TORONTO — Connor McDavid entered Sunday's game against the Maple Leafs in Toronto looking for redemption after being held without a point in his first NHL game at Air Canada Centre last November.
While the Edmonton Oilers superstar from Richmond Hill, Ont., controlled the play during stretches — showing off his dazzling speed and finishing with a game-high seven shots on goal — he again was held off the scoresheet in a 1-0 Edmonton loss.
"You don't get anything for being close. It's disappointing," said McDavid. "We definitely should've at least scored one goal, maybe a handful. Credit to them, they played solid defence, and held on to that lead."
McDavid's best scoring chance came 3:46 into the third period on a power play, when he beat Curtis McElhinney glove-side with a wrist shot from the face-off dot, but rang it off the crossbar.
In the second period, McDavid failed to capitalize on a short-handed breakaway. The Oilers captain was in the clear from the neutral zone and tried to go backhand five-hole on McElhinney, but couldn't slip the puck between the goaltender's pads.
"I thought he was outstanding, the puck was on his tape, his legs were going, he was making plays, he commanded the play and good leaders do that, they rise to the occasion," said Oilers coach Todd McLellan. "We didn't get to the carrot though, that was the problem and that shouldn't discourage our group."
The Oilers (12-16-2) remained seven points back of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference with five teams ahead of them in the standings.
Though Edmonton has 52 games remaining, starting with the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday, the club knows time is quickly running out.
"I don't think we're completely out of the runway, but at some point, you've got to put together a pretty big and a pretty good win streak to get yourself back in the mix," said Milan Lucic. "We have a lot of divisional games left and if we take care of that, we can get ourselves back in the picture.
"But also we know that it has to start sooner than later because if .500 hockey continues, there'll be no chance we get ourselves back in the playoff race."
Edmonton struggled out of the gate going 3-6-1 in October before compiling a 7-8-1 record in November.
The Oilers came to Toronto following one of their more impressive wins of the season, 6-2 over the Canadiens at Bell Centre, but couldn't solve McElhinney, who turned aside 41 shots for his first shutout of the season.
The turning point came in the second period when the Oilers had a full two-minute 5-on-3 power play, and despite putting five shots on goal during the two-man advantage, they couldn't find the back of the net.
"You've got to inch up the mountain and tonight's points would've been very valuable to us, obviously we didn't get 'em, but we're continually talking about improving our game, getting consistency," said McLellan. "We haven't talked a lot about standings or where we sit or how many games are left.
"I think we're improving, we're slowly getting better, we're getting quicker now and if we continue to play like we did tonight, we'll get our share of wins. Plug away."
Dhiren Mahiban, The Canadian Press