March Badness? Edmonton Oilers lose (twice) to another.....

Because there but for grace of Connor McDavid go the Oilers.

Every trip to Buffalo is a frightening reminder of where Edmonton would be if it hadn’t won the 2015 draft lottery, cashing in on an 11.5 per cent chance from third-last place in the NHL standings.

The Sabres won a solid consolation prize in Jack Eichel but it wasn’t enough to pull them out of their bog. And it wouldn’t have been enough for the Oilers. The fact it’s taken the organization so long to get here WITH the greatest player in the world gives you some idea how it would have gone without him.

And so it was that the Oilers arrived in KeyBank Center Saturday morning to give Buffalo fans another glimpse of what might have been, with McDavid and the Oilers, their roster set after the trade deadline, beginning their final march toward the playoffs and the Sabres playing out anoth

Alas, that march of Edmonton’s is turning into a face plant.

March Badness, if you will.

Losing 4-2 to the 29th-place Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night and responding to that wake-up call by blowing a 2-0 lead and losing (twice) to the 25th-place Buffalo Sabres is not at all what the Oilers are looking to see from themselves right now.

The Oilers should have hit the gas from that point, but it was a 50-minute stall instead. Buffalo cut it 2-1 in the first, tied it 2-2 with eight minutes left in the game and won it with two seconds left in overtime. Then won it again in the shootout.

“Yes, we only scored two goals and one of them was shorthanded,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “But I thought we had a lot of good chances, we just didn’t capitalize.

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