Edmonton’s first game of the preseason was a win, and the young blue all played well last evening. The two Euro forwards (Gaetan Haas and Joakim Nygard) had some wobble early before settling in, and the two yutes in net were solid in a game that lacked brilliance beyond Nuge’s stunning backhand goal.
THE ATHLETIC!
The Athletic Edmonton features a fabulous cluster of stories (some linked below, some on the site). Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. Proud to be part of The Athletic, we are celebrating our 2-year anniversary this week. To mark the occasion, you can get 40% off subscriptions until Sept. 19 here.
- New Lowetide: A big night for Oilers defencemen Joel Persson, William Lagesson and Evan Bouchard
- Lowetide: Preseason 2019-20: The Oilers’ journey to respectability begins
- Lowetide: Handicapping Oilers prospect progress: The development of Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones and William Lagesson
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Eight key questions for the Oilers to solve at training camp
- Jonathan Willis: Predicting the winners of the Oilers’ top-six and top-nine forward jobs out of camp
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: In, out or on the bubble: Breaking down positional battles at Oilers camp
- New Lowetide: Evan Bouchard and the Calder Trophy: The Oilers’ pursuit of the elusive rookie award
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Alex Chiasson prepares to return to scoring form for Edmonton Oilers
- Jonathan Willis: Kyle Brodziak defied the odds, and then the Oilers, to carve out a significant NHL career
- Lowetide: Can Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith stop enough pucks for the Oilers?
- Lowetide: Shutdown success by Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson is a key for the Oilers in 2019-20.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Even if he’s unsure about his return, Oilers’ Connor McDavid looks and sounds like his old self
- Lowetide: RE 19-20: How can the Oilers’ bottom six close the gap in goal differential?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Kailer Yamamoto and Tyler Benson address respective highs and lows as Oilers rookie camp begins
- Jonathan Willis: Riley Sheahan is a prudent signing by the Oilers in more ways than one
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ defensive hopes will rest on the new shutdown pair of Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: With Evan Bouchard as the headliner, here are the players to watch at Oilers rookie camp
- Lowetide: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the configuration of the Oilers second line
- Lowetide: Connor McDavid’s 2019-20: Pushing for 50 goals while Dave Tippett loads up the Oilers’ top line
- Lowetide: Estimating reasonable expectations for the 2019-20 Edmonton Oilers: A difficult journey
- Jonathan Willis: How much money will Darnell Nurse make on his next NHL contract?
- Corey Pronman: Oilers No. 9 farm system.
- Lowetide: Oilers coach Dave Tippett might have to take drastic action in order to find a second outscoring line in 2019-20
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
LAST NIGHT’S OILERS
LC Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: 1-0-1, 14:07 five-on-five, 78.6 Corsi for five-on-five, 2 shots, 2 HDSC, 2-3 five-on-five faceoffs. He was outstanding, the goal was poetry. He’s a terrific player and Oilers fans are lucky he’s never going to grow old.
LD Oscar Klefbom: 0-2-2, 18:21 five-on-five, 67.5 Corsi for five-on-five, 5 shots. He’s dreamy and healthy, so let the good times roll. As mentor he appears to be qualified.
RD Joel Persson: 0-2-2, 16:40 five-on-five, 66.7 Corsi for five-on-five, 6 shots. I wrote about him after the game for The Athletic (link above) and I think his first impression was a very good one. You need to see it deeper into camp, but he held serve.
R James Neal: 1-0-1, 12:07 five-on-five, 77.3 Corsi for five-on-five, 2 shots. He didn’t impact the game a lot beyond the goal, but that’s an important and difficult thing to do. I remain somewhat unconvinced about his presence on the Nuge line, but last night was a success.
R Alex Chiasson: 0-0-0, 14:13 five-on-five, 43.48 Corsi for five-on-five, 2 shots, 2 HDSC. A strange night for the big man, he had two great chances and was around the puck, but his line was underwater much of the evening. Trying to do too much? Not sure. Quality of linemates? Maybe.
LD Caleb Jones: 0-0-0, 16:16 five-on-five, 54.5 Corsi for five-on-five, 3 shots blocked. I liked his game, he and Benning hung out with the Haas line for 6:45 and defended well. Jones has great wheels, but also plays an intelligent game. Early on, he had a chance to move the puck behind the net to Benning, but a Jet was hovering. He waited a heartbeat, even though it meant taking a hit, then moved the puck to safety. Also marked his man later down the left side wall, didn’t prevent the pass to the slot but denied the Winnipeg forward any lane to the net.
LC Colby Cave: 13:00 at five-on-five, 52.2 Corsi for five-on-five, one shot, 8-5 faceoff circle. He looked good, although he was slow on one 10-bell chance. Set up Benson for a real nice chance and was responsible. Tippett had nice words postgame.
RD Evan Bouchard: 20:16 at five-on-five, 60.0 Corsi for five-on-five, one shot, several brilliant passes. He had an excellent game to my eye. He engaged offensively many times, but for me the best part of his game was passing in both zones. He snaps off lovely passes with pace on outlets, and his terrific pass to Nuge in the Winnipeg slot was impressive.
RC Gaetan Haas: 13:39 at five-on-five, 52.2 Corsi for five-on-five, 6-6 in the faceoff circle. He seemed to get lost in the play quite a bit, especially early. I did notice him doing a nice job of protecting the puck late in the first period, and his line seemed to find chem in the second half of the game. We need to see him again.
L Joakim Nygard: 14:27 at five-on-five, 36.4 Corsi for five-on-five, one shot and two HDSC. It took him half the game to find the range, but middle second period he sped through the neutral zone, worked for the puck behind the net and eventually helped Chiasson get a look. Had a fabulous rush and chance late in the game. He’s making noise.
R Josh Archibald: 13:31 at five-on-five, 63.6 Corsi for five-on-five, 2 shots and a screamer just wide of the far side late. He didn’t do a lot to get noticed beyond that shot and two giveaways.
L Jujhar Khaira: 12:46 at five-on-five, 66.7 Corsi for five-on-five, 1 shot, 1 HDSC and solid PK work. He sent a lovely pass to Chiasson for a chance, and had a great look off a Sheahan feed late. Quality penalty killing, including a nice sequence with Nuge that could have cashed.
RD Matt Benning: 17:28 at five-on-five, 57.3 Corsi for five-on-five, 2 shots. He made some great outlet passes, defended well and was dogged in getting possession of the puck defensively. I loved his outlet to Patrick Russell, tape-to-tape and on the fly.
R Patrick Russell: 13:28 at five-on-five, 64.3 Corsi for five-on-five, 3 shots, 1 takeaway. I thought he played very well last night, he was in good spots all night long. Active, retrieving the puck for chances and getting very good passes to linemates, he was quality.
LC Riley Sheahan: 12:49 at five-on-five, 61.9 Corsi for five-on-five, 8-7 faceoffs and a takeaway. It took some time for him to impact the game, but he played a smart 60 and very late fed Khaira for a solid chance. As was the case with pretty much all of the newcomer forwards, we need to see him again.
R Sam Gagner: 14:01 at five-on-five, 75.9 Corsi for five-on-five. He tied up a defenseman net front on the Neal goal, and kept the puck moving north. There were sequences where he had the puck in a good place and attempted passes, but overall I thought he was quiet.
L Tyler Benson: 15:07 at five-on-five, 64.3 Corsi for five-on-five, 2 shots, 1 giveaway, 1 takeaway. My goodness he was around the puck a lot, that’s a good sign. In the first he had a nice look from a Cave pass, then another from a Patrick Russell feed. Won a battle along the wall and sent the puck deep mid-second, sent a nice pass to Russell on a late two-on-one. He sped through the neutral zone multiple times, shooting the puck in and chasing. I’d like to see him gain the zone with possession, suspect we see him try it as he gets more comfortable.
L William Lagesson: 18:46 at five-on-five, 62.5 Corsi for five-on-five, 3 shots. I thought he and Bouchard were solid together, Lagesson’s ability to diffuse sorties was on display early and often. Good passing, good transporting, solid defending and he did everything with a purpose. What else is there?
G Stuart Skinner: 33:36, stopped 18 shots, including 2 high danger and five medium danger. He was excellent, very calm and at no point did he display nerves or lose his net.
G Dylan Wells: 26:24, stopped 7 shots, including 1 high danger and three medium danger. By the time he hit the ice all four lines had figured it out, but he played well in his 26 minutes.
Tonight
I think everyone held serve last night, and would argue that the three blue who I wrote about for The Athletic (plus Patrick Russell) did more than that on Monday.
The opportunity tonight, for Ethan Bear, Cooper Marody, Tomas Jurco, Shane Starrett and others, is this: Tonight’s Edmonton team will be outmanned just as last night’s Jets team was coming in. So, although the quality of teammates will be lower, the quality of competition higher, but the opportunity to impress will also be elevated. Show well on the road tonight and that’s going to get noticed in a big way. Marody needs to have a good night.
Tomas Jurco—Cooper Marody—Josh Currie
Markus Granlund—Colby Cave—Patrick Russell
Tyler Benson—Ryan McLeod—Cameron Hebig
Joe Gambardella—Brad Malone—Anthony Peluso
Darnell Nurse—Adam Larsson
Dmitri Samorukov—Evan Bouchard
Brandon Manning—Ethan Bear
Shane Starrett (Dylan Wells)
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A busy morning as we get rolling with hockey across several platforms. Jonathan Willis from The Athletic will join us at 10:20, we’ll chat about last night’s game and training camp battles. Andrew Peard, Oil Kings pbp man will also pop in for his weekly visit. I have a call in to the west coast to talk Boeser, those folks get up an hour later so stay tuned. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide twitter. Talk soon!
Yup. It’s all happening a little quickly after years of not enough. As near as I can see it is the next big test for Holland. Hope he gets it right.
I think that is a bit unrealistic for Broberg.
When drafted, general consensus was at least 3 years for Bro and I don’t think a great performance at the First Nations Cup and a early good arrows in the SHL really change that.
I think next year will be a decision between SHL and AHL. Of course, AHL gives the easier option of a call-up but I would think he would get the full year in the AHL (if he is indeed coming over).
Of course, things could chance within the next year but, at this point, I think that two full years prior to NHL (at least) is reasonable.
Anton Burdasov to PTO
PTO????
Tom Gazzola (@TomGazzola) · Twitter
https://twitter.com/TomGazzola
Oilers had some nice jump in tonight’s game. Jurco & Starrett stood out for me. Also liked Bear & Benson. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some cuts coming tomorrow & hearing we may see PTO coming into camp.
9 hours ago
Granted Russell is under contract for next season but there is very little chance he is still an Oiler by this time next year.
Desperately need his cap hit to come off the books.
Different era I guess.
The Pee Wees I coached were never taught that. They were told to move the puck to open ice, wherever it was.
I sure hope Granlund is an ace PKer cause he sure is invoking the image of Jussi Jokinen to me.
One game and all that but he sure doesn’t look like he is a threat 5v5.
You know what else you learn in Pee Wee? Don’t pass the puck in front of your own net.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with LD next year, as Klefbom and Russell are under contract and Nurse (RFA) is likely to be re-signed, Lagesson and Jones lose their waiver eligibility, while Samorukov and Broberg will hopefully be legitimately pushing for full time NHL employment. That’s 7 men competing for 3 or 4 jobs.
Great problem to have, of course.
Will be real interesting to see what happens with Trouba this year.
who,
I have no idea what sys Tippett is running, but allegedly it’s a zone. Ideally by that point in the play, Larsson has returned home, picking up the crosser so Nurse can deal with the deep guy in his corner with Cave releasing to the slot. Cave shouldn’t have left his man with Larsson being out of position and Larsson shouldn’t have been out of position, originally double-covering a player of little threat..
JMO and my last say on the matter.
Just have to look at the Oilers to see advanced stats have difficulty finding the value of defencemen.
Russell gets caved on the corsi front every season, but after 200+ games with the Oilers he’s only -6 at ES despite him playing top four minutes on a team that is generally junk.
So who’s man was left uncovered? Who’s man scored?
It was Sutter who scored. Who was supposed to be checking him?
Marody has some skill with the puck. Shame he can’t unhitch that trailer
This is precisely what I saw too. I don’t blame Nurse for following the player he had across the crease, as he had been left two guys to cover. The rest was a shambalaya. No one on the right page, including Cave who initially marked his man and then left him (perhaps thinking the D were there). It’s definitely a play where you want to sit down with the unit and go over what they were thinking.
Ryan,
This post was brought to you by the makers of Woodguy’s phone lol.
Can’t fix the typos.
You are making this way too complicated.
Standard operating procedure off a lost draw. Center stays with the other center. Dmen cover the other forwards. Wingers cover the points.
Larssons man rotated out to the blueline. Larsson went out to the top of the box. Where did you want him to go?
This is stuff you learn in Pee Wee. I can’t believe I’m actually arguing about this.
Defenseman have long been elusive in terms of evaluating with advanced stats.
Team effects can be very difficult to control for.
I.e. pick a number one dman (Toi/g) on a bad team and compare them to a number four on a top team.
(Note, I am not defending nor referring to Adam Larsson here)
Then compare GF% and EVGA/60
Presumably the number one on the bad team will be worse than the number four on a good team by these metrics… by a fair margin.
In some cases, very good teams could have a number four better than a crappy team’s number one but probably not by the margin suggested.
A person with an abundance of time on their hands, data scraping savvy etc, could look at dmen as they shift from one team to another to see how basic metrics change with different teams. Unfortunately the sample size is small as the only fluidity are bottom pairing dmen who move from one team to the next with any regularity.
Math wizards like Manny Elk don’t seem to be able to solve this conundrum.
Heuristic stats like player ratings seem to value dmen that put up points over those who do not. The problem is always that offensively productive dmen tend to be expensive and poor values in some cases relative to the cap.
The idea with stats isn’t to find the dmen that are obviously the best, but those who’re underrated/valued.
Defensive dmen seem to hold highest value by those who played the game and the leastregard by the analytics crowd.
The Turturos confirm my impression from watching Schultz. He’s money from the blue line in, but not effective anywhere else. Also poor at the transition game. He also allows entries with possession.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/christopher.turtoro#!/vizhome/2-yearA3ZPlayerComps/ComparisonDashboard
Larson shows as better in his zone, better in transition, but worse at controlled zone entries and inside the blue line.
Different players.
I was wondering the same thing. The amount of crosschecks to the side/back of the head I’ve seen in these two games is alarming.
Well said. Nurse is best when he stays calm, doesn’t take stupid penalties, and doesn’t try to act like a top 2 D.
who,
I know you meant to say Vancouver not Wpg! Larsson went at the point guy. That’s not his man. The RW (Currie?) never went to his guy at the point. Nurse walked over to take VCR LW. That would have been Larsson guy. Nurse should have gone to Peterson on his own side. So, no one actually went where they should on the face off loss. Reminds me of last year!!!
Tippett thought Boosh looked a little tired tonight.
Jurco looked good, lets see if he can keep it up. I thought Benson looked good as well. Marody looked weak in the first half and a lot stronger in the second half to my eye.
Marody said he got 12 inches of extra muscle from working out this summer.
Even you would have to admit that’s impressive
I agree with this it is possible though. Maybe a team has a player bail and go home or an injury. I don’t think it makes sense for the player or the Oilers either.
Samorukov is going to be a very good NHL dman in not too long a time. I expect him to spend the season in Bakersfield but next year he will be pushing hard.
Probably going to get a healthy increase in 5v5 mins this season due to the Oilers having only 3 top 4 dmen yet again.
Which may lead to a decrease in point production,
Holland will be trying to pinch pennies again.
Should be most interesting,
Winnipegs 3rd forward, and both their dmen, were out at the blueline. Nothing wrong with Larssons positioning.
Caves man, all the way. This is pretty basic stuff.
Jurco needs to be in the top 9 for sure.
I fear Marody and Benson will have Landeritis. Bummer. They are terrible skaters at the NHL level.
I have no problem with Nurse on that play. I was simply responding to a comment about the Dmen on the GA. Cave looked clueless too, I agree. But if I’m the coach I’m probably talking to at least three out of the five on the ice.
who,
Adam Larsson was half way between his net and the blue line.
Even in Europe, that is no mans land.
Bouch was pretty good “without the puck” in the first two periods – I don’t think he had any culpability on the Sutter breakaway and it was all on Currie (although not positive) but he’s showed some wobble here in the third – got running around a bit and then lost Petersson on the 2 on 2 and let him go to the net to pot the rebound goal.
Still developing.
The “fair margin” comment was actually meant for Schultz’s number compared to Larson’s from last year. I wrote that while preoccupied with other things going on in this house.
If I have time in the next while I’d like to fool around with some numbers adjusting for team, QofC and goaltending.
Man, Nurse just really lacks that slim degree of smarts and skill that would make him a top-pairing D.
Great player, wish they could lock him up at a reasonable number–but every time I see him play I notice all the nice things that make him a solid $4.5M player and nothing that would make him close to a $7M player.
Super curious to see what Holland does with him.
Fun game. Enjoyed it
Nothing wrong with Larsson or Nurse reads on that play.
Hockey 101. You lose the draw in your end you stay with the center. That goal is totally on Cave. Complete brain cramp. Too bad, he has looked good. Until then.
Brandon Sutter with 2 goals. Wasn’t there talk of a trade with him & Lucic?
Wish that happened…?
Sweet shift as Benson and crew are able to take advantage of some tired Canucks.
It makes no sense for a CHL team to waste one of their imports on an overager. You are putting your team at a disadvantage by playing with one fewer difference-making players.
Safin can go to the ECHL and work his way up.
Finally a decent shift.
Oil2Oilers,
Bad read by Larsson. Caught in no man’s land doin nuthin. Nurse could’ve checked off I suppose…
That was a crappy one minute
Nurse-Larson showing the prospects Oilers NHL style defending on the third goal
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Awww… was hoping petts would get blanked…
McLeod with Todd Marchant hands.
Effing adorable little feed from Bouchard tho
Wow… open net miss… McLeod just got cut.
Kidding! (Kinda)
Ryan gonna be seein that one when he lying on his huge pilla tonight.