from Joanne Ireland of the Edmonton Journal,

So far, so good, this merger between the Edmonton Oilers and goaltender Cam Talbot. He is two games into his tenure as a starter in the NHL and he has done all that he can. Now if only his teammates could find the back of the opponent’s net.

The Oilers, defeated 2-0 by the Nashville Predators Saturday in the Bridgestone Arena, have just one goal to show for 120 minutes of work.

What’s even more damning is that the lone goal didn’t even touch the stick of an Edmonton player.

Or maybe the more telling trouble spot is that Oilers had five power plays against Nashville and couldn’t muster so much as a shift in momentum.

“Where do I start? I’m going to start offensively,” said head coach Todd McLellan. “You need to score some goals to win games. We had some looks — I’m not sure we were really strong around the net — but our offence has to get better and a lot of that has to do with the power play.

“I thought our power play sucked the life out of us … we killed it ourselves with poor execution, poor passing, little cute, didn’t win many loose-puck battles like we were doing five-on-five.

“That was disappointing; then a couple of glaring mistakes and turnovers, and it’s in your net.

“We should be able to overcome that with the offence we have.”

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