But sometimes it's just learning how not to lose the game instead of learning how to win it.
“I think we're the best team in the league at really, clearly winning a game. I think we're not so great (when it comes to) finding ways to lose games,” he said. “It's just a little bit of maturity. You know, sometimes you’ve got to go through these pains and tough times to learn from them.”
“It was a collection of little mistakes that add up, to lose the series,” said captain Connor McDavid, when asked on Wednesday at press conference for next month's Heritage Classic game. “Looking back, we're sitting there in Game 5, five minutes left in the second and in a real good place — on the road and up by a goal. Feeling good about ourselves. And you find a way to be down two (goals) heading into the third period.
“It's a collection of mistakes throughout the series that add up to a series loss. Something that we’ll fix throughout the course of year.”
We rarely ever get the true explanation. Not the fans, not the media. The Edmonton Oilers see their season come to an abrupt end — whether it was to Winnipeg, Colorado, Chicago or Vegas — and it’s always the same thing.
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Spector is often like a pebble in a shoe. He's a grating personality with some awful hot takes. That said, he's unafraid to ask hard questions and this article is an example of that. At the root of the issue is the Oilers remaining key learning is how to limit their tendency for self-inflicted damage whether deviating from their systems, soft own zone coverage, or in opportune penalties. These breakdowns were the difference in a wildly volatile series against Vegas.
Repeating myself yet again, this team's final piece is with their goal suppression work and building up their structure, discipline, work rate and ultimately greater consistency to mitigate the mistakes that true Cup teams learn to master.
