Ladislav Smid of the Oilers circles the net on Thursday night. (Jimmy Jeong/Canadian Press)At least the Edmonton Oilers lit the lamp this time around.
Blanked 4-0 at Detroit on Monday, the Oilers had a late rally fall short in a 4-3 loss to the Red Wings in the rematch at the Rexall Place on Thursday night.
"There is not enough personal commitment — collectively — to battle," Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish said. "Whether you are a small guy, medium guy, young guy, experienced guy, you have to battle, you have to get in there.
"We're not competing hard enough collectively, especially in our own building. We have not played a good game in our building yet.
"We have to come out and start taking charge in our building. Otherwise, it is no advantage."
Edmonton trailed 4-1 with seven minutes remaining, but Lubomir Visnovsky and Sheldon Souray scored 21 seconds apart to trim the deficit to one.
Visnovsky buried a rebound from the slot with the teams skating 4-on-4, and Souray blasted a one-timer by Red Wings netminder Chris Osgood on the power play.
But Osgood held firm the rest of the way, finishing with 31 saves as the Red Wings (13-2-3) posted their fourth consecutive victory and sixth in seven games.
"Our start killed us tonight," Souray said. "You get down 3-0 to a team like Detroit in the first 10 minutes of a game, and it is a tough mountain to climb.
"Our starts are, obviously, a concern to us. Our competitive level has to be better off the start."
Jiri Hudler had two goals for the Red Wings, opening the scoring 1:50 into the contest, and power-play goals from Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Kopecky made it 3-0 by the 10:11 mark.
Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski had two assists apiece in the first period.
"We jumped on them early," Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock said. "Then, after the 10-minute mark, for the rest of that period, we fell asleep, [and] we got into some penalty trouble.
"It always happens when you're ahead in this league. But we were able to battle through it and get a win."
Visnovsky led the Oilers (9-9-2) with one goal and one assist.
Andrew Cogliano had the other goal in Edmonton's fourth loss in five games.
"We have gone through the toughest stretch I have ever seen played in my career — schedule-wise," Oilers captain Ethan Moreau said. "With the exception of a couple games, now we are home for a while.
"We will see what we have now. We will see if guys can rise to the challenge and play better at home."
Dwayne Roloson of the Oilers yielded three goals on 10 shots before being yanked in favour of Mathieu Garon, who made 24 saves.
With files from the Canadian Press
