Among all things, a Bob Sebra season is a must to avoid. Do you known about Bob Sebra? He was a starter for the Montreal Expos, came over in a screw deal with the Texas Rangers. In 1987, the Montreal Expos finished 91-71, but missed winning the division because Sebra went 6-15. Expos missed winning the division by four games, and couldn’t find a replacement starter to go 10-11. If Bob Sebra goes 10-11, Montreal at least ties for the division. A Bob Sebra season: A must to avoid.
25 OR 6 TO 4, YEAR OVER YEAR
- Oilers in October 2015: 4-8-0, goal differential -7
- Oilers in October 2016: 7-2-0, goal differential +10
- Oilers in November 2015: 4-7-2, goal differential -6
- Oilers in November 2016: 5-8-2 goal differential -3
- Oilers in December 2015: 7-6-1, goal differential -9
- Oilers in December 2016: 7-2-5, goal differential +3
- Oilers in January 2016: 4-5-2, goal differential -5
- Oilers in January 2017: 9-4-1, goal differential +8
- Oilers in February 2016: 3-8-2, goal differential -18
- Oilers in February 2017: 4-3-0, goal differential +1
- Oilers after 59, 2015-16: 22-31-6, goal differential -35
- Oilers after 59, 2016-17: 32-19-8, goal differential +19
Edmonton is started to push beyond most other seasons in this century. There is a chance the 2016-17 regular season will represent the best year of this century for Edmonton, in terms of regular season numbers. In fact, this year is tracking as one of the best since the glory days. Los Angeles lost again, Calgary stumbled, and Anaheim is chasing the Oil Drop. Music!
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM FEBRUARY
- On the road to:
Nashville, Carolina, Montreal(Expected: 1-1-1) (Actual 1-2-0) - At home to:
Chicago, Arizona, Philadelphia(Expected: 1-1-1) (Actual 2-1-0) - On the road to:
Chicago, Tampa Bay, Florida, Washington, Nashville, St. Louis (Expected: 2-3-1) (Actual: 1-0-0) - Overall expected result: 4-5-3, 11 points in 12 games
- Overall current results: 4-3-0, 8 points in 7 games
Last night’s win sets this road trip up very well, and the truth is Edmonton is close to our expectations already. There is no sin in revising our number, but let’s see how this thing rolls out. If we are honest with each other, and look at the numbers from last night, perhaps that was a win undeserved by all but the goalie.
DEFENSE, LAST NIGHT
- Klefbom—Larsson went 10-24 in 15:07. The pairing was 4-4 with McDavid, 6-6 with the Nuge. Went 5-16 against Panarin—Anisimov—Kane, 1-11 versus Hossa—Tanner Kero—Ryan Hartman. Yeah.
- Sekera—Benning went 6-20 in 12:34, including 5-10 with McDavid and 6-6 with Nuge. Went 3-10 against Schmaltz—Toews—Panik, 2-9 against Hossa—Tanner Kero—Ryan Hartman. It was a decidedly large gap.
- Davidson—Gryba went 5-10 in 10:36, including 0-5 with McDavid and 2-8 with Nuge. Tough speed match for the big righty blue, I think Gryba will not play a lot in the semifinals. 🙂 Went 1-13 against Schmaltz—Toews—Panik, Davidson made one brilliant defensive play against Hossa and I saw him good a few times.
- Cam Talbot stopped the world. Stopped 38 of 39, .974. Now at .921 for the year, ranks No. 6 overall.
FORWARDS, LAST NIGHT
- Caggiula—Nuge—Kassian stuck together for most of the night, going 11-16. Nuge did go 2-2 with Eberle-Lucic and it clicked.
- Lucic—Draisaitl—Slepyshev went 7-13 together, in about eight and a half minutes. Leon jumped up to the CMD—Maroon line later in the game, going 6-6 in about six minutes. I wonder if we see the big trains back with 97 on Tuesday.
- Maroon—McDavid—Eberle went 3-11 together, and it did not look effective at all. McDavid played 11:19 of his 16:20 against Duncan Keith (9-13), and was 4-13 against Jonathan Toews in 7:40. Although Eberle was moved off the top line, I thought he played well—back checking, pursuing the play, moving the puck quickly.
- Hendricks—Letestu—Pakarinen got caved and the wingers didn’t play much at all. Letestu went 0-8 against Panarin—Anisimov—Kane, we saw some high octane hockey from that trio.
- Stats via NaturalStatTrick, NHL.com and HockeyStats.ca.
MILAN LUCIC
Milan Lucic scored a big goal for his team last night, and that may spark more 5×5 offense. He is currently 1.02 5×5 per 60, half of last year’s output. Now, a lot of people are down on the big man and I get that, he hasn’t performed as hoped this year. His possession number away from Connor McDavid is not strong, his even-strength offense has been halved. Ironically, his power-play work—never a major part of his game—has been very successful. Last night’s goal might be a blip, and we could return to 20 games of zero 5×5 offense. I am hopeful Lucic can find his way, always been a fan.
CURRENT STANDINGS
The win last night, combined with losses by others who are chasing, has Edmonton in an even better position this morning. We should brace ourselves for a bit of a slide during this road trip, but there is no doubt the Oilers have done a lot of good work in putting themselves in this position.
2nd straight game vs Portland that Ethan Bear has had 4+ points (1G 3A last week, likely 2G 2A tonight.)
— TBird Tidbits (@TBirdTidbits) February 19, 2017
Ethan Bear’s WHL boxcars (57, 25-36-61) have his NHLE at 24 points—a very nice number. The 25 goals is certainly an attention-getter, I wonder if we see him as a feature player on the PP in Bakersfield next season. It is good to see Bear posting such a strong number this year.
Curious if #Oilers will grab Ty Rattie off waivers. Believe EDM put in a claim for him in Jan. Only thing is Slepyshev has come up since.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) February 18, 2017
Frank identifies the major difference between January and now in Edmonton, as Anton Slepyshev has enjoyed some real success. My guess is that Edmonton passes on the opportunity. Slepyshev has stepped up in a big way. That said, it is something to monitor.
VIDEO: First, he opened the scoring, then @JoeyLaLeggia put this one on the tape of Lander to make it 3-0. #Condorstown pic.twitter.com/J0MLqPFGwF
— Bakersfield Condors (@Condors) February 19, 2017
Joey Laleggia had a nice night for the Bakersfield Condors. We expect Anton Lander to fill an AHL net, and Jesse Puljujarvi (17, 6-7-13) is having a nice run (4-2-6 in his last six games). Laleggia is 8-1-9 in his last 16 games, showing that move to LW may in fact improve his NHL changes.
Sure, you can always find a few examples to support a claim, but overall there is no playoff switch. Even most of the examples you provided were good regular season players (Leetch, Giroux, Messier, Gilmour, Linden, Briere). Some players get hot or go cold for whatever reason.
Pretty much
Fernando Pisani?
Ridiculous comment
Had some people over for the game yesterday and we were saying Chiarelli probably gets some GM of the year votes this year.
What about?
Claude Giroux
Daniel Briere
Ken Linesman
Mark Messier
Trevor Linden
John Maclean
Ken Morrow
Bob Bourne
Doug Gilmour
Brian Leetch
Johan Franzen
Steve Payne
Those guys all improved massively during the playoffs, but the Playoff Switch King had to be Claude Percy Lemieux. Man that guy slept through entire regular seasons, but come playoffs different Beast entirely.
This is much more meaningful fancy +/-
This is fancy +/- and should be taken as seriously as +/- no?
I like larson and rssels abilities to keep shots away from the dangerous areas. By eye bye it seems they can limit shots to the outside of the box.
Admiring Chicago’s play in a game they lost is a good diversion. Our underlying Corsi numbers are not that different. I didn’t watch the first period. Apparently we weren’t that good there. In the last two periods, Chicago did a whole bunch of holding onto the puck and moving it around in our zone trying to find a hole in a 5-man defense. Meanwhile we had multiple 2-on-1’s and near wide open looks. I don’t think their defensive play is that much better than ours or that deserving of admiration, prior Cup winners on value contracts among their d-corps notwithstanding.
GSAA60 5v5 (via Corsica)
Talbot .508
Crawford .493
(By the way, Pittsburgh’s Murray who plays behind the model, mobile defense that everyone should emulate has a GSAA60 of .693.)
Part of the problem with his shot volume is that a piss-cutter requires two blades to one tuck.
On game day, about ten minutes after breakfast, one of the Connor’s would pounce and declare “tuck mate!—no sauce [delivery] for you!” and by that formula the disentucked Conner would become that night’s designated trigger man.
———
I didn’t realize this, but during my time in residence, I passed up an opportunity to get into the action on the ground floor.
In now occurs to me that mirror in the bathroom blaring from 5′-tall speakers every second day was a form of braggadocio trash talk.
———
Law of unintended consequence: for the rest of their lives, neither Connor would ever again pass by a reflective surface without sneaking a quick glance.
———
In the post-game press conference he said that he saw Coffey’s reflection in the glass, so it wasn’t a blind pass.
—
Edit: I have passed the spam test.
Luckily, I did exactly this recently:
http://becauseoilers.blogspot.ca/2017/02/a-look-at-how-oilers-d-pairs-have-done_12.html?m=1
As you can see the 3rd pair Dmen tend to look better via shot metrics so you need to temper your results through the lens of QoC
Caggiula-Nuge-Kassian 11-16
Lucic-Draisaitl-Slepyshev 7-13
Lucic-Nuge-Eberle 2-0 (GWG)
~ Yep. Another horrible night for Nuge and Lucic. ~
(Maroon—McDavid—Eberle 3-11)
Georges,
How would this show up in the numbers? Maybe in GF60 and GA60?
CF/60 and CA/60 and/or xGF/60 and xGA/60 are better in-person than goals.
And it’s best to break it down with each center so you aren’t looking at a blended number that loses information.
And it’s best to do it with pairs as its next to impossible to remove pair effects from a Dman
Are movers supposed to get primary points then? Or just get the puck out and up to the forwards?
If they’re supposed to get primary points, then, as a group, they don’t do a very good job at this. They’re completely outclassed by forwards. But this makes sense because defensemen, as a group, play further away from the opponent’s net than forwards. Goals happen near the net. For a defenseman to be generating a lot of primary points he has to, in general, be playing closer to the opponent’s net. That is, be out of position as a defenseman. It’s true, Larsson is rarely out of position as a defenseman, so he doesn’t generate a whole lot of primary points.
Using primary points to assess forward play seems fair. They’re playing close to the opponent’s net. They should have a pretty good share of the last two links (G and A1) in generating goals.
Using primary points to assess defenseman is whimsical. It’s valuing defenseman at doing something that 3 other players on the ice can do better than they can. Why discount secondary assists for defensemen? Don’t secondary assists suggest that they got the play or kept the play moving, i.e., they were doing their job?
But let’s say (as I think Ricki does) the job of a mover is not to put up points but to simply move the puck out of his zone and up to forwards. And his role in the offensive zone is to keep the puck in and get it back down to forwards. How would this show up in the numbers? Maybe in GF60 and GA60?
Bruce Wayne,
That said, it’s easy enough to look at Lucic’s scoring log and find he has 5 goals, 7 primary assists and 4 secondaries on the powerplay.
Interesting to note that 6 of those 7 primary helpers were on goals by Draisaitl = 60% of Leon’s overall PP goals. I distinctly remember some beauty goal mouth feeds involved in several of those snipes.
Didn’t even have to look at the tapes!
Why don’t You go back & watch the tapes rather than making assertions & challenging others to do the proving?
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “Lucic catastrophe”, but if it’s Lucic helping to galvanize a hitherto sissy NHL squad of total losers into division lead chasing killers I’m with you 100%
5v4 Primary Points per 60 (first assists and goals only)
P160
LEON.DRAISAITL 6.76
MILAN.LUCIC 4.60
MARK.LETESTU 3.15
JORDAN.EBERLE 2.60
CONNOR.MCDAVID 2.59
DRAKE.CAGGIULA 2.47
RYAN.NUGENT-HOPKINS 2.00
PATRICK.MAROON 1.98
OSCAR.KLEFBOM 1.80
ANDREJ.SEKERA 0.90
BENOIT.POULIOT 0.00
I don’t think its coincidence that the top on this list are also the top on this list:
Player iSF60
MARK.LETESTU 14.20
MILAN.LUCIC 13.02
LEON.DRAISAITL 12.77
PATRICK.MAROON 11.86
JORDAN.EBERLE 10.85
DRAKE.CAGGIULA 10.69
BENOIT.POULIOT 9.90
ANDREJ.SEKERA 8.98
OSCAR.KLEFBOM 8.56
CONNOR.MCDAVID 8.52
RYAN.NUGENT-HOPKINS 8.00
Connor needs to shoot more.
Good morning from Manila. Catching up on the thread with my toast and cereal. As the Hawks game was on a weekend I was able to watch it live and my amateur observation is that circa November time TMac changed things. We had played exciting, attractive hockey in the opening 7-1-0 run then headed off on a road trip and played superbly in New York (Rangers) and Pittsburgh but lost two tight games.
At that point we seemed to move to an “old school” Italian soccer style relying on error minimizing, bend-don’t-break D, goal tending, and opportunistic scoring (puck luck; opposition error; or McD magic). In the more recent 7-0-1 run I kept looking at the screen wondering how on earth we had won six of those games, but win we did.
Obviously it is working and I would imagine as (i) the roster improves, (ii )the systems continue to bed down, and (iii) Anton Lander is unleashed, we will see better hockey.
it’s cool folks, it’s just really fucking cool. Play off city baby.
forwards on pace for 19G 51P last 2 seasons
Kesler
Marchand
Okposo
Skinner
Saad
Atkinson
Panarin
Kane
Benn
Seguin
Draisatl
Trochek
Carter
Pacoretty
Tavares
Stone
Hoffman
Schenn
Simmonds
Kessel
Malkin
CRosby
Pavelski
Tarasenko
Kucherov
Wheeler
Schiefle
Oshie
Backstrom
Ovechkin
your most consistent #1 fwds ssn to ssn the last 2 years.
As Brian said, when faced with “only the true messiah would say that he isn’t the messiah!”: What bloody chance does that give me?
Meaning, you’ve tried some sophistry and debate manipulation yourself here. Don’t know why you singled Bruce out though. I thought Bruce of a feather flocked together.
I keep a house brick in mine.
Watching the Lucic catastrophe unfold this season has made me wonder about PP points, as Lucic’ defenders will often use his total points as a bit of sophistry to defend his horrific play.
On most power play goals three points are awarded. My suggestion is that, contrary to even strength play, the awarding of these points does not reflect contribution to goals in a consistent way.
For instance, power play goals rely on three things, zone entries, a power play quarterback usually on the half wall, and a trigger man. The other guys are there for puck retrieval, get rebounds and tips, etc.
The first set of jobs are hard to find, these are the key guys who separate power plays, but the replacement level for the second is much higher, since every team has guys who can do this, but the differential in power play points is smaller than the differential in contribution since the latter guys still manage to touch the puck and pick up cheap assists.
If you went back and watched the tape I bet you would find Lucic getting a bunch of cheap power play assists.
This makes sense, the guy who can’t skate, can’t take a pass, and can’t make a pass isn’t suddenly going to play well on the powerplay. He isn’t playing well there, he is riding the coat tails of his betters.
And before Bruce goes all contrarian here, defending Lucic isn’t contrarian, since he hasn’t gotten a sniff of the criticism he deserves precisely because the people and the media love him so much. The narratives love Lucic and hate Eberle, but Eberle is a good player, while Lucic is player on the team (who isn’t waiver bait).
these are the forwards currently on pace for 16G 44P four seasons in a row:
Bergeron
P. Kane
Saad
Seguin
Benn
Eberle
Lucic
O’rielly
Okposo
Carter
Pacioretty
Tavares
Stepan
Simmonds
Giroux
Malkin
Crosby
Kessel
Hornquist
Pavelski
Marleau
Steen
H. Sedin
Wheelwr
Ovechkin
Backstrom
this are the consistently elite #1 off forwards the last 4 years!
I’d rather they acquire than the center route that has been talked about. There’s really few options for C’s at the deadline and acquiring 1-2 good wingers would help the scoring depth more imo.
Ladies! Ladies!
Purses at dawn
Not enough,
Now that Lowetide is a full patch member of the Triads anything less then your pinky finger will be considered a sign deep disrespect to the entire blog
Yeah, but fuck those people.
Yeah, it is kind of crazy. By eye, by math and by moonbeam this team is so much tighter it is crazy. Chicago showed Edmonton a lot about possession last night, but I think the Oilers showed they can defend and have a fantastic goalie. It is coming together, thank Gord and Greyhound.
Normally I wouldn’t even respond to this. Are you a joke?
oops, sorry I messed up with the attributed comment which got replaced with the item on my clipboard and somehow showed up as the quoted comment from you. No, you most certainly did not say that.
I have fixed my own comment above to properly attribute your comment that I was actually replying to, with apologies to you.
I really wish the leaders would give the non-leaders a dressing down right on the ice after a whistle so that fans can see the leadership happening right before their eyes. That would be something. 😉
Is this a joke?
Sleppy at FF%… 44.5% (last on the Oilers)
Shame we didn’t get to see Oesterle, I hope there is patience on both sides for next season.
I don’t see them bringing back Gryba, Davidson or hopefully Rienhart will most likely be gone in expansion. I wouldn’t be shocked if one of these players were dealt at the deadline. Guessing Fayne gets the buyout, no guarantee they re-sign Russell (most likely the do). Who is left?
2017/18:
Larrson. Klefbom.
Benning. Sekera.
Russell. Nurse
Oesterle. Rienhart.
I want the Oilers to try to find a way to keep Davidson but I don’t see a more attractive player for Vegas.
I’m sure Chiarelli will add to this d-core in the summer but maybe he doesn’t.
Thank you. Things really are turning around, even as there are still some warts.
Related: it’s easier to kick garbage cans in the dressing room than it is on the bench while a period is in progress.
Who won the game last night?
The balance photo is only applicable for the following season. Balance photo, should it come to pass, would probably be posted at the end of the RE series, which would be mid-August. I agree they are far closer now.
I didn’t say that, so can’t defend it.
That post wasn’t specific to Larsson, it was generally a counter to the claim further up this thread that “Oil are, without doubt, the easiest team in the league to play against in their own end.”
While I also think getting a backup is a number one priority, this trope is not the reason why.
We can’t know this to be true and in fact it is as likely that the opposite is true… spelling him off more than he has might actually hurt his play.
I want a backup sheerly for injury risk. Keep Talbot in the exact same games played rhythm he has been drumming all year. Do NOT force extra time off on him.
That’s fair. I meant more, ‘do we know Larsson is the guy that does this more on his pairing or is that Klefbom’?
Lowetide,
Just a few questions about your “balance photo” and how that now pertains to this team.
From the beginning of the year until now, there have been many question marks favorably answered to certain degrees ( Talbot, Draisaitl, Nurse) to nice surprises ( Benning, Maroon, Kassian, Letestu)
While there are still some holes, many have been filled.
We are a top 10 team in pts, pts per game, goal differential and probably a bunch of other stats, but for me, top 10 in pts 10 days before the trade deadline is significantly better than most figured we would be at this time. We are not elite, but definitely a playoff a team. ( I picked 93 points for the Oilers to finish the year in Hunters poll, it looks to be short :))
-How close is this team for you to reveal the balance photo?
-At this point of the year, what additions would be needed to achieve balance?
-At the moment, what teams in the league would you consider worthy of the balance photo?
There was no comparative aspect to his statement, which was more “we should look at guys who break up plays and start the play back the other way” in its tome and context.
They should have to forfeit their second round pick this year, to the Oilers
It is a pretty interesting group. Thomas Vanek would be a nice add, still cannot believe Detroit isn’t going to sign him. They must not be able to trade any of those veterans with term.
Yeah, definitely more on the luxury products side than your everyday wear and tear. That’s unfortunately the only viable outlet for many big operation handicrafts in high standard of living societies.
You don’t get reindeer leather from a lot of places though, so it’s kind of warranted.
Last night, Hawks were all over the Oilers in the 1st period. It was insane how much the Hawks were all over the Oilers until the 2nd period when the Oilers came out and started fucking up the Hawks by playing physical.
I understand I’m not the sharpest hockey fan, but when a team changes it’s approach by that much in 15 minutes between periods, that something other than “Go out and play the same way guys” is going on.
In closing, Chiarelli+McLellan have taken a silky soft bunch of entitled babies and replaced them with a junkyard dog type of hockey team – inside 2 seasons.
Well said Bruce. I was going to post something along the same lines.
You always seem to say the right things at the right time.