from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

There is no heartbeat, no connective tissues binding a team that skates back and forth with the personal familiarity of rush hour in Manhattan.

There is no bite, zero cohesiveness and even less swagger. They are expectant of bad fortune, devoid of momentum. Every time a line hops over the boards, it’s a restart, not a continuation of work that began with the previous group.

Their game is hope, not expectation. The losing starts with common puck battles, moves on to line matchups, and ends on the scoreboard, with a 3-0 New York Rangers victory that easily could have been three or four goals worse.

“We’ve got to be better,” said Darnell Nurse, of the 1-5-1 Edmonton Oilers. “Everyone just look in the mirror at this point, and we’ve got to be a whole lot (expletive) better.”

Not even an analytics wizard could save this Oilers team right now, beaten 14-8 on high-danger chances by the Rangers. No numerical hocus pocus could paint a picture that didn’t look as bad as the one that 17,939 people — including nearly 100 alumni, in town for Doug Weight and Charlie Huddy’s Oilers Hall of Fame inductions, plus Sunday’s Heritage Classic — bore horrific witness to.

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Game highlights are below.