EDMONTON — The early stages of the season saw the Pittsburgh Penguins stumble from his self-inflicted wounds.

On Friday, the other team was simply better. Much, much better.

In what has become expected in recent seasons when these teams meet, the Edmonton Oilers played with the Penguins in a 4-0 victory at Rogers Place. Edmonton outshot the Penguins 50-27.

The Oilers looked fast, sleek and among the Stanley Cup favorites despite their slow start to the season.

Meanwhile, the Penguins looked old, slow and completely incapable of handling a team like the Oilers. More than anything, the Penguins seemed lost.

“Well, it’s concerning because we’re just not good enough right now,” coach Mike Sullivan said outside a quiet locker room. “We didn’t play hard enough. We didn’t play together as a group. We weren’t good enough.

Only rookie goalie Joel Blomqvist kept the game reasonably interesting for two periods. Make your fourth NHL At the start, Blomqvist was sensational. The Oilers had the puck early and often, firing off 19 shots on goal in the first period and 20 more in the second period.

“He played wonderfully,” Sullivan said. “He was really good tonight. He kept us in the game.

The Penguins were simply ambushed from the first game until the final minutes, when the Oilers, assured winners, did everything possible to try to get Zach Hyman his first goal of the season. They were unsuccessful in that pursuit, but otherwise did exactly what they wanted against a completely overmatched Penguins team.

Many Penguins agreed that the final score could have been considerably more lopsided without the play of their goaltender.

“It could have been a lot uglier” Bryan Rust said. “He was great.”

What was the Penguins’ biggest problem?

“When you don’t play the way you know how, it gets frustrating,” Rust said.

Why haven’t the Penguins played like they know they can play?

“If I had the answers,” Rust said, “we wouldn’t have done it.”

The Penguins are winless for four straight games, 3-5-1 this season and 0-2-1 on this trip.

No one wants to say that it’s time for panic, but that moment is not far away.

“Whether it’s October or February, no one likes to lose” Sydney Crosby said. “We just have to find a way to win.”

Blomqivst made several outstanding saves, stopping the first 32 shots he faced.

Leon Draisaitl finally beat him on the Oilers’ 33rd shot, a perfectly placed wrist shot off the post and inside.

Léon takes the turns #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/ntkDRR5HqO

– Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) October 26, 2024

The game was never really in doubt, and when the Oilers took the lead, they never looked back.

From the middle of the first period to the middle of the second, the Oilers recorded 21 consecutive shots.

Evan Bouchard, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins And Mattias Ekholm goals added for the Oilers. Nugent-Hopkins’ goal came 16 seconds into the third period, on a Kris Letang a reading error and meant that the rout was launched.

Nuge with a rocket from the slot #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/5hGwali9cN

– Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) October 26, 2024

The Penguins weren’t able to muster much offense throughout the night.

“We didn’t have enough pucks,” Sullivan said. “We need to hold on to pucks more.”

Worse still for the Penguins, less than 24 hours after chasing the Oilers for 60 minutes, they will have to face a rested team. Vancouver Canucks team on the road.

Blomqvist was the only bright spot, and while it certainly wasn’t intentional, his thoughts on the performance were pretty illustrative of where the Penguins are right now.

“You stay in the game pretty well when shots are coming at you all the time,” he said.

Ten post-match observations

• It was shocking to see the Penguins look so bad and overmatched.

They could have played this game 10 times and I don’t think the Penguins would have won even once. The Oilers were faster, more skilled, stronger with the puck and hungrier. This was Edmonton’s eighth straight win over the Penguins, and the last few games have seen the Penguins absolutely dominated. It was pretty much the same thing, and frankly, it was even more decisive than the others.

The Penguins didn’t have a power play until the final minutes, and again, it was because they rarely had the puck. It was a keep-away game for the Oilers, and an impressive one at that.

Edmonton (3-4-1) is off to a slow start this season, and Connor McDavid I didn’t even record a point. And yet, it didn’t matter. The Penguins have played three games against legitimate Stanley Cup contenders: New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs and the Oilers. They are 0-3 and have been outscored 14-2.

It tells a pretty poignant story.

• What a magnificent performance from Blomqvist. Truly, the kid was sensational. This game could have easily been 8-0, and that’s not an exaggeration. The Penguins were outshot 19-5 in the first period, but the game remained scoreless thanks to Blomqvist’s performance.

Sullivan spoke before the game about Blomqvist’s athleticism, and that played a big role in his ability to frustrate the Oilers for much of the night.

On the surface, it’s easy to say that returning him to Wilkes-Barre is tough. Statistically, he is without a doubt the best goaltender on the Penguins. Of course, given how this season has gone, letting him learn and improve in Wilkes-Barre might not be the worst idea.

High marks to Blomqvist. Don’t take into account the number of goals he allowed. It was a magnificent performance against the most explosive team in the NHL.

• Towards the end of the third period, Marcus Pettersson hit a vulnerable Viktor Arvidsson from behind, which set off fireworks.

Victor Arvidsson gets caught hard in the boards by Marcus Pettersson, who answers the bell with Darnell Nurse on the next faceoff. pic.twitter.com/3LRkEjXWmH

– zach (@zjlaing) October 26, 2024

Nurse Darnell immediately challenged Pettersson to a fight, and he unleashed some heavy shots on the much lighter Pettersson.

Pettersson wasn’t in the locker room after the game, so we won’t know until Saturday night if he’s ready to face the Canucks. He’s an important player for the Penguins.

It was a dangerous strike from Pettersson but surely unintentional. He’s a clean player.

• I was hard on Erik Karlssonbut he enjoyed one of his best games of the season.

He was responsible for some of the rare chances the Penguins had in the offensive zone. Karlsson also performed well defensively.

I wasn’t impressed with his play, but maybe it was a step in the right direction.

• I also think Jack St. Ivany has been much better in his last matches. I spoke to him before Friday’s game and he said he wasn’t happy with his work at the start of the season.

“Definitely not satisfied,” he said. “I have to be better and I know I can do it. The game in Calgary was better.

Given who the Penguins were playing, I’d say his performance was pretty good on Friday.

• Crosby has only 7 points in nine games this season, including just one goal. He doesn’t look at himself.

But I wouldn’t worry about him right now. He’s had many slow Octobers. But he doesn’t look good.

• The Oilers looked like men against boys. I don’t know any other way to say it.

I don’t remember ever seeing the Penguins this physically outmatched in the Crosby era. Afterwards, it was clear that they knew. And they didn’t really know what to say about it.

• The Penguins didn’t have many chances to score, but when they did, they let their good looks slip away. It was the wrong play and the wrong situation to look for the perfect play.

Not good.

• I can’t help but think about Tristan Jarry as the Penguins head to his hometown Vancouver.

Last Saturday, two hours before the Penguins left Pittsburgh for this trip, here’s what Jarry said: “Obviously it’s good for me. I can see my family. Being on the West Coast, you don’t get to see your family very often. I only see my parents once or twice a year. It will be a nice little reset to see my family and spend time with them.

The Penguins sent Jarry back to Pittsburgh a day before playing in Edmonton, where he won the Memorial Cup in 2014, and two days before playing in Vancouver. Sullivan said it was part of the plan to send Jarry back to Pittsburgh halfway through the trip. Perhaps Jarry was not aware of this when he spoke to the media last Saturday.

Either way, it’s a strange story.

• The Canucks were good and rested, having not played since Tuesday. It’s a brutal way for the Penguins to end the trip. To research Alex Nedeljkovic to start.

(Photo of Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse getting the better of Marcus Pettersson: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)