That last glimmer of faint hope disappeared the way most Edmonton Oilers fans feared it would.

Quietly, and without incident.

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There was no desperate uprising, no surprise acquisition to help lead a late-season charge, no defiant response to all the people who counted them out weeks ago. There was nothing to suggest this was going to end any other way than it did — with a poorly-constructed hockey team simply collapsing under the weight of everything that is wrong with it.

The math says they are still alive, just seven points back with 48 points left on the board and nobody really staking claim to the last wildcard spot, but with one win in their last 11 games and six wins in their last 25, it’s false bravado to even pretend.

So here we sit, with the four-time Draft Lottery champions about to miss the playoffs for the 12th time in 13 years.

This is a tough one for the long-suffering fans in Edmonton to stomach, and that’s saying something given how much garbage they’ve swallowed over the years, only to come running back for more.

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In a season when Connor McDavid is challenging for the Art Ross and Leon Draisaitl is challenging for the Rocket Richard, the Oilers are somehow challenging for last place overall, woefully behind all of the current trends in the NHL.

Three lines of scoring depth? Nope.

High-end right shot defencemen? Nope.

Security in net? Hard to tell, but he’s signed for three years.

Faith in the owner? Hell, no.

The illusion was still alive when the Oilers left for a critical three game road swing through Pittsburgh, Carolina and Brooklyn last week, but in scoring just four goals in those three losses (three by Draisaitl), they were sunk by the same lack of skill that’s been dragging this team into the quicksand from the start.

The team delivered a strong, determined effort, played hard until the end and didn’t quit, but in a league that is placing more and more emphasis on talent, the Oilers can’t measure up.

And that, given the players who’ve been gifted to them by the NHL over the years, makes this mess even tougher to digest.

It’s unfathomable that a team with McDavid, Draisaitl, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on it three seasons ago, with Matt Barzal and Matthew Tkachuk available to them in two of the last four drafts, is a barren wasteland at forward.

But it is. Secondary scoring is now at an apocalyptic low in Edmonton.

The Oilers have 15 goals in their last seven games, which by itself is a disturbingly low number. What’s even more alarming is how many of those 15 goals over seven games came without Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins either scoring or assisting.

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None.

Read it and weep:

Draisaitl.

McDavid.

Draisaitl (from McDavid).

Draisaitl (from McDavid).

Draisaitl.

Kassian (from McDavid).

Draisaitl.

Rattie (from Nugent-Hopkins).

Nurse (from McDavid).

Kassian (from McDavid).

Nugent-Hopkins.

Draisaitl (from McDavid).

Draisaitl.

Draisaitl (from McDavid).

Nugent-Hopkins.

This is what nine top-10 picks in 10 years gets you nowadays?

Obviously, this is where much of their attention will be spent moving forward, trying to find as many goal scoring wingers as possible on a fixed budget — a job that will be tasked to the same people who green lighted Valentin Zykov, Ryan Spooner, Tobias Rieder, Pontus Aberg, Jason Garrison, Patrick Russell, Brandon Manning and Chris Wideman.

But that’s a summer problem. Right now, there is a season to finish and salary to chop. That means things will likely go from bad to worse as the coldest team in the league starts selling off assets.

The key now will be trying to salvage something productive and healthy from their 12th death march in the last 13 years, knowing full well that the roots of this losing culture are sinking even deeper.

That won’t be an easy task.

Nor will turning this roster into a playoff team in time for next season so we’re not right back in the same spot next February.

Make no mistake, these are hard problems that need fixing, but they have to be fixed. Fast. Because it’s probably a safe bet that some key ingredients on this team are starting to get tired of this.

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Oil Spills podcast: Head-scratching over Oilers’ home woes

The Edmonton Oilers can win games away from home, but over the last bunch of games, they can’t seem to win at their own arena, Rogers Place. The question, of course, is why? Just another thing that’s in the water

Hockey beat writers Rob Tychkowski and Jim Matheson talk to host Craig Ellingson about that and about the Oilers’ prospects of getting Top 4 defenceman Andrej Sekera back in the lineup soon, what it’ll mean and who they’ll have to move off the roster; about the winning ways of their farm team, the Bakersfield Condors of the AHL; and about former Oilers coach Dallas Eakins looking at getting another shot soon in the NHL.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, Google Play or Soundcloud. You can also listen via the player below.