Lucas Dostal had a perfectly fine Olympic tournament.
He suited up for Czechia, did his job, and gave his team a chance. Connor McDavid just happened to be on the other side both times, which, as many goaltenders have discovered, is a bit of a problem. Two losses through little fault of his own, and a long flight home from Milan.
Then the NHL schedule spits out Oilers vs. Ducks as the first game back from the Olympic break, Dostal in net, and he walks away with a 6-5 win over Edmonton. Whether he had McDavid circled on the calendar or not, he'll take it.
The problem is that when a game ends 6-5, the goaltending story only goes so far in either direction, and for the Oilers, there's a far less flattering conversation that needs to be had.
The Olympic break was a time for rest, but it was also a time to recharge the legs, renew focus, and feel some of the urgency that comes with knowing the playoff race doesn't wait for anyone. Edmonton's third period looked nothing like that. The Ducks scored goals, and Kris Knoblauch pulled Tristan Jarry before the situation deteriorated further.
"I wasn't happy with the goaltending," Knoblauch said. "The goals that we gave up, especially in the third period, yeah, I didn't like those. Definitely, there were other mistakes, but part of it is you need better goaltending, and tonight wasn't one of his best games."
"The game's kind of going back and forth, but obviously if I make an extra save here or there, the game could be different," Jarry said, before drilling further into the details. "If I can maybe find one of those through a screen, or maybe I'm able to handle a rebound here or there… Maybe the puck doesn't go in the middle, and I'm able to handle that a little bit better."
A goaltender who can pinpoint exactly where things unravelled is a goaltender who gives himself a fighting chance of fixing it, and Jarry clearly knows what he needed to do differently in that third period.
And the worst part is, this game wasn't a disaster from the opening faceoff.
"I thought we had a good start. I thought we had some traction," continued Jarry. "I thought we played pretty well. We were going to the net, and we were doing a lot of good things. We just end up on the wrong side."
It's frustrating letting a game slip away in the third when the win was in sight, probably more so than simply getting outplayed. And look, the Oilers know this, they know something has to give.
It's also worth being straight with the rust excuse before it gets too much oxygen. Anaheim had the exact same Olympic break, the same month off, the same time to prepare, and the same opportunity to come in ready to go. The Ducks used theirs, capitalized on Edmonton's third-period unravelling, and took home two points at the end of the night.
Credit where it's due.
The one bright spot in an otherwise deflating evening was Matt Savoie, who was called up that very morning after playing a handful of games with the Bakersfield Condors. He had three points to be exact.
"I thought there were some really good performances from guys, Savoie was one of them," added Knoblauch.
The Oilers have enough runway left in the regular season to get things right before April arrives. One messy third period in the first game back from a long break doesn't define a team, but if that defensive softness starts becoming a pattern, Paul Coffey's return to the bench is going to have a lot more work ahead of it than anyone in Edmonton would like.
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