from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The Edmonton Oilers are broken.

How else to describe a team of professional hockey players who routinely make the calibre of defensive mistakes that this one makes?

What else would you call a team of NHLers who eschew the basic defensive tenets of the sport that are taught to Canadian kids long before they are able to drive themselves to the rink? The very things they mastered so long ago that paved their path to this level of the game?

Defensive details like getting a puck deep, clearing a zone with certainty, boxing out with authority -- all are foreign concepts here, on the team the standings forgot.

“We haven't played 60 minutes…” said Evander Kane, his voice trailing off — as if he knew it was a worn-out plea following a 6-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday. “It's … it's … I don't know. I don't know what to say.”

It is a team full of forwards who are not mindful to take on a defensive posture when their defenceman rushes right past them, up ice with the puck. It is that same defenceman who enters the offensive zone, then passes the backwards, catching everyone unaware, a cardinal sin.

It is four Oilers milling about the slot as if on a smoke break, not one of them aware enough to tie up the fifth player — an opponent who finds the rebound that has eluded the puck-focused Oilers.

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Game highlights are below.