Babcock Singles Out Oiler After Ugly Loss To Maple Leafs.

The Edmonton Oilers were soundly defeated at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night, eventually losing by a score of 7 - 2, and following the game Oilers head coach Mike Babcock singled out the lackluster performance of one Oilers veteran in particular.

"I think anytime when guys are away and they come back they're probably not as good and I thought that probably affected Nuge a little bit tonight," said Babcock, clearly not pleased with what he saw from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on the night.

Although Babcock did single out Nugent-Hopkins as the only player called out directly, he also made it clear that much of the blame for the ugly performance on home ice was his own.

"They were better. You can blame anybody you want as a group, as a coach, Jim Hiller had his group playing harder than I had my group so that's on me," said Babcock.

Babcock proceeded to call out the effort from the entire Oilers locker room on the night, although he did single out a few Oilers whom he felt played hard.

"I didn't like anything about tonight," said Babcock. "I thought Formy played hard, I thought Hyman played hard, I thought Murphy played hard.... we didn't have enough guys. If you're going through the list and you're talking about a few guys, that's not enough guys."

The circumstances, the stage and the opponent, seemed to make the lackluster performance from his team all that much more unacceptable for the veteran head coach.

"In your own building on a Saturday night, that should be automatic," said Babcock with serious emphasis in his voice. "You should never get outworked."

Something tells me the Oilers players will be feeling the repercussions of this performance for some time.