Oilers search for connection as they prepare for Lightning

Current Stanley Cup holders the Florida Panthers may be out of the playoffs this year, but it didn't stop them from flattening the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.

Clearly, the connection wasn’t there.

The Edmonton Oilers were shut out on home ice Thursday night by the Florida Panthers.

Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch called the 4-0 loss, after having watched game film, a low-event matchup, and while he said Friday his players didn’t give up many chances to Florida, they also generated “very little offence.

“We could have done a better job getting inside, driving the net a little bit more,” Knoblauch told reporters after practice at Rogers Place. “(The Panthers) make it hard to get there, but offence starts on the back end, moving it up to our forwards (and) getting in on the offence. I just don’t think that we were connected. It just didn’t go smoothly.”

The result meant a fast practice on Friday.

“A lot of puck touches,” Knoblauch said. “Hopefully that helps us tomorrow night.”

And that’s what Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm said he and his teammates are focussed on: the next opponent and the ones coming up through the end of the month and into April. The Tampa Bay Lightning, contenders for the Eastern Conference crown, visit Rogers Place at 8 p.m. on Saturday, followed by a slew of Pacific Division opponents who are scratching and clawing with the Oilers in the fight for playoff positions.

Because he says he doesn’t have time to dwell too long on losses.

“I’m sure everybody in here does it differently, but if you ask me, we have 82 games,” the 35-year-old Swede said on Friday. “If I’m sitting too long on every game, it’s not going to help me anyway, so I try to move on as fast as I can.”

Heading into Friday’s National Hockey League games, the Oilers sit second in the Pacific Division with 77 points, one point behind the Anaheim Ducks and one ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights. The Los Angeles Kings have 72 points and occupy the final wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference, with Pacific rivals Seattle one point back and San Jose two.

Ekholm acknowledged the Oilers could have been “more engaged early on” against the Panthers, the team they’ve met twice and ultimately lost to the last two seasons in the Stanley Cup Final.

“At the end of the day, we need to be a lot better,” Ekholm said. “I don’t think there’s one point you can just point at. I think that there are multiple points.”