With a little extra room, one would presume that the top-of-the-draft talents for the Edmonton Oilers would fill the net with the man advantage, and help crutch the club's dastardly and enduring even-strength performance.
Yet, Edmonton's power play continues to languish in the NHL's bottom-third tier, firing at 17.1 percent clip for the season after a sloppy 0-for-4 effort in Sunday's loss to the Colorado Avalanche.
After the game, coach Todd McLellan's frustration finally boiled over.
"There's a lot of talk about having a quarterback and stuff like that - it had nothing to do with the quarterback on the power play," McLellan said at his post-game press conference. "That had to do with the forwards - really high-end, talented skilled forwards you put out there that can win you game in that situation. And just turnover after turnover after turnover. Disappointing."
He added: "This was a pretty group that was red rotten."
Coaching a feeble special attacking unit is uncharted territory for the Oilers coach. He and assistant Jay Woodcroft, who followed him to Edmonton, engineered the most efficient unit in the West during his seven seasons with the San Jose Sharks.
- with h/t to Kukla's Korner
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