Oilers see lots of room for improvement after loss to Flames in Game 1

CALGARY, Alberta -- Jay Woodcroft said it at least four times, in some shape or form, during his postgame press conference.

"We scored six goals on the Calgary Flames, in their building, on their starting goalie," the Edmonton Oilers coach said. "That should be enough. That should be enough to win the game."
It should be. But it wasn't.
In a wild affair, the Oilers gave up two goals in the first 51 seconds, rallied from four goals down to tie it, but eventually lost 9-6 to the Calgary Flames in Game 1 of the Western Conference Second Round at Scotiabank Saddledome.
They have little time to figure out what went wrong and make adjustments with Game 2 here Friday (10:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, CBC, SN, TVAS).
RELATED: [Complete Flames vs. Oilers series coverage]
The 15 combined goals were the highest in a Stanley Cup Playoffs game since Calgary and the Los Angeles Kings combined for the same amount in a 9-6 Kings win in Game 6 of the 1993 Smythe Division Semifinals.
The first Battle of Alberta playoff game since 1991 was the highest scoring ever between the teams. It was the seventh postseason game between the Flames and Oilers to have at least 11 goals scored, the first since Edmonton's 7-4 win in Game 4 of the 1986 Smythe Division Final.
Woodcroft consistently brought up the six even-strength goals the Oilers scored against the Flames and Jacob Markstrom, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the best goalie in the NHL. Markstrom never had allowed that many even-strength goals in a game in his 12 NHL seasons, and allowed six goals of any kind in a game once this season, against the Florida Panthers on Jan. 4.
But the lack of spark when the game began was even more frustrating.
"To a man, not one of us was anywhere near where we needed to be to start the game," Woodcroft said. "You don't draw it up giving up two goals on missed assignments on the first two shifts. We gave up a goal at the start of the second period as well. We fought back and made it a game, but we can't feel good about that in any way, because you scored six goals in a game and found a way to not win it. There are a lot of things for us to clean up and we'll go through the tape and give our team some."

The offense arrived eventually for the Oilers, but it took too long to get there, and they also had no answers for what they gave up on the other end. Goalie Mike Smith was pulled after allowing three goals on 10 shots in the first 6:05. They trailed 3-1 after the first period and were losing 5-1 when Blake Coleman scored his second goal at 6:10 of the second.
When forward Kailer Yamamoto scored the Oilers' fourth unanswered goal to tie the game 6-6 at 1:28 of the third period, it looked like they had the momentum and were going to pull off the comeback.
"You're not going to get away with a lot of these games," Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson said. "Sure, we scored nine, but we can't give up four-goal leads. We can't let 'Marky' out to dry and all that stuff. We'll learn from it and we'll move on."
Three Flames goals later, the Oilers' comeback hopes were doused.
"Just a couple of mistakes, collectively, individually, that ended up right on their tape and back of our net," Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. "A lot of things we obviously need to clean up."
Defenseman Darnell Nurse was succinct on what the Oilers had to do better defensively.
"Can't give up nine," he said.
The Oilers can't let power-play opportunities go by either. They were 0-for-4 with three shots in Game 1 after going 7-for-19 (36.8 percent) on the man-advantage in seven games in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings. During the regular season the Oilers were third in the NHL at 26.0 percent.
"We didn't really get any momentum going on our PP," said Draisaitl, who had a goal and two assists. "That's another thing we're obviously looking to improve and be better next game."
The Oilers are going to look at what they need to clean up out of this one and move on quickly, because it's not something they want to repeat.
"The one thing that we talked about was not having any independent contractors, so when the game got to 4-1, 5-2, I thought our team did work to make a game of it," Woodcroft said. "But in the end, as I said, we scored six times. There's no way we should not win that hockey game."