stanley Cup, yet sits third in the Pacific “Pillow Fight” Division and struggles to find consistency, the frustration mounts.

Fresh off another home loss, Connor McDavid raved about Lightning head coach Jon Cooper and his team.

“They have a great system, they’re perfectly coached,” he said. “They all know what they’re doing all over the ice. It’s impressive. They’re a great team. They’re extremely well-coached, they’re extremely well-organized. They’re very rehearsed in everything they do. It’s very impressive. And when you do break them down, they have a heck of a goalie to backstop them.”

When asked if he feels his team is the same, he replied, “We’ve been playing together a long time, and we feel like we’re somewhat rehearsed and organized, but not to their level.”

The captain was clearly frustrated, and many wondered if it was a criticism of Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. I think it was more complementary of the Lighting, but I also wondered how much was from the frustration of the moment and his line’s play. It was a rare game in which the Oilers’ top line got dominated territorially and on the scoresheet. Here’s a look at how the Oilers performed five-on-five.

It is rare to see McDavid’s line and the top defence pair of Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm get outshot to that level. They had a rough game, and a rare game in which they weren’t pushing the pace. I’ve seen some suggest it was due to playing against the NHL’s hottest player in Nikita Kucherov. Kucherov has 100 points in his........

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