from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

You can distrust the Situation Room all you want if you think there is some grand conspiracy through which the National Hockey League wants its best player and most explosive offensive team eliminated as soon as possible.

You can say the referees graded out somewhere between poor and brutal here in Game 3 on Friday — because that would be accurate.

The officials are not biased, just well below an acceptable level of competent. And if you judged that their unpredictability likely hurt the Edmonton Oilers a call or two more than it did the Los Angeles Kings in Game 3, I wouldn’t give you an argument.

It's time for the Edmonton Oilers to play like the highest-scoring team in hockeyPlay VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 2:23Loaded: 6.90% Fullscreen

Whine about the calls all you want, Oiler fans, in a game where the power plays were 5-4 in favour of the Kings.

But here’s why the Oilers are down 2-1 in this series, after a 3-2 overtime loss, the second time the Oilers have coughed up a power-play goal in OT in this series.

They are down because an Oilers team that averaged four goals per game all season can’t solve the Kings often enough at five-on-five to win these games. The Kings are hanging around, hanging around, and for the second time in three games, the Oilers left themselves at the mercy of the refs — and paid for it.

Edmonton trails this series because it has blown a lead in every game. Because, tied 2-2 after 40 minutes, the Oilers couldn’t find a hero from amongst their stable of scorers, while the Kings found theirs.

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Game highlights are below.