Oilers’ Zach Hyman refuses to blame goaltending after 7-4 Game 3 loss

The Edmonton Oilers remain without home-ice advantage after a 7-4 loss to the Anaheim Ducks in Game 3 of their first-round series at the Honda Center on Friday night.

It was another tough one for Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram, who has now allowed 14 goals over three contests and played to a 4.10 goals-against average and .890 save percentage in the postseason.

Despite that, forward Zach Hyman put the blame elsewhere.

“Any time you let in seven, and it’s not a goalie problem, it’s just defending better,” Hyman told reporters afterwards, per The Canadian Press. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance with the amount of goals we gave up.”

Ingram ended up facing 38 shots, and made 32 saves; it was the most goals the 29-year-old has given up in a single tilt this year. Head coach Kris Knoblauch also believes the defensive play let the netminder down.

“We didn’t give up very much in the second game. I thought we defended well,” he said. “Tonight, not so much. Just give them freebies, just not digging in front of the net, giving up odd-man rushes.”

Anaheim overwhelmed Edmonton’s defense and looked the faster team en route to their first playoff home win since 2017. With Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl both looking to be operating at less than 100 percent, this series has turned out to be much closer than it may have looked on paper.

The Oilers now need to find a win in California on Sunday night down 2-1, or else they’ll be headed home for a potential elimination Game 5 early next week.

“There’s a lot of hockey left to be played,” said defenseman Mattias Ekholm. “The momentum shifts, the swings, we’ve all been through it in here, so lean on that, take a deep breath knowing that the sun’s going to come up tomorrow and we’ve got a big game coming up in Game 4. We know what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to execute at a higher level, and we haven’t brought close to our best yet.”

It’ll be interesting to see if Knoblauch sticks with Ingram for Game 4, or decides to give Tristan Jarry a chance between the pipes. Puck drops just past 9:30 p.m. ET on Sunday night.

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