In a meeting of opponents from the last two editions of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place on Thursday (March 19), the Edmonton Oilers saw their two-game winning streak come to an end with a dispiriting 4-0 loss to the Florida Panthers at Rogers Place on Thursday (March 19).
Forwards A.J. Greer, Anton Lundell, Cole Reinhardt, and Carter Verhaeghe scored for the Panthers. Florida netminder Sergei Bobrovsky made 21 saves to record a shutout, while Oilers goalie Connor Ingram stopped 19 of the 23 shots he faced.
With the loss, Edmonton’s record is now 34-27-9. The Oilers have 77 points, second most in the Pacific Division.
Disappointing Effort From Oilers
There was very little fire shown on Thursday by the Oilers, whose performance against the Panthers can best be described as listless.
It’s not like this is the first time in 2025-26 that Edmonton has put forth an underwhelming effort. The Oilers have been plodding their schedule for five months now. But given the circumstances, Thursday’s outing is easily Edmonton’s most disappointing of the season.
Edmonton is in the midst of an extremely tight playoff race, where only eight points separate first place from sixth place in the Pacific Division. With a win on Thursday, the Oilers could have jumped ahead of the idle Anaheim Ducks for top spot in the division.
Florida, meanwhile, is 13 points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. At this point, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions are pretty much playing out the string, knowing that they will have already packed up their lockers when the playoffs start.
But based on how the two teams looked on Thursday, you would have sworn that it’s the Panthers who are playing for their playoff lives and it’s the Oilers who are counting down the days until the season ends.
Florida might not have much left to play for, but the Panthers will always get up for an opportunity to stick it to Edmonton, a city whose hearts they broke in the Stanley Cup Final each of the last two years and a team that they revel in making suffer.
Those ill feelings alone should have been enough to make Edmonton’s players hit the ice with a combination of passion, intensity, and determination on Thursday. But the Oilers showed no such emotions, and once again got walked all over by Florida. And they let it happen in their barn, to boot.
Oilers Fail to String Together Wins
Thursday’s game marked the 12th time this season that the Oilers have had an opportunity to win three straight games. And it was the 11th of those 12 occasions that they lost.
Edmonton is now 70 games into its 2025-26 schedule, and has only one win streak of three games, and has yet to win four games in a row. For comparison, the Oilers had 10 different win streaks of at least three games last season.
Those are astonishing statistics, but they speak to the mediocrity of the 2025-26 edition of the Oilers. Edmonton is not an elite team going through a subpar stretch – they are just a subpar team.
If the Oilers can’t string more than a couple wins together, then they’re not going to advance very far in the playoffs. And that’s assuming they even qualify for the postseason in the first place.
Questionable Line Shuffling by Knoblauch
Edmonton suffered a massive blow on Sunday (March 15), when superstar centre Leon Draisaitl was injured just minutes into its 3-1 victory over the Nashville Predators. On Tuesday (March 16), they announced that the German forward is expected to miss the remainder of the regular season.
The loss of Draisaitl obviously leaves a massive hole in Edmonton’s forward unit, but the Oilers seemed to find line combinations that worked over the better part of the last couple games, particularly in their 5-3 win against the San Jose Sharks at Rogers Place on Tuesday, when 10 of the 12 Oilers forwards picked up at least one point.
Related: 3 Takeaways From Oilers’ 5-3 Win Over Sharks
So it raised a few eyebrows when Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch shuffled his top three lines against Florida, moving Vasily Podkolzin up to play with Matt Savoie and captain Connor McDavid, while dropping Zach Hyman down to play alongside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jack Roslovic, and in turn moving Jason Dickinson down to centre Josh Samanski and Kasperi Kapanen.
These new trios showed none of the chemistry that was exhibited throughout Edmonton’s lineup against San Jose, leaving observers wondering why Knoblauch would meddle with lines that had proven successful.
With that in mind, it will be interesting to see what the Oilers’ lineup looks like on Saturday (March 21), when they are back in action, hosting the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning. At this juncture, every point is massive for Edmonton, and Knoblauch doesn’t have the luxury of time for experimenting with his lineup.
