“I think that overall in the first period against Buffalo, I thought we did a lot of good things, but we didn’t have that attack mentality,” Knoblauch said. “We didn’t give up very much. I thought we had some good opportunities in the offensive zone to take it to the net, and I think we just passed up those attacks, those opportunities, and we didn’t really generate it as much as we should have.
“It certainly wasn’t as good as the start we had against Winnipeg, but it wasn’t bad. In the second period, I didn’t think we played well. But in the third period, we really turned it on and just tried to get more of that out of our guys.”
Putting together a full 60-minute effort that begins with a good start on Thursday to close out this five-game homestand will be important before the Oilers hit the road for an Eastern road trip, starting with a back-to-back against the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens this coming weekend.
“Obviously, you want to take advantage of your home games and of teams that are on back-to-backs,” Zach Hyman said. “So I think our game is coming as of late. A sleepy first two periods last game, but a good third, so building off of that coming in tonight will be important.”
