'A little bit flat': Frustrated Oilers can't find winning formula against Blues

Adversity + frustration = another loss on home ice.

That simple formula played out at Rogers Place on Thursday when the St. Louis Blues, the best team in the Western Conference, came limping into town after getting embarrassed down the highway in Calgary.

The Blues shook off their 8-2 loss against the Flames, came out with something to proveand outplayed the Oilers all over the ice.

Successful teams simply have to find ways to overcome adversity.

Thursday's NHL schedule offered ampleproof that it can be done.

The Winnipeg Jets got down 2-0 at home and came back to beat Philadelphia. Minnesota surrendered the first three goals to the Predators and still earned a win. Even the hapless Arizona Coyotes, far from anyone's definition of a successful team, came back from a two-goal deficit to beat the Canadiens in Montreal.

Edmonton, on the other hand, once again got down and stayed down.

"The last half of the game, we were just a little bit flat," Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. "Maybe we got a little bit frustrated because we weren't getting a ton of opportunities."

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The first Blues goal came gift-wrapped. With the Oilers power play sputtering, goalie Cam Talbot slipped behind the net to trap the puck. He misplayed it and sent it wobbling out in front of a wide-open net. Vladimir Sobotka was there to cash in. The shorthanded goal put the Blues up 1-0.

On the same power play, the Oilers pressed into the Blues zone, where Nugent-Hopkins started a three-way passing play that ended with Ryan Strome scoring his third of the season to even things at 1-1.

Blues dominate in 2nd

That, it turned out, was all the comeback the Oilers had in them.

The team came out for the second period as flat as a slow ground squirrel on a summer highway.

The Blues dominated, firing 19 shots at Talbot. With the visitors on the power play, a goalmouth scramble led to a loose puck, which Alexander Steen flipped over a sprawled Talbot to put the Oilers down 2-1.

That's when theyfaced that adversity mentioned above.

Throughout the period, the Blues forechecked and back-checked and were much more willing to fire the puck, shooting from almost anywhere. The Oilers kept trying to force cross-ice passes their opponents picked off and turned against them.

'We were stubborn'

"We were stubborn about those east-west lanes as you enter the zone," coach Todd McLellan said.

"We kept wanting to go to them and wanting to go to them, instead of using the end zone of the rink and trying to play off the goaltender's pads a little bit. So our stubbornness got us a bit there, and as a result we didn't spend much time in the offensive zone, and that leads to frustration."

Down 2-1 after the second, the home team carried its frustration into the third period. Blues centre Brayden Schenn added two quick goals early on to make it 4-1.

But by then, the suspense was pretty much over.

"We weren't close to being our best tonight," McLellan said.

For the Oilers, that makes five bad games on home ice this season. With a record of 7-10-2, they head out on the road for the nextfive games.

'Lick 'em tomorrow'

If you've read this far, you deserve a prize. So here it is.

In the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, the Union army got its butt kicked on the first day. Late that night, in the pouring rain, William Tecumseh Sherman said to his commander: "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes," Ulysses Grant replied. "Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

He was right. Union forces retook the battlefield the next morning.

If the Oilers want to make the playoffs, they have to find that kind of fighting spirit.