The Decadence of Darkness: Oilers California Collapse a Harbinger of Doom

Years ago, the Oilers rolling into Southern California for two games against the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks would wind up with them scampering to the airport to catch the first flight out of there.

That seemed to improve in recent years, largely with the Ducks entering a rebuilding phase and the Oilers finding ways to beat the Kings.

Sunday afternoon, however, was a flashback right to the Decade of Darkness, as the Oilers not only found a way to lose against the Kings, dropping a 4-3 game in overtime, but coughing up multiple leads to the anemic Ducks, losing 5-3.

“We had two, two-goal leads,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said of the loss. “I think we put in a strong effort in the third period, but we shouldn’t have been in that situation to have that opportunity. When we’re up two goals, that’s a game we got to continue playing hard, and I don’t think we did. ”

A strong effort, but not playing hard about sums it up, as the Oilers seemingly toyed with the Ducks through the first half of the game. Leon Draisaitl opened the scoring on the power play eight minutes in, and Evan Bouchard extended it four minutes later when fresh out of the penalty box, Viktor Arvidssson set him up for a goal.

While Cutter Gauthier, fresh off his first game against his old team, the Philadelphia Flyers, would score to get the Ducks back within one, Draisaitl would regain the Oilers two-goal lead with another power play goal in the second.

But then, the Oilers seemingly took the foot of the gas pedal, in the words of Draisaitl, and the Ducks put theirs down.

“I think we left off our gas a little bit after the first 10, 13 minutes, gave them a chance to get back into it,” he said.

Anaheim took advantage of it, as Drew Helleson and Robby Fabbri would score in the final eight minutes of the second to tie it back up, then a wraparound from ex-Oiler Ryan Strome — because of course — would find it’s way into the Oilers net with under three minutes left. Then, there just wasn’t enough time for the Oilers to get one back.

“We lost a battle in the corner, one of our players lost their stick to break up the play, and they were doing that all night, taking pucks to the net, had a few (wraparound attempts),” said Knoblauch. “They capitalized on that last one.”

The Oilers went into California hoping to get four points, but only walked out with one.

Talk about a lump of coal in the stockings.

What’s missing from now versus before the Christmas break?