This blog is about a lot of things, but at its heart, everything is driven by hyperbole. I won’t say this is the biggest game of the year, but you should know I want to say it. That’s the spirit of the Lowetide blog. From Donner Party to ‘giants walk among us’ it’s always been my way. I thought you should know.
The first time these two teams met in Florida, it was a 4-4 tie. The big story for Edmonton was Brent Grieve, who scored twice. You may not remember Grieve, he was a big winger who could win puck battles and score some. Grieve’s career was shorted by injury but he had 13 goals in his first NHL shot with Edmonton (acquired by Slats in December 1993). Boxscore is here.
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 Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Despite ‘transformation’ with Oilers, Zack Kassian’s on-ice actions come under scrutiny again
- New Jonathan Willis: Why the Oilers are playing their best 5-on-5 hockey of the season
- Lowetide: Making sense of the Oilers defensive depth chart for the stretch run and the summer
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘It was reactionary’: Oilers’ Zack Kassian addresses alleged kick; Lightning depth strikes; and Kailer Yamamoto’s big game
- Jonathan Willis: 10 overlooked trade targets for the Oilers before the 2020 deadline
- Lowetide: Why Connor McDavid’s injury is unlikely to alter Ken Holland’s trade deadline plan for the Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘We want to take it as a challenge’: Oilers survive first game without McDavid as room for improvement remains
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Trying to make sense of Connor McDavid’s injury and Darnell Nurse’s new contract with Oilers
- Jonathan Willis: Faced with uncertainty, Oilers hedge their bet on Darnell Nurse
- Lowetide: Oilers sign Darnell Nurse
- Lowetide: The Oilers trading their first-round pick is a bad idea
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: 15 potential trade targets for the Oilers before the 2020 deadline
- Lowetide: Drilling down on right-handed centres for the Oilers to target before the trade deadline
- Lowetide: If fast is the new big, the Oilers are trending in a very good direction
- Lowetide: Why the Oilers are more likely to trade Adam Larsson than Kris Russell
- Lowetide: Oilers prospects Evan Bouchard and Tyler Benson deliver best minor league performances in 20 years
- Jonathan Willis: An updated list of which Oilers are most likely to be traded in 2019-20
OILERS AFTER 58 GAMES
- Oilers in 2015-16: 22-30-6, 50 points; goal differential -28
- Oilers in 2016-17: 31-19-8, 70 points; goal differential +13
- Oilers in 2017-18: 24-30-4, 52 points; goal differential -33
- Oilers in 2018-19: 24-29-5, 53 points; goal differential -25
- Oilers in 2019-20: 30-21-6, 66 points; goal differential +3
I’m fascinated by the goal differentials, all teams but the current group are stretching toward agony or ecstasy. My goodness three of these teams were bad.
ON THE TENS
- First 10 games: 7-2-1
- Second 10 games: 5-4-1
- Third 10 games: 5-4-1
- Fourth 10 games: 3-6-1
- Fifth 10 games: 6-2-2
- Current 10 games: 4-3-0
OILERS IN FEBRUARY
- Oilers in February 2016: 2-5-0, four points; goal differential -16
- Oilers in February 2017: 4-3-0, eight points; goal differential +1
- Oilers in February 2018: 1-5-1, three points; goal differential -4
- Oilers in February 2019: 1-4-2, four points; goal differential -10
- Oilers in February 2020: 3-3-0, six points; goal differential +1
It’s a big game tonight and we don’t know what the second line looks like, so you know the goalie will be important in this one. A bit of concern about the power-play entries as well.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN FEBRUARY
- On the road to: CAL, ARI (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 1-1-0)
- At home to: SJS, NAS, CHI (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 2-1-0)
- On the road to: TBY, FLA, CAR (Expected 1-1-1) (Actual 0-1-0)
- At home to: BOS, MIN (Expected 1-1-0)
- On the road to: LAK, ANA, VEG (Expected 2-1-0)
- At home to: WPG (Expected 1-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 8-5-1, 17 points in 14 games
- Current results: 3-3-0, six points in six games
I see this as being the key contest this weekend, because the Carolina game tomorrow is the definition of a schedule loss. Today’s game is the one. Win it and the week is a success (2-1-0 going into Sunday).
OILERS 2019-20
I’m guessing Granlund (the veteran) draws in for Kassian on the No. 2 line, but suspect we’ll also see Tyler Benson this afternoon. Edmonton needs more skill, need some goals. Benson can’t be expected to have a major impact but his numbers suggest he can help.
NHL EQUIVALENCY
The NHLE took some hits in yesterday’s comments, I’ll remind you that Kailer Yamamoto’s draft day NHLE (37.7) told us he had a real chance, while Jesse Puljujarvi’s (20.8) was a red sky in the morning. Anything over 30 NHLE for a forward is excellent, anything over 20 for a defenseman is too. If a player is beyond the age of the entry deal (20-22 for entry) then these numbers are probably embellishing a little. Here we go.
Now it’s easy to poke holes in the NHLE but math can be creative as well as precise. Kailer Yamamoto is more efficient in the NHL than he was in the AHL, but his numbers in the minors indicated he was a skill player. NHLE can’t tell us everything because we don’t have time on ice. NHLE never did betray John Marino as an example, because he didn’t play a feature role in college. It has value.
I will tell you that, in looking at these numbers, all of Benson, Puljujarvi, Lavoie, Jones, Persson and Bouchard are bona fide and can be expected to carry enough of the load to be projected as NHL players when their time arrives. McLeod and Maksimov will get a TOI push a year from now, their story has yet to be written. Based on their usage, these are solid numbers.
Coming when it did, it gave Tippet time to unpack his moving van before real adversity struck, and the players enough time to buy into a system with a success horizon longer than their next shift.
Hawkeye Pierce would take that outcome any day of the week.
———
Radar: It’s Monday, Sirs.
Hawkeye: Say, is that a fresh unit of oh negative? Where in hell’s back 40,000 did you find that?
Radar: You know that three-legged Clydesdale we picked up in the covered wagon era?
Hawkeye: This conflict had a covered wagon era?
Radar: Well, we finally—
Hawkeye: —uh uh uh, stop right there. I’m extremely squeamish about gore, in case you haven’t noticed.
Radar: I’ll tell you right after you finish infusing that fresh oh negative into the guy who desperately needs it.
Hawkeye: I’ll be all ears back at the Swamp.
And if we really wanted to watch that brand of “exciting” hockey, we have like 10 years worth of tape to rewatch.
Unless you’ve already burned them….
With some good fortune and another full team effort, the Oilers could be in first in the division by sun down!
I can’t imagine the belief-in-themselves this team must be feeling right now.
Can you imagine? This depleted roster going into FLA, after playing a tough game against the best team in the League (right now), and pretty much DOMINATING the Cats. Sure Koski had to be good when necessary but even better was that he was good even though the play was coming at him in fits and spurts… a long string of nothing-burgers and then an OMIGAAAAAAWD, phew. Deserved 1st star.
And those nothing-burgers were cooked in a display of lockdown hockey we haven’t seen on a regular basis since the Finals team.
Those guys can all look at each other, in the visiting dressing room after the game, knowing which faces are missing, and say, “Look at what we just did.”
And belief is a powerful thing. They might suffer a little letdown in Raleigh, but would anyone count this team out of any game, right now?
And Draisaitl. Gortt im Himmel.
I wasn’t convinced before Saturday in Sunrise, but I’m now a 100 percent believer in this roster, given we also have the first coaching staff in exactly one forever that has been able to get buy-in from the team, with a structure that works.*
That game yesterday was epic. It should go down in The Annals of Glory.
Believe.
_______________
[*Not to mention a strategy that leverages the players they have, ie reliance on special teams and the stars]
[*Coaching is one thing that’s not baked into the stats we have]
https://www.tvasports.ca/2020/02/15/brendan-gallagher-completement-de-lui
You can hear the referee say some bad bad words. If you read lips, your eyes will burn as much as your ears!
I do have to say, we did get generous calls in our favor when we played Montreal. Ref bias worked for us for once!
Lucic on After Hours.. https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/hours-milan-lucic/
Louie asks him the most interesting question of the entire interview near the end and Oake cuts him off, lol. Classic Oake.
Landing in TO at 5am and then Calgary at 10 – groceries and 2 hours of food prep prioritized and I should be able to get all that done for game time at 2pm. Stoked for my first game in a regular TV since January. I am quite happy that I was able to watch about 65% of game action while away. Four hour time change isn’t a big change but games started at 11-12 generally and the gym time was 5-6.
Anyways, scheduled loss my ass. They can pry at least a point out of this game – it won’t be easy but at least they’ll have got in to Carolina early enough yesterday to get a normal sleep.
smith will start, I’m sure but a great performance by Mikko last night was huge for that game and huge going forward. We need him playing well.
Granny should play – Russell or Hass to take a seat.
Just finished watching game on PVR. Excellent technically sound game by Koskinen. The one shot that beat him was a perfect shot where Huberdeau had tons of time to pick the top corner. One other great save on Huberdeau where he butterflied the bottom of the net as he moved right then left while still maintaining an upright stance to block most of the upper part of the net too. It was nice to watch a game where we had the better goaltending with no chaos involved at all.
Good hard grinding game by the rest of the skaters. Not many giveaways or odd man breaks. On the other hand, it was a good simulation of a playoff style game. Lots of board work, lots of traffic to the net to defend and box out. Lots of good backchecking and solid defensive positioning all game.
Jujhar had the one fight but he looked weakened. We’ve seen him ragdoll other fighters before so i think he must be nursing a nagging injury. He’s trying to play through it but he’s definitely not at his best right now.
I really like Bear’s shot selection. He almost never gets his point shot blocked. It feels like he’s been coached to never throw muffins at the net (Nurse!!!) for the sake of any shot and instead look to put quality drives on net. If anything, he’s too conservative with his cannon shot. He almost caught Montembeault by surprise with that hard slapper from center ice.
Oh and Mackenzie Weegar was making good plays all over the ice. Broke up more than a few plays with his active stick. Be a nice pickup for the Oilers…
Nice to see the Flames lose but the Oilers didn’t get any other help on the OOT scoreboard tonight with both the Desert Dogs and Knights winning.
A win tomorrow would be huge.
David Rittich 0.733 SV%
Cam Talbot 0.692 SV%
At home. Must have been an entertaining game for Flames fans.
I wonder if any home fans started yelling, “We want 10! We want 10!”
Will gladly take the Oilers playing a “boring” brand of hockey for a 4-1 victory than playing an “exciting” brand of hockey which earns them an 8-4 loss.
Speaking of Neal, with him being injured and not scoring when he was healthy recently, combined with a bit of an increase in Lucic scoring, it no longer is a slam dunk that we will give up that third rounder to Cowtown.
Nice of Talbot and Rittich to let in 4 a piece
I don’t know why they have that much faith in Rittich
I feel the uncertainty is his hockey IQ and his will to want it in the NHL. He reminds me of bigger players in junior hockey where their strength is what makes them good. But when you move to a higher level stuff like this starts to even out and your IQ and will power to compete needs to help you elevate your game. Back in junior you didn’t need it.
Kane is right (about Parros–who is a gutless piece of garbage. Suspensions have always been arbitrary but somehow he has made it much worse). Also Colin Campbell is the worst thing to ever happen to the NHL.
Kinger is right (about Puljujarvi).
I can’t believe I am on their side. But I am.
Very good coaching will do that. Knew very little about Tip before he got here, but wow. The best recent examples I can think of are Popovich in San Antonio and Belichick in New England. A player goes down and they pop some no-name in place and the machine just runs like nothing happened. You have to have a well defined system that allows for non-optimal pieces and the players have to commit to it and yes, a minimum level of talent has to be maintained. If Drai were to go down, for example, we would be screwed.
The road to any NHL team other than Seattle probably lies though the Oilers training camp. Wishing this young man well whatever road he takes.
Well the players who replace Russell and Neal are better than Russell and Neal, so that’s a plus. Nygaard probably too, so another plus. And we all know that Kassian has a garbage contract. He is playable but not that big a loss.
But McDavid hurts, that is true.
All it took was for the black cloud to be shifted.
I did not see today’s game but I am both impressed and amazed we can pick up wins with all of McD, Neal, Russell, Nygard and now Kassian all missing. Who new we had this kind of depth or, possibly more accurately, a coach who can get a serviceable performance with so many fourth liners / 3D?
The problem is that no one seems to know what JP is “like”. I’m sure some of our players have opinions, but the people who matter (just about every NHL GM other than one) doesn’t know what JP is “like”. So the acquisition risk is high and the reward uncertain at best, which means you get a very poor return on a trade. A guy with a little talent but character issues or a high character guy with little talent or maybe, if you are lucky, a 3rd round pick in the upcoming draft. If JP doesn’t come back to the Oil AND perform something semi-close to a 4OV pick, it’s a bust. That’s where we are. Waiting on Jessie is probably the best option at the moment
Condors up 3-2 – Currie with two and Malone with the other.
One goal was a one-time bomb on the PP by Currie – PP ran through Bouch who showed solid poise, patience and touch running point.
lenko,
Jawohl!
Hrudey and Rittich are going to have a good cry later tonight maybe Burke, Button and Cassie will join in on the lovefest.
I can see plenty but they’re flawed too. Lias Andersson, Julien Gauthier, Dominik Bokk (who has already been traded). Puljujarvi seems like the most attractive of the bunch.
You gotta be kidding!
I could see a situation where we get to August and JP is still an Oiler- the other teams aren’t going to be doing Kenny any favors
“look kid, we’ve been trying to find you a place to continue your NHL career since last summer, but we’re not going to give you away just because that’s what you want. You’re an important part of our organization, and if you want to come to camp you’d be welcomed with open arms and given every chance to succeed. If you’re not comfortable with that, you can play in Finland for another year and we’ll do everything we can to move you along to Seattle in June of ’21”
It’s a long shot sure, but stranger things have happened
LT do you see another player like JP on a different team that needs a change ? Or who would be a candidate if there was one?
TROLL ALERT
Calgary Flames down 4-2 vs a decent kind of Hawks team heartbreaking if they lose tonight and drop down even farther in the hunt for the Pacific crown lol
all star dave pulled again in favour of 1st shot goal talbot
Whether he’s good or not, if he’d stick around he’d definitely have had McDavid minutes by now. Kassian’s obsession with suspensions and Neal’s injury would have given him that chance.
I was hoping for a change of heart by Christmas (or whenever it was he was last able to come back to the NHL), and we could have put it down as some sort of wily Ken Holland/Jessie secret play to get him tonnes of game time and properly up to speed before coming back to the Oilers. I mean without the whole potential losing him to waivers if he was to be sent down to the AHL to rehab the hip. But alas, turns out my conspiracy theory was completely wrong.
Not sure how Ken Holland is other than he traded Lucic away for a quarter season of Mike Bossy lol
His nightmares are our nightmares.
Well one thing we can agree on, Puljujarvi had been jacked around enough by previous management that it wasn’t a massive surprise the young man decided had enough. Damn shame all around. I think these things tend to punish all involved and we’ll see if the Oilers suffer via poor trade return. They really needed to get extreme value with that pick.
There were whispers that Drai/97 were not particularly enamored, but RNH was on record as saying he liked JP as a player and playing with him.
Success begets success and opinions change. Nuge is a top 5 NHL scorer in 2020. Will JP get an opportunity to play with someone like that? Kassian just parlayed playing okay with the best player on the planet into 12 million.
The real miscalculation that the Lehto/JP camp made was Tippett.
Tippett elevated Bear and Yamamoto in a hurry. He was also very aggressive with Persson. Jones he brought along slower, but one could argue that was depth related, and now Jones is thriving. Now Benson is gaining a little traction.
I think the year in Finland was good for JP’s mental well-being and confidence. He needed a reset.
But the reset could easily have been here.
I did not fathom Tippett being such an excellent developer of talent, but Lehto gets paid a lot to know the industry, and maybe he should have.
– This: I mean we can debate whether Pool is a bust or not but there is no debate that as a 4rth liner he’d fail. This quote from Holland is old school. Amd it’s not what happens to wingers who are viewed as skillful. Kailer is case in point They did the opposite of what Holland says Pool has to do. They put Kailer with skilled forwards. None of this 4th line work your way up kid. :
You have to come to the rink every day and know your jersey is hanging,” he said. “You’re in the lineup. That’s step one. What you do to be in the lineup, then you start to find chemistry with some players whether you’re on the third line or fourth line, and you slowly work your way up the ladder to being more important.
– hey everyone can have their take. Based on this quote from Holland I think Pool said F?ck that, theve already made up their minds. He wasn’t going to play with skill with Neal Kassian Drai RNH CMD guaranteed to play with each other: Pool was going to be 4rth liner: same as always. The Oil didn’t rate him maybe they are right. I respect Pools fire to say I’m better and I won’t come back for more of this:
“ You have to come to the rink every day and know your jersey is hanging,” he said. “You’re in the lineup. That’s step one. What you do to be in the lineup, then you start to find chemistry with some players whether you’re on the third line or fourth line, and you slowly work your way up the ladder to being more important.
Getting games in this year is going to be huge for him to fine tune a few things over the summer.
He is starting to look a little more comfortable out there…
Well this game was really played around his strengths. Lots of whackapuck
– The vernal was clear. So was the press. So was management. So were the players. So was Neal trade.
– You just had to read through the lines and know stuff to understand that Pool wasn’t going to get the opportunity he believed he ought to have as a a 4th overall pick playing on a gong show rotation
– Hollland has his plate full when he was hired. Unless we hear about Drai amd Pool training together or Conner taking him under his wing and management applauding his great season and looking forward to him being a meaningful part of the team he’s done here.
– And maybe they are right. Yak had a few 2nd opinions but he seemed never to be able to play long term with skill. Maybe Pool isn’t good.
He’s been spooked there’s no coming back from being spooked.
On that after hours segment on the BOA was Bullshit we had no real representation against jaw flapping used car salesman Peplinski wouldn’t even give credit to Dave Semenko. He just kept going on and on what a wonderful human being Tim Hunter was, well so was Dave one of the nicest persons you’ll ever meet.
I’m not sure how Puljujarvi would know about his usage, as the Oilers had a new general manager and coach. Observing Tippett it seems pretty much everyone has experienced a spike in perfrmance this year. Tippett’s potential usage of JP isn’t at all clear, don’t know how we could draw that conclusion.
Was it reported that certain players asked not to play with him?
” The fact the NHL Department of Player Safety headed by George Parros continue to pick and choose, who and what they suspend is ridiculous! There have been countless incidents of the same nature through this season and past seasons that have gone unsuspended or fined. No one person can tell you what is or isn’t a suspension in today’s game, it’s become a complete guess. There is a major lack of consistency with NHL Department of Player Safety. A completely FLAWED system in so many ways. From the suspensions to appeal rights, it’s baffling to me how we as players agreed to this. You can’t continue to give some players a pass and throw the book at others. There has to be a outside third party making these decisions to remove the bias that transpires in this department headed by George Parros. None of it makes any sense. ”
– Evander Kane on Twitter
I’m glad someone else feels the same as i do. parros needs to go
Gotta admit Larsson has looked better by eye the last couple of games.
Maybe the fancies are poor but he at least had some composure in terms of getting rid of the puck and not just dumping it.
Nice game to get off the schneid too.
Yahoo! Great win, this playoff drive is turning out to be epic. Guys getting called up from Bakersfield chipping in!
He has reiterated his non desire to come back on multiple occasions after new management and coaching were in place.
As far as the posts about adding, I agree, 100%, we are likely looking at a depth add like Grant. I would be looking at Tierney as well.
Tufolio would be the most expensive pure rental I could see.
AA in a hockey trade a possibility.
How do you know they weren’t going to do that?
Or kneed him