Edmonton produced a brutal effort Tuesday night to start the game down 3-0; after grinding back into the game they scored the tying goal with one 1 second left to play – only to lose quickly in an uneventful overtime.

It was an extremely disappointing finish. Edmonton was flying, guns out to start the third period. The Oilers scored two quick goals right at the start of the third period. The refereeing got out of control, and Edmonton had to kill several penalties late in the third, including a 5-on-3 and a penalty with 2:43 left to play. They killed it all and rushed the net scoring a rebound goal that sent the crowd rabid.

But overtime was a different story. Edmonton won the draw but made no effort to control the puck. Bouchard lost the puck along the boards with little resistance and Buffalo began their attack. The Sabres found themselves alongside the boards on Skinners right side; McDavid fought for possession and Bouchard left his man to assist and it ended up being fatal. Buffalo won the draw and Alex Tuch beat Skinner with ease.

The reason for tonight’s loss was twofold: Buffalo came out of the gate with more energy (despite coming off a loss to the Flames Monday night), scoring three goals before Edmonton had a chance to gain a foothold, and some horrible officiating.

When the Oilers had finally tilted the ice in their favor Zach Hyman was gifted a weak holding call followed shortly after by an even weaker tripping call on Adam Henrique. The Oilers spent much of the middle third clinging on to dear life. When they finally found themselves back in control Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was called for hooking from across the ice by an official who couldn’t even see the play; it couldn’t have been an egregious hook, because the referee who was dead center in front of the play thought it was fine. If Beck Malenstyn was on a dive team he would have gotten a gold medal for the performance.

But you can’t complain about officiating when you’re starting the game down 3-0, and they did manage to tie the game. Just need a little better communication in overtime .

On the positive side, Edmonton showed they are still very capable of mounting multi-goal comebacks – they just need to keep working on making sure they don’t have to. Take the point and move on, it could be worse; for most of the night it was looking like they’d go home without a point at all.

The Oilers will finish their five game homestand hosting the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.