GAME RECAP: Lightning 4, Oilers 1

TAMPA, FL – The Edmonton Oilers suffered their fourth straight defeat on Tuesday night at Amalie Arena after forward Leon Draisaitl scored their lone goal in a 4-1 defeat to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"We're in a bit of a hole right now as a team, and it's about resiliency. It's about sticking with it," defenceman Mattias Ekholm said. "We're gonna have to dig one out here sooner or later and I thought we got off to a good start, but I think at times we're giving them a little bit too easy of offence."

Draisaitl opened the scoring on the power play 11:53 into the first period with his 43rd goal of the season that came off Connor McDavid's 698th career assist in his 697th NHL game, which leaves the captain two helpers short of becoming the third-fastest player in NHL history to reach the mark.

Michael Eyssimont responded 1:18 later to tie the game with a back-hand finish that sparked a run of four unanswered goals for the Lightning, who earned their sixth straight victory off the strength of goals from Brandon Hagel, Victor Hedman and Nick Paul.

Nikita Kucherov had two assists for Tampa Bay, and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves.

Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner was beaten four times on 37 shots, while Evan Bouchard picked up a solitary helper in the defeat to give the defenceman eight points (1G, 7A) in his last eight games.

"You've got to put those things behind you, and I think we haven't gone through this tough stretch right now for a while," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "If there's going to be a time, this is excellent opportunity, and we're not playing our best. We're playing some really good teams, so we can't be not at our best and expect to win those games."

The Oilers drop to 34-20-4 this season and will continue their trek on the East Coast in Sunrise on Thursday night when they make their first visit back to Amerant Bank Arena to play the Florida Panthers since Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.

FIRST PERIOD

Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner was ready early in the period to make two great saves against Brandon Hagel to keep the lightning off the board – once on chance in the first minute off a missed pass by Evan Bouchard before making an unreal reaction stop on the Tampa Bay winger before the five-minute mark after the initial shot from the point was blocked in front.

Skinner was looking to bounce back from allowing five goals on 31 shots back on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia along with the Oilers, who'd lost three straight and back-to-back games coming out the break to begin their five-game road trip.

The netminder's early stops allowed his teammates to take the lead on their first power play less than 12 minutes into the opening frame, where Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl exchanged passes inside the right circle before the German fired home his 43rd goal of the season to extend his goal streak to six games while giving the Oilers a 1-0 lead.

Since the start of the 2018-19 season, Draisaitl has amassed 40 more power-play goals than the next closest player in Toronto's Auston Matthews, with 13 of his 43 goals this season coming on the man advantage. Connor McDavid's primary helper was the 698th of his career in his 697th NHL game, and the captain would become the third-fastest to reach 700 assists if he's able to reach the mark before his 700th game.

But just over a minute later, some of the same mistakes that've caused trouble for the Oilers began to reappear when a turnover by Kasperi Kapanen in the neutral zone resulted to the Lightning coming back on an odd-man rush and tying the game.

Michael Eyssimont roofed his back-hand effort over the glove of Stuart Skinner after Gage Goncalves found him with a pass through the legs of Brett Kulak, and it marked a shift in the game that Edmonton never recovered from despite being tied at one heading into the first intermission.

"The turnover in the neutral zone, obviously they capitalize on that right away," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "We're a fragile group right now, and we're just a little reluctant to play our game. Confidence is a little hard [to find] right now."

"They view themselves as one of the best in the League, and we gotta put those adversity moments behind us and grow on those to be able to respond and push back."

SECOND PERIOD

After Skinner's early exploits boosted the Oilers against the Bolts, the shot-stopper would've liked Brandon Hagel's goal back early in the middle frame that put Tampa Bay in control before Edmonton ran into some penalty trouble.

Hagel streaked around the net less than 30 seconds into the period and beat Skinner to the far post with his wrap-around attempt to give the Saskatoon, SK product eight goals in his last eight games, putting Tampa Bay ahead 2-1 with his tally that began a challenging first half to the middle stanza for Edmonton.

"Loose puck, just East-West," Knoblauch said of the play. "I'm not saying it's a terrible goal. It's one you want him to make more times than not, but I think he made a lot of big saves tonight. The second one was tough, especially at the time of the game.

"I thought we came out against a team that's playing really well right now in their building, and then that happens on the first shift, it's deflating."

The Oilers found themselves short five-on-three over four minutes later with Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins both in the box for high-sticking. Then, 20 seconds into Tampa Bay's two-man advantage, defenceman Victor Hedman's lucky bounce off the stick of a sliding Mattias Janmark shot up off the ice and went under the glove of Skinner to give the Lightning a two-goal lead at 14:22 of the frame."

"It's just one of those things right now where it's not going our way," Ekholm said. "That second goal is a funky goal. I don't know how it got in. I think Stu may want that back. And you look at that third goal. Janmark goes down and a courageous one to block, a heavy one timer, and somehow it goes off or something and bounces off the ice, off the glove and into the net.

"The second period has to be better, and we have to try to limit our defensive zone time. But at the end of the day too, somebody told me once, 'it's usually never as bad as you feel like when it's going bad, and it's never as great as it feels like when it's going great.'

"So somewhere in there, we're just going to have to learn from what we did tonight and move on."

Despite being beaten twice in the first half of the second period on two unfortunate goals, Skinner was still coming up with some important saves as the Oilers were behind 28-19 on the shot clock while trailing 3-1 to the Lightning after 40 minutes.

THIRD PERIOD

Edmonton was beaten off the rush 7:23 into the final frame to make the task of coming back even more difficult when Zach Hyman's rimmed puck in the offensive zone was intercepted by Nikita Kucherov to create the 4-1 goal for Tampa Bay.

Kucherov threw the puck into space across the ice for Jake Guentzel to pick up inside the Oilers zone before he sauced it over to a streaking Nick Paul, who deflected it over the outstretched Skinner in front as Nugent-Hopkins tried to chase him down coming over the blue line. Kucherov picked up his second assist of the game and has now picked up a point in 19 of his last 20 games, recording 31 points since Jan. 5.

With the Oilers chasing a three-goal deficit, winger Matt Savoie had a golden opportunity before the 11-minute mark to record his first NHL goal when he had two chances against Andrei Vasilevskiy in close that the 21-year-old couldn't put away.

The St. Albert product's chase for his first goal came to an end in a 4-1 defeat for the Oilers to the Lightning that marked their fourth straight defeat, and third straight on this five-game road trip. The Oilers will look to break their losing streak in Sunrise on Thursday night when they make their first trip back to Amerant Bank Arena to face the Florida Panthers for the first time since Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.

"We got things to work on, absolutely. No doubt about it," Ekholm said. "We're in that funk right now and it's gonna take a gutsy effort and an ugly one so to speak that gets us out of it. But right now, we're not there."