Gaetan Haas had a tough introduction to the NHL. With family in attendance for his first game in the world’s best league, he played 2:11 in a win over Vancouver. That’s less than ideal. Haas was used sparingly, looked good when he played, got sent down to Bakersfield for a quick tour, and has been back for the last four games. His goal last night, the first of his career, was the result of hard work and forechecking, using his speed and savvy to make things happen. Well done, European showtime. Well done.
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, there is a Puck Drop Special offer here.
- New Jonathan Willis: Oilers right to wait until they’re sure before recalling Kailer Yamamoto, Tyler Benson
- New Lowetide: Can Leon Draisaitl score more than 50 goals this season?
- New Lowetide: Bakersfield Condors coaching staff continues to mold unheralded players into legit NHL prospects.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Oilers Mailbag: Fixing the forward depth, slotting the big three, a Puljujarvi trade and more
- Minnia Feng: The 2019-20 Oilers fan guide to emotions and stressful circumstances
- Jonathan Willis: How much will the Oilers have to pay to keep pending free agent Zack Kassian?
- Lowetide: Sheahan hurt, Oilers in need of a two-way centre; some candidates emerging
- Jonathan Willis: Handicapping the chase for the Calder after the first month of the 2019-20 NHL season
- Jonathan Willis: Unproductive Oilers forwards are in danger of losing their jobs — and soon
- Lowetide: Analyzing the current state of the Edmonton Oilers goaltending.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘I don’t think anyone’s feeling comfortable’: Oilers’ Holland pleased but cautious amid early improvements.
- Jonathan Willis: A rare success during Edmonton’s long rebuild, why Oscar Klefbom is the model for finishing Oilers’ blue line
- Jonathan Willis: Can the Oilers afford to pursue Taylor Hall in free agency?
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
OILERS AFTER 16 GAMES
- Oilers in 2015: 6-10-0, 10 points; goal differential -7
- Oilers in 2016: 9-6-1, 19 points; goal differential +4
- Oilers in 2017: 6-9-1, 13 points; goal differential -13
- Oilers in 2018: 8-7-1, 17 points; goal differential -5
- Oilers in 2019: 10-4-2, 22 points; goal differential +5
Edmonton is on pace for 113 points, and are three points clear of the previous ‘best McDavid’ team. I suggested last night’s game was a pick ’em, and the late goal by Haas tying it confirmed the closeness of the game. Arizona outplayed the Oilers for much of the game, but the home team fought through some tough checking and a team of referees imported from 1975 to grab a point. Tough to be negative.
OILERS IN NOVEMBER
- Oilers in November 2015: 1-1-0, two points; goal differential +1
- Oilers in November 2016: 0-1-1, one point; goal differential -3
- Oilers in November 2017: 1-1-0, two points; goal differential +2
- Oilers in November 2018: 2-0-0, two points; goal differential +5
- Oilers in November 2019: 1-0-1, three points; goal differential 0
Once again, and it’s admittedly early, this year’s McDavid crew has some momentum heading into games against the Stanley Cup champions and the New Jersey Devils. Goal differential is flat, that’s an interesting curio for a team with three of a possible four points.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN NOVEMBER
- On the road to: PIT (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- At home to: ARI, STL, NJD (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 0-0-1)
- On the road to: ANA, SJS (Expected 1-0-1)
- At home to: COL, DAL (Expected 1-1-0)
- On the road to: SJS, LAK, VEG, ARI, COL (Expected 2-3-0)
- At home to: VAN (Expected 1-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 7-6-1, 15 points in 14 games
- Current results: 1-0-1, 3 points after two games
The two remaining games this week are against teams who will be playing the second of back-to-backs, but counting on two wins is probably unwise. Blues are 6-2-2 in its last 10 games, New Jersey 3-4-3.
The Haas goal came on a 21 second shift featuring Haas, Zack Kassian and Jujhar Khaira. That isn’t covered below, all numbers five-on-five unless noted and NST is the resource.
LINE 1 Leon Draisaitl-Connor McDavid-Alex Chiasson played 7:52, going 5-9 Corsi, 1-5 shots, 1-1 goals and 1-2 HDSC. Sam Gagner replaced Chiasson for 7:48, trio went 8-4 Corsi, 6-2 shots, 0-1 goals and 3-0 HDSC.
Leon Draisaitl had an assist on McDavid’s brilliant goal, a giveaway that resulted in the first goal against (it wasn’t in a terrible spot), won a lot of faceoffs and skated miles. Connor McDavid scored a stunning goal, four shots, three HDSC, drew a penalty. My God what a great hockey player. Alex Chiasson had one HDSC but didn’t impress his coach, with Tippett saying “I put him in that place to give him a good opportunity tonight and there wasn’t a lot happening there.” Sam Gagner took better advantage of the opportunity and we’ll see how the top line looks against St. Louis.
LINE 2 James Neal-Nuge-Zack Kassian played 9:58, going 9-10 Corsi, 6-6 shots, no goals and 1-3 HDSC. The trio’s best moment came when Neal intercepted a pass, sent it to Nuge who got it to Kassian for a great chance. That was the big moment for the line.
James Neal had one shot, a takeaway and a giveaway. I bet he lands on McDavid’s line soon. Nuge had one shot, a HDSC, a monster hit on OEL, a giveaway and won lots of faceoffs. Kassian almost scored, had one other HDSC, two shots, five hits and a penalty. I liked his game on this line.
LINE 3 Markus Granlund-Colby Cave-Patrick Russell played 5:01, going 3-2 Corsi, 1-1 shots, no goals and 0-1 HDSC.
Markus Granlund had two shots, a 10-bell chance and a takeaway. He played well but isn’t bringing enough offense. Colby Cave had a HDSC but was challenged by the speed of this game. Patrick Russell had a takeaway but was otherwise quiet.
LINE 4 Jujhar Khaira-Gaetan Haas-Sam Gagner played 4:09, going 2-1 Corsi, 2-0 shots, no goals and no HDSC.
Jujhar Khaira did great work along the wall, he is bringing solid play consistently of late. He had a shot and a HDSC. Haas scored his first NHL goal and was central to the Oilers getting a point.
OILERS 2019-20
PAIRING ONE Darnell Nurse and Ethan Bear played 17:45, going 24-9 Corsi, 14-6 shots, 0-1 goals and 6-1 HDSC.
Darnell Nurse had four shots, two takeaways and played well to my eye, save for his indecisiveness (that was bad) in overtime. Ethan Bear had a HDSC, three shots and a giveaway. The pair had the puck moving in the right direction most of the night.
PAIRING TWO Oscar Klefbom and Joel Persson played just 10:07, going 6-10 Corsi, 2-5 shots, 0-1 goals and 1-4 HDSC.
Oscar Klefbom had one takeaway and five blocked shots, he was his usual self defensively. He had one shot on the power play, resulted in a brief chance for Nuge. Joel Persson played the second goal poorly, a penalty in that situation would have been satisfactory, and he struggled with Arizona’s speed throughout the game. That’s an issue in regard to his NHL future. Benched after the second goal.
PAIRING THREE Kris Russell and Matt Benning played 10:06, going 4-5 Corsi, 1-2 shots, 1-0 goals and 1-0 HDSC.
Kris Russell had an assist, a giveaway and two shot blocks on the night. Matt Benning got his shot to the net for Haas’ tip and the tie. He also drew a penalty, played well.
GOALIE Mikko Koskinen stopped 21 of 24, .875. The first goal should have been stopped, Haas’ goal bailed him out and then overtime was point blank.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, TSN 1260. Jonathan Willis from The Athletic will join us to talk about last night’s game and possible recalls. Scott Mitchell, TSN’s Jays reporter has a look at the top 50 free agents and a starting pitcher acquisition (Chase Anderson) and the long road back to a respectable rotation. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
The Virtual rookie would look like a virtual rookie if he was playing those minutes on the top pairing with Kris Russell instead of Darnell Nurse.
Nurse and Bear are a good match. Each individuals strengths helps cover for the others weaknesses.
Man I wish I were around in the Smid days!
I don’t know much about RAPM and can’t get a feel for it because it’s behind a paywall.
If it accounts for teammates I can’t see how using xGA RAPM is a fair measure of Nurse though. You’re dinging him for playing with McDavid and also using the stat that McDavid helps the least (in fact McDavid’s lines have leaked GA, playing with him would be a strong detriment to defensive numbers). All of the benefit of strong teammates here would be on the GF side which you’re ignoring.
Nurse has played big minutes on a poor team. In the past 3 years (starting in 17-18) Nurse is basically even GA/60rel, +5 in GF% rel and is also even in xGA/60rel. I have no idea how you run that through RAPM and come up with him being a standard deviation below replacement level. His PDO is 1002 so he hasn’t been lucky.
If a statistic is giving you numbers/results that make no sense… well then maybe it’s bs stat, at least in the context being used.
Good article but I wonder if we see Bouchard in Edmonton at all this year.
When Larsson gets back there will be 4 righty dmen ahead of him on the depth chart. Even if the Oilers trade one there is still no room for Bouchard.
The wild card in all thia is the play of Persson going forward. If he can’t handle the pace at the NHL level, and if the Oilers trade Benning, there would be a spot on the 3rd pairing.
If that happens the Oilers may prefer to promote Jones or Lagesson. There is a pretty big upside to keeping Bouchard on the farm the entire year if it delays the start of his ELC. Makes a big difference on the cap moving forward.
Absolutely.
Doesn’t mean that I can’t look at that play and get Ladi Smid never learning to cover the back door play flashbacks.
The sweeping statements were on both side.
Well yeah, that’s what I was railing on about.
It was both sides.
Virtual Rookie is Virtually our best right handed defenseman.
You make it sound like hes dragging a corpse around, instead of getting the best partner
This. Thank you.
Sure they can. But I’m seeing people making sweeping statements about a player’s career based on said single event while ignoring wider data sets.
New for The Athletic: How far away is Evan Bouchard and what role will he play with the Oilers?
https://theathletic.com/1351007/2019/11/06/lowetide-how-far-away-is-evan-bouchard-and-what-role-will-he-play-with-the-oilers/
Just got caught up on this thread. What a disaster.
Come on WG…something about “one years experience five times over”….I learned from posters like you not to let single events skew the whole picture. Nurse’s stats were insane last game which is why I found your comment to be so unlike you.
You made a joke a few weeks ago saying something like “Love someone like Pouzar loves Nurse”…it isn’t that I love Nurse its just I find his criticism so fucking Over the top it’s laughable.
You are so stubborn. Lennart Petrell was never the LW we needed at the time.
Those events can still be discussed.
Otherwise what’s the fucking point of participating in this comments section?
This thread reminds me of something LT likes to say, can’t quite put my finger on it: something something single events…
A poster said: “RNH was at fault for the OT goal”
Another poster said: “Nurse was a bigger culprit”
Each argued their side.
Then the thread decends into tribalism where “” X” player isn’t a problem yada yada yada””
Can’t we discuss individual plays anymore without thesis and accusations “who is a problem” etc, etc and tribalism about our favourite/non-favourite players?
No single play is immune from dissection because the players involved are good.
No player is immune from discussion about that play because he may have had an otherwise fine game/career.
You are all better than that.
I hope.
This part is a little gross, however.
Well said.
also I wanted to check up on last season’s game scores and see how much the estimated per 60’s lined up with the per game rates, and it was almost exactly right for the Dmen and a little bit more loose for the forwards while getting top third / / middle third / / bottom third groupings right
that’s what we’re saying
They looked like a bunch of clowns. Per usual over their 40+ years of existence.
Nurse and Bear (as a pair) are needed more at even strength, which is why Klefbom and Russell get more PK time. Klefbom and Persson (as a pair) AND Russell and Benning (as a pair) cannot play all situations at even strength like Nurse and Bear can.
Yep, Schmaltz made 3 Oiler skaters look like idjuts in about a 5 second span. To read these last 200 or so comments one might think it was all one player’s fault. It wasn’t. He got beat, & so did all his teamates, goalie included.
Same game I saw Oliver Ekman-Larsson look like a compleat schmuck on at least 3 different occasions. Shit happens, & it happens fast.
Is it snowing as hard in Edmonton as it is here in Cochrane?
I’d hate for that Blues flight to be delayed…
I mean it’s already a shame they’re losing an hour flying East…
A downright shame. 😉
Nurse started to take Schmaultz, but then he saw Nugent-Hopkins chasing him. So he started towards Stepan, but then saw Nugent-Hopkins fail to keep up to Schmaultz, so he reverted to his first instinct to take the puck carrier and ended up in no man’s land.
Nurse first instinct was right, but Nugent-Hopkins chose the wrong forward to chase, which befuddled Nurse. Nugetn-Hopkins should have chased Stepan, the trailer. Instead he was beaten by Schmaultz who even had time to slow down to wait for Stepan.
And Neal was being useless.
godot10,
Of any of the D, he’s the one in most danger of a trade, IMO. And I think we all agree with your point that we need to see a bounce-back year from him.
Larsson had a horrible year last year. I need to see reversion to historical norms of performance. He is also one year from UFA status next summer. His contract expires for the expansion draft.
So lots of moving parts about performance, timing of an extension, and expansion draft issues.
Get good players, keep good players, focus on upgrading the bad players.
He’s priceless! Every court needs a jester. We didn’t even have to look for ours, he just volunteered!
Definitely good comedy coming out of that crotchety old man, I’m glad I’m not the only one amused by him
Material Elvis,
Yup there’s no rush to move either. Get Nurse signed and keep’em both till a younger guy is pushing one or the other off the team.
Get good players, keep good players.
Neither can carry Russell on his offhand for long samples. So to my way of thinking, they are equally effective and have some flaws. I’d give the edge to Klefbom at the moment. Nurse will be effective for longer so I’d rather keep him (Klefbom’s next contract will be Sweetheart’s ugly cousin). I’d keep both. Lots of coverage until Broberg is ready.
ROFLMAO, I’ll call MLB and let them know. Might get a pennant!
Persson’s 4 x 5 TOI/GP is 4 secs. You’re right, KBomb’s carrying him.
Klef gets his 4 x 5 with KRusty. Nurse with Bear. All four play significant shorthanded minutes. Klef gets about a minute more per game than Nurse.
That probably says more about who the other partner is than anything else. My point is nowhere near moot.
I would wager that a week from now The Oilers are fourth in the baseball standings.
Maybe. But W% isn’t permanent, points are, they don’t go down.
W% also doesn’t account for luck or any context so a vegetable chopper not a scalpel. It needs some extra to inform it.
And that can happen to any of these division leaders, us, Canuckleheads, Flames, Yotes, Knights…
It’s a long season. The important thing is to stay in the hunt. Minimize the losses. So far so good.
Another baseball joke! Dude, you are the cutest!!
Anaheim sure has come back to earth.
9-7 now.
I swear they were like 7-1 a couple of weeks ago
Sure.
The Canucks went all in on trying to score a goal to win the game and failed.
Didn’t work and they lost.
Shit happens.
Meanwhile Nurse had a chance to break up a play and was a pylon.
Instead of critiquing Nurse would you care to explain how yourCanucks managed to give up a three on nothing and allowing the winning overtime goal. Only difference I see is your Canucks get a pass for
a 3 man screw up instead of a one man mistake.
Other than LA, who we all knew was going to be bad, the pacific Division has pretty much flipped upside-down. It’s been a topsy-turvy season so far…
Win % is the actual standings.
Having more points while other teams have games in hand is just noise.
Joel Persson is also a rookie, and probably more of a rookie irt total pro experience than Bear. Obviously the games when Perssson are out skew that a bit, but I’m going to say him losing 5v5 minutes or probably a byproduct of the extra minutes he gets on special teams, really proving your prior point of “an experienced coach choosing him to play the most TOI on the team” to be moot, as he doesn’t.
I’m referencing his advanced metrics for more than just this year. In fact his numbers look a lot better with the rookie D this year. Nor am I looking for a whipping boy. My opinion is that he’s not a top 3 D, andnis not worth 7 million. Much over 6 would be a mistake.
In fact, I think his value is higher around the league than it should be, so when younger LD are pushing up the pipeline, I think he’s the prime candidate for trade for an impact F. Probably has more name value than Klef, and Klef is better and on a better contract. Not exactly what I call whipping boy status. Rusty will remain my whipping boy for the time being.
Those numbers aren’t standings. Their Win%.
I saw some Dys tonight, they are playing very well, buying into the system.
It’s gonna be a while before they go far. The talent is too young and doesn’t weigh enough yet.
They’ll be the best Pacific unsuccessful challenger for the Oilers in the coming era. Better than Calgary, up there with the Avs.
This is why when proposing trades the return should enhance or have the potential to, the next 5-10 years which will be the time of a new generation of best players as the current guys are all aging out. Not done but fading out.
Edit- trading Jesse for a 28 yo mediocre player even if a helpful addition is a loss be a 28 yo mediocre player is almost done.
They need to get more out of any deal perhaps by finding a package. Also there is no reason to move him until they might lose his rights or leverage because of it. Let him play there rather than take any crap offer.
VCR .700
EDM .668
ARZ .667
VGK .625
ANA . .559
CGY.556
SJS .344
LAK .333
Crazy Pedestrian,
Can you imagine the state of affairs if the Pacific was kicking out the jams and we were back behind SJS?
GMB3,
I’d assume it’s because one of them has a rookie partner (with respect to 4 x 5).
They’re both very good defensemen. Tippett’s lucky to have them. Considering he’s playing the fuck out of both, I don’t think he wants either to go anywhere.
He is playing top pairing minutes with a virtual rookie in Bear and the team is first in the Pacific division. The man is still learning. Yes he will make some mistakes. That goes with being a young D man. There have been far more egregious mistakes by players with more experience. If you want a whipping boy I guess that is your right but if you look at the bigger picture I think you might realize you are over reacting.