Latest loss likely sinks Oilers' season

The Oilers are 16-14-6 in 36 games at Rexall Place this season, second-worst in the Western Conference ahead of only the Kings (yeesh). Meanwhile, the Ducks' 19 road wins is tied for third-best in the conference.

In fact, things have gotten so bad for the Oilers at home, the players have taken this desperate measure of looking into the camera and practically begging fans for their support tonight and the rest of this six-game homestand that was gift-wrapped to them from the NHL schedulers. I'm sorry, isn't this Canadian hockey? Isn't that support already there?

— Adam Brady, Director of Publications for the Ducks

David Staples is right: Brady does run a pretty strange blog for a team staffer. Still, it's a more interesting read than most.

Tuesday night, Brady's Ducks got the better of Staples's Oilers, winning 5-3 with an empty-netter thrown in for good measure. I only caught a bit of the game, after Edmonton was already down 3-1, and they did make a bit of a third-period rally. Given the standings, however, they desperately needed a win.

The Oilers are now three points out in an incredibly tight race for the final two or three playoff spots, and would have to leapfrog at least one red-hot team to get in. According to sportsclubstats.com, Edmonton had a 22.5-per-cent chance of making the postseason prior to this one, odds that have now fallen to 8.1 per cent with a loss.

With five games left, they essentially need at least nine points to get up to 90, and even that won't give them an iron-clad guarantee of getting in. Yes, they've got a lot of home games, but as Brady's pointed out, Edmonton's been brutal at Rexall Place — and Oilers fans have let them know it.

There'll be no shortage of eulogies in the Oilers wing of the blogosphere, so you don't need to hear me blather on too long about what went wrong. Pat McLean started writing his before the game was over.

He obviously knew what was coming:

Its 4-1 Ducks right now and another season goes down the toilet and there is plenty of blame to go around. There is Lowe who dismantled a club that came within a break or two of winning a Cup and turned it into a laughing stock. He escapes censure (even now Tambellini will likely get blame for this team that Lowe put together) but the last three years have been pisspoor.

The players deserve blame because they are the ones who play the game in the end but this team looked off almost from day one. Too many poor starts. Too many poor games. Points given away all through the season. Only right before the break did they look like they had any heart and of course in the end that is the killer.

He's right, of course, but I do think there's an argument to be made that losing Lubomir Visnovsky was one of the real killers of the Oilers' season. He quietly had a great year (although Edmonton's record was only 25-23-3 with him in the lineup, so there were obviously shortfalls with him healthy).

The Oilers finished ninth in the West last season, narrowly missing the cut, and by the numbers there are a lot of similarities to this year's edition. The biggest single difference is a penalty kill that's gone from fifth best to fifth worst in the NHL, but this is still a team that manged to score more goals per game and average fewer against than a year ago (at least prior to five going in against the Ducks).

That's generally a recipe for success, albeit not always when the standings lean so heavily on the bonus point. Edmonton went 6-4 in the shootout this season. Last year, they were an improbable 15-4.

Sometimes it's simply the coin flips that do you in.

McLean says coach Craig MacTavish is about to fall on his sword, and it's tough to argue with that. This is his eighth season behind Edmonton's bench, and only once has one of his teams managed to finish higher than third in its division. They've made three playoff appearances in that time, all as an underdog, and while there was that one streak of brilliance in 2006, coaching is as much of a what have you done for me lately racket as anything.

Besides, the natives are restless. And someone has to wear the goat horns.