The St. Louis Blues are a good hockey team, with strong, fast and rugged players up and down the lineup. The skilled men are battle hardened and the youngsters are sprinkled lightly through the batting order. There’s a lesson there.
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, less than two coffees a month offer here.
- New Lowetide: The key missing element to the Oilers’ brilliant top line
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘We called him ‘The Crane”: Teammates and coaches reveal their best Connor McDavid stories
- Jonathan Willis: Should the Oilers have outbid the Coyotes for Taylor Hall?
- Lowetide: Connor McDavid’s frustration and the impact it could have on the Edmonton Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Oilers need to figure out five-on-five woes quickly, starting with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl
- Lowetide: Who should be the next man up from the Bakersfield Condors?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: 10 subscriber questions for Oilers rookie defenceman Ethan Bear
- Lowetide: Five loud noises Ken Holland could make to help the Oilers immediately
- Lowetide: Complete Oilers top 20 prospects list, winter 2019
- Lowetide: Oilers’ No. 5 prospect, Winter 2019 — Raphael Lavoie
- Lowetide: Oilers’ No. 4 prospect winter 2019: Tyler Benson
- Lowetide: Oilers No. 3 prospect winter 2019: Ethan Bear
- Lowetide: Oilers’ No. 2 prospect winter 2019: Philip Broberg
- Lowetide: Oilers’ No. 1 prospect winter 2019: Evan Bouchard
OILERS AFTER 37 GAMES
- Oilers in 2015: 15-19-3, 33 points; goal differential -18
- Oilers in 2016: 19-12-6, 44 points; goal differential +6
- Oilers in 2017: 17-18-2, 36 points; goal differential -6
- Oilers in 2018: 18-16-3, 39 points; goal differential -3
- Oilers in 2019: 19-14-4, 42 points; goal differential -2
This year’s team is second best among the McDavid seasons, and are struggling through the toughest stretch of the season. It may seem empty, but getting that win in Dallas is a big deal for Edmonton. Less of a burden for the new year. The Oilers are in third spot in the Pacific, two points ahead of the Calgary Flames, who have a game in hand.
OILERS IN DECEMBER
- Oilers in December 2015: 6-3-0, 12 points; goal differential -3
- Oilers in December 2016: 4-2-3, 11 points; goal differential 0
- Oilers in December 2017: 6-3-0, 12 points; goal differential +8
- Oilers in December 2018: 6-2-1, 13 points; goal differential +8
- Oilers in December 2019: 3-5-1, 7 points; goal differential -8
It isn’t pretty that’s for sure, but there are games like last night where you have to give the other man his due. The Blues live on the better side of the Delmar Divide.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM DECEMBER
- On the road to: VAN (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- At home to: OTT, LAK, BUF, CAR (Expected 2-1-1) (Actual 1-2-1)
- On the road to: MIN (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-1-0)
- At home to: TOR (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 0-1-0)
- On the road to: DAL, STL (Expected 0-2-0) (Actual 1-1-0)
- At home to: PIT, MTL (Expected 1-1-0)
- On the road to: VAN (Expected 0-0-1)
- At home to: CAL, NYR (Expected 1-1-0)
- Overall expected result: 6-6-2, 14 points in 14 games
- Current results: 3-5-1, 7 points in 9 games
The point-per-game prediction is in a small amount of trouble, but no one is suggesting impending doom or even headed for Grandpa’s special medicine. This is a tough stretch, but the three wins and the Bettman have Edmonton hanging around.
OILERS 2019-20
No line spent more than seven minutes together so I’m just going to link to NST and you can browse. Mikko Koskinen was outstanding, he’s quality right now.
WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?
On the first goal against, Gagner and Neal get over the line and muddle possession, while Bear hesitates. He finally changes, but the two wingers turn the puck over and then it’s jailbreak. I don’t blame the defenseman in this case, he’s watching two NHL forwards cross the line with possession. The odds of two trained men with good motor skills keeping that play going is high. That’s on Gagner and Neal. Your opinion of that play may differ and that’s fine.
On the second goal, McDavid tries to receive a Draisiatl pass but it lands with Zack Kassian along the wall, right side, just inside the St. Louis blue line. Kassian sends it toward McDavid (now deep in the St. Louis zone) but it never gets there. At the moment the puck is turned over, Kassian and Draisaitl are the closest to Edmonton’s end, with Leon the first to enter the slot era where the goal will be scored seconds from now.
Back at the puck, Ryan O’Reilly leaves it for Perron along the left wall as he enters Edmonton’s zone. Bear is matched with O’Reilly, they are headed behind the net. Nurse comes over to contest Perron, who gets the puck deeper as Nurse hits him. Draisaitl is cruising through the slot at this time, if he hangs there he’ll be very useful. Instead he gains speed anticipating a pass around the boards to the right point. It’s a pass that never arrives. Edmonton is still in reasonable position, as Kassian arrives at the slot era, just as O’Reilly performs a spin-o-rama and shakes Bear. Kassian can’t impact the play, as O’Reilly sends a nifty pass to MacEachern, who cashes on fine execution by all three Blues’ forwards. McDavid used an extra gear to get back, but couldn’t make a difference. Everyone blames McDavid on that play, watch it again. He worked like a bugger to make it back, and couldn’t get there in time after O’Reilly’s impressive move behind the net that also left Ethan Bear out of the play. That’s a quality goal by St. Louis.
ABOUT LAST NIGHT
Edmonton doesn’t have the horses against a team like the Blues when they are healthy and playing well. St. Louis is 7-1-2 against the Pacific, the loss in regulation to Anaheim and John Gibson stood on his head. Blues are good, Oilers played well.
AUSTIN CZARNIK
I’ve always liked him (wrote about him here) and he has speed, forechecking ability and can PK. Nice range of skills. I’d love to see the Oilers grab him off waivers. I don’t believe they will.
TYLER BENSON WATCH
Dillon Dube and Tyler Benson have similar numbers and came through the WHL at the same time, but Dube has played 39 NHL games and Benson zero NHL games. Oilers at this point have an NHL-ready winger who might move the needle more offensively than some of the current roster players who are playing every night. Club just lost a 2-1 game and could use a roster freshening. Benson is ready. If not Benson, then try Yamamoto. Time to use the farm and recall some help.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A busy, fun morning today TSN1260. We’ll begin at 10:20 with Eric Fawcett from North Pole Hoops and NBA Canada. We’ll also chat with Geoff Ulrich from Draft Kings about top fantasy teams of the decade and NFL weekend. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
Good timing. Condors play their first game in almost a week tonight, I believe.
New for The Athletic: As Oilers’ auditions of fringe forwards nears conclusion, it’s time for Condors’ top prospects to force the issue
https://theathletic.com/1475292/2019/12/20/lowetide-as-oilers-auditions-of-fringe-forwards-nears-conclusion-its-time-for-condors-top-prospects-to-force-the-issue/
Nice post!!! Very intriguing info. I’ve been very careful not to criticize Hughes’ actual performance because frankly he hasn’t looked bad. Even last night, in my limited viewing, I didn’t notice Hughes, which is good for a dman. It’s a major mental hurdle to get over though – this 23 min a game. It just spells disaster IMO, but based on your numbers, he’s outright killing it. I’ll be stunned if he maintains that level this year, because he’s a rookie who comes from the NCAA and isn’t familiar with the grind that even CHL players experience. In Colorado, Makar is now getting about 16 min a game, which seems like a more reasonable way to develop a young player. And Edmonton certainly isn’t above criticism here. Bear is flat out playing too much. He’s 22 now and has a couple years of pro experience, but he needs less ice team, even if it means giving him a night off every six games or so.
I also liked “Home and Dry” and “Get it right the next time”
I love Stuck in the Middle and Right down the line but my favourite is Baker Street.
When I google Brogan Rafferty, a picture of Logan Day shows up.
Canada holds a 2-0 lead after 2 periods.
Swiss had a few more shifts in Canada’s end. NJ’s newest defenceman Bahl looked bad in an extremely small sample size with about 3 consecutive bad outlet passes that came right back into the Canadian end.
Lavoie okay. Some good puck protection along the boards, some turnovers trying to get to the middle ice.
Byram will score with 6:15 left in the 3rd to make it 3-0, a beauty snipe over the glove from the deep slot.
Book it.
VOR’s favorite, Liam Foudy scores a goal off the opening faceoff of the 2nd, out muscling a defenceman to pot a rebound to make it 2-0 Canada
Pre-tourney game: Canada absolutely dominating possession with a solid cycle game in the Swiss end during 1st period action. I think the Swiss only got one shot on net and didn’t get anything on net on their lone PP.
Thanks.
I see you edited your post.
You should label the players too please.
Help a brother out!
Oops I mentioned what the ranking was by in my Tweet but not here, it’s primary points per hour; and I like the non-labelling for illustrating the point but the top group is Draisaitl, McDavid, Mantha, Kassian, Bertuzzi, Zadina, in that order.
Woodguy v2.0,
Remember when MTL took Kotkaniemi, and then Arizona took Hayton, and then Detroit took Zadina, and then the rumour was NYR was taking Kravstov?
There was a beautiful moment there where all that had to happen was Chicago liking one of Boqvist/Bouchard/Dobson/Wahlstrom better and then Vancouver liking another one of that group better and it was gonna happen.
Ranking using what?
Who are which players?
410 forwards have spent more than two hours at 5-on-5 this season.
Here are the rankings (by 5-on-5 primary points per hour) of the Oilers and the Red Wings forwards, minus the Yzerman RWs, like Erne and Fabbri and Filppula and Perlini. There’s 26.
6
15
71
77
113
152
(that’s it for the entire top half)
220
254
262
273
276
278
285
286
(about to hit the bottom ~15% or so)
348
351
354
357
365
372
374
395
397
399
400
401
The difference is that Hughes is killing his minutes.
His DFF% (xGF%) vs Elites is an astounding 62.4%. I don’t remember seeing a result that high from anyone.
He’s doing it in 2nd pairing minutes and has done it with both Tanev (58.4%) and Myers (72.6%(!!)
Tanev is 40% and Myers is 46.2% away from Hughes.
He’s not sheltered via zone start, face offs or TOI vs Elites.
I’ve ground through a lot of data and these are quite amazing results. I don”t remember seeing results like this from anyone, let alone a 20 year old rookie on a meh team.
VAN’s DFF% vs Elites:
Hughes on 64.2%
Hughes off 45.7%
That’s nuts.
Then you watch him play and he’s controlling the play whenever he’s on the ice. His skating and hockey smarts are simply better than everyone else on the ice (usually).
If he were 6’1 and 190 instead of 5’10 170lbs and played in the Eastern Time Zone he’d be the talk of the league.
He just turned 20 in October. Wow.
I know the old “you need 300 games (or whatever number) to know what a defensemen is”, but after grinding through Dman results for ~13 years one thing is clear: The elite Dmen announce their presence with authority. They are very good right out of the box.
You can always find very good Dmen who emerged later in their career, but the Doughtys, Suters, Webers, etc of the world play high leverage minutes in their early 20’s and kill those minutes.
Players like Hughes and Makar are doing that today.
Hughes was teenager when the season started. Crazy.
Also,
EDM has never had a Dmen with these results in these situations for the entire fancy stats era.
We haven’t seen a player like Hughes here probably since Coffey.
Note: I know the original question was to Bruce and I’m not Bruce. I did play him in a Fringe production this past summer so I feel qualified to answer in his stead.
The basis of the statement being that Kassian’s CF% and xGF% rates with Drai and McDavid are close to RNH with McDavid only and Kassian with McDavid but no Drai are much lower than Nuge’s with McDavid only.
I think Rattie was the 3rd mostly with RNH and McDavid last year iirc.
A better comparison of course would be Olli Juolevi, who has 8 points, making him the third highest scoring dman in Utica. He does lead the team with a -11. That’s something I guess. Maybe he’s not such a good comparison because he’s 18 months older and was basically outplayed on the London Knights by Bouchard in his draft -1 year.
You realize where the ‘title’ Dys comes from, right?
Bruce, how is it that you know what he will be as an NHL player?
We’ve seen a lot of beauties that don’t get it done.
He will be a beauty…in about two years. Oiler fans know intimately the perils of playing a rookie 23 minutes a night in a feature role. It doesn’t end well.
I’m not saying the Oilers are good, but when you trot out Brogan Rafferty as a legit prospect, I’m speechless. Quinn Hughes is the real deal and he’ll be really good in about two years. That will leave you with Hughes and Rafferty. Good times.
Harpers Hair,
lol. Rafferty is at best a plus Logan Day. And maybe just even Logan Day, we’ll see how the season turns out.
Bouchard’s +/- is a reflection of Starrett going down, and the very first pro games of young player, despite being 5 draft eligible years of development behind Rafferty. But you knew this already.
When 20-year-old Quinn Hugesis your top dman, the world is your oyster. He is a beauty.
I’m sure it will be smaller and less shiny than the Evan Bouchard statue but that is looking increasingly unlikely since he’s getting beat up in the AHL.
That -11 in 24 games ain’t pretty.
Rafferty’s +14 is likely an anomaly. But then again he only has 24 points in 29 games. while offensive defenseman Bouchard has 14 points in 25 games.
I hope the Canucks erect a statue of Brogan Rafferty.
Oh my god that’s priceless.
Being better than the Oilers is the easy part…almost every team is.
Only some of them have had multiple high first round picks (oh wait, none of them has) and they’re still shit.
LOL.
Markstrom is not their best player and he’s not going anywhere.
Can you imagine if your best prospect is an AHL defenseman who’s getting shelled on a regular basis?
Google Brogan Rafferty, read it and weep.
The Canucks are celebrating their 50th season in which they’re won the square root of fuck-all and vandalized their city twice.
They’d build a statue of Trevor Linden except he wants nothing to do with them.
Is your goal for the nucks to be a good team or just better than the Oil. Saying “we’re not fucked cause you’re double fucked” doesn’t a) make you any less fucked and b) not make you sound like a whiny school child.
You are so cute when you’re in a rage spiral. 😛
I find any Oiler fan who trashes any other team in t he league to be offensive.
The Oilers are the gold standard for shit in the past decade.
They are easily the worst franchise in pro sports.
And they’re headed right back in the toilet this season.
The troll gets uppity when his wife kicks him out of the bedroom for excessive farting.
The troll is getting trolled and losing his mind. This is funny stuff. 😛
Harpers Hair,
Double-fucked is when your best player Markstrom signs somewhere else this offseason, and you surrender a top-5 pick in 2021 to Tampa.
I also see Van’s latest 1st round draft pick is up to 14 GP in the Russian League. No points yet. Is that a positive trajectory or is that the recipe for triple-fucked?
He’s better than Klefbom.
What does that tell you?
Can you be double fucked?
What’s with the lashing out?
Can’t take a little criticism of your team? God knows you are here slamming the Oilers non stop.
Someone that is here trashing the Oilers all the time should be able to put on their big boy pants and take a little criticism of the 40 year old virgins on the coast.
Congrats on squeaking out one OT win in the last 4 games. Next stop, Finals.
How’s this for a plot:
If Alex Edler is your top defenseman, you’re fucked.
You’ve entirely missed the plot.
Alex Edler is their #1 defenseman.
His absence due to injury has a cascading effect on every other D.
Straight Trash wins in OT.
Clown.
Watched the last 9 minutes of the Vancouver game. Tyler Myers was a real standout, but not in a good way. HH talks a lot about balance, something they utterly lack on defence. When Myers and a 20-year-old Quinn Hughes are your top dmen, your team is in huge trouble.
Dear Canucks: Please defend better.
Keumper hirt. looks serious?
Can always count on the Canucks being straight trash. ?
phlegms get loser point
Lots of empty seats for a sellout when I was watching mofo
If you are not watching the Arizona Wild game you should.
Two quick ones from Minnesota.
6-4.
They should both play without a goalie
Chycrun with another.
4-4.