Another Slow Start. Let's Talk about the D

THE DEFENCE! Cmon guys.

*sigh* The Oilers once again go down 3-1 and lose to the BUFFALO SABRES! It's one thing to lose to the Flames or somebody good, but my god, the SABRES? Now to be fair, Eric Comrie was the second coming of Dominik Hasek and the Sabres finished their chances. It just feels like the defensive core, especially the bottom 4 guys, do not know what to do when defending a rush. We will get to defence in a bit but lets break down the game.

THE GAME

I said this off the top, the Oilers cannot keep going down by a couple of goals and expect to come back every time. They start off the game slow again and give up the opening goal down a man. Which is another thing. The Oilers have to stay out of the box. Too many penalties! The Oilers are averaging over 5 penalties a game (they are doing a good job of killing them I will add) and at some point this will bite them and it did on the first goal. They get it back with a nice feed from Ceci to Nurse and the game is tied going into the 2nd period. Shots are 15-7 going into the period so you thought at some point that the Oilers would get on top, but no. Tage Thompson turns into an elite player all of a sudden and scores a beauty to make it 2-1. A breakaway goal by JJ Peterka makes it 3-1 and just like that the Oilers are fighting from behind again. It's really funny too. Not funny ha ha but funny...AHHHHHHHH. The Oilers had 23 shots in the 3rd period and scored 1 time. Eric Comrie just shut the door on the Oilers because of course he did. The Oil lose 4-2 with an empty net goal and they fall to 1-2 on the season. Can we chalk this up to a hot goalie? Sure. However this home stand doesn't get easier with Carolina, St. Louis and then Pittsburgh to end it off. A couple of things stand out here and I want your opinion as well.

1. The first thing is that it is still way too early to think that this is panic time about the goaltending and the offence. The 5 on 5 goals will come, they just have to capitalize on their chances. Campbell will most likely start on Thursday and we hope that he has a better game. Skinner was fine yesterday. Stopped some tough shots and I can't really think of a goal that was totally his fault. So those two things should come here soon.

2. This one might be tougher to debate. Did the Oilers really get better on the back end? Think about the 6-7 defensemen that played last night. Nurse looks way better this year so far. Ceci is fine but can be a liability. Kulak looks not as solid as last year. Bouchard has to shoot to be affective and he just isn't doing that for some reason. Barrie shouldn't be on this team. Nemo has had one game and hopefully gets another chance. Ryan Murray has been horrific. So it begs the question...

Do the Oilers Need Another D Man?

In 3 games I have seen that Ryan Murray should only be used if there are injuries and are desperate. Now hear me out, why is Philip Broberg not up with the team? If the organization doesn't want to play him then just trade him for somebody they can use now? That should be the thinking right? Then there is a tweet like this:

I agree that Holloway should not be traded, neither should JP. But if Broberg is a non starter in a trade, why isn't he up playing??? He is 21 and has played games in the NHL, played well in the AHL. Get him up and play him in front of Murray. If he isn't going to play here then trade him for a piece that will. Like a Chycrun or somebody who will help out this current defensive core. The only consistent D man has been Nurse. Now I know the Oilers have *checks capfriendly* $13,333 in space, but that is up to the guy who is getting paid $5 million as the GM to figure it out. Not me.

What do you think? Should we panic and get a d man or wait a bit and see where the season takes us?