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Want something spooky for Halloween?

All you had to do was watch the Connor McDavid-less Edmonton Oilers on Monday night.

It was like the aftermath of a slasher movie, nothing but Oilers blood and guts spilled all over Nationwide Arena.

And if their humbling 6-1 massacre is any sign of what’s to come as the Oilers captain recovers from the injury he suffered against the Columbus Blue Jackets, then prepare to be scared as hell.

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“He’s your captain and your best player,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, who might as well have sent five zombies over the boards given everything the Oilers accomplished against a team of Nashville 3-3-1.

“This should be an opportunity for guys to step up and say, ‘I got this.’ It’s more ice time, more opportunities.

It turned out to be just another opportunity to make things worse as the Oilers fell behind 3-0 in the first 15 minutes and were bloodied, with their only goal coming in the 30 final seconds of the third period.

“He’s our leader and also the best player in the game, so of course you’re going to feel it,” Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said, shaking his head at the crime scene. “But we have to do a better job of stepping in when a guy like that goes down.”

We won’t know for sure how long the Oilers captain will be out of the lineup after tripping and landing awkwardly in his first shift of the game, all Knoblauch could say Monday is that he’s “going back in Edmonton to be evaluated. »

So he’ll be missed Thursday night in Nashville, that’s for sure, and who knows what else. But any duration is too long for a team still trying to find its feet.

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With the Oilers’ offense and power play buried at the bottom of the NHL, their penalty kill doing its best to drop even lower than 32nd and the team sitting a game below .500 with a differential of -13 is not the time to lose. the best player in the world.

“It’s tough to be without your best player, but it’s something we’ll have to deal with, hopefully in the short term, and find a way,” Knoblauch said, adding that he and general manager Stan Bowman decide who will get. called in to supplement Thursday’s forward units.

“Obviously our team is going to be different. Whether it was one or two hits, I’m not sure. We’ve discussed it and we’ll make that decision tonight or tomorrow to see who comes.

McDavid has a long history of sustainability. He has never missed more than seven games in a season since breaking his collarbone in his rookie season and has proven time and time again that he heals quickly.

It’s good because they need him. It’s no secret they still need him, but when there’s not much going on in this team apart from four or five players, it hurts a lot to lose the best. There have been times in the past when the Oilers were in great shape and were fully equipped to withstand the temporary loss of their best player. This doesn’t seem like one of those times.

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Even with McDavid, the power play was failing and without him, Monday was a smoldering pile of goo. He went 1 for 6 in Columbus, with his only goal coming in trash time, to drop to 4 for 29 this season (13.8%).

Even with McDavid, the offense averages an anemic 2.20 goals per game, which is third worst in the NHL. And the team’s penalty kill and defense are nowhere good enough right now to carry the load until the goals start coming.

So there’s a lot of fingers crossed in Edmonton right now, especially after Monday night’s preview of what the future might look like with McDavid on the board.

“I thought we were ready to go, and then we gave up a short-handed goal early in the game,” Knoblauch said. “It was a little deflating for our team. And it seemed like the mistakes we made were going into our net.

“I don’t blame Stu (Skinner) because there weren’t many chances to save them, but that first goal against was difficult.”

Skinner went from a 27-save shutout against the Pittsburgh Penguins in his last start to six goals allowed on 25 shots in Columbus, so consistency remains somewhat of a thing. But then again, the Oilers could have put Skinner and Calvin Pickard in net at the same time and still would have lost.

“Tonight it didn’t matter,” Knoblauch said. “We only scored one goal, in the last seconds of the match. No matter how well he played, we probably won’t win this game, so it’s not his fault at all.

No. This game was lost 37 seconds after the opening faceoff. The air was out of this team before the first commercial break.

“We started losing a few battles and they took over,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We know they’re a fast team, they take advantage of small breakdowns and that’s what we saw.”

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