from Jim Matheson at the Edmonton Sun,

Their heart was willing, also their legs, but their heads were in the clouds, the ones they couldn’t see because they took off in the dark at 6:30 am Wednesday to get here for a morning skate. After the morning skate, McLellan hoped his team would respond from the Christmas break with all the requisite body parts firing, but the “hockey sense” as he called it, was missing....

They’re under .500, again, at 17-18-2, seeing the Hawks Thursday and the Jets, again, New Year’s Eve. They’re 7-4 in December, but they badly needed this win to get the ball rolling.

“The work ethic and the commitment to wanting to work hard was there,” said McLellan, “but our hockey smarts didn’t exist. A lot of the time we were stepping up in the neutral zone and had poor support, our faceoff execution … we had one where we gave up a breakaway (Armia goal), a number of turnovers. They had their share of two-on-ones and three-on-twos, things that were certainly preventable.”

“They had a goal or two off lazy line changes too. Like I said, mentally we weren’t in it.We weren’t sharp early and it led to a lot of their momentum and their zone time,” said Letestu.

more on the Oilers 4-3 loss to the Jets...

Watch the game highlights below...