There’s a feeling you get as a sports fan, when the build begins. At its best, as it has been for me many times (I’m a lucky fan), memories from decades ago come flooding back. My Dad acknowledging Orr’s greatness spring 1970, the pure pleasure of celebrating Stanley with my friend Lorne Starko in 1984, the chill I still feel from the morning of G7 1987, the melancholy of 2006. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but for fans of the Edmonton Oilers, the agony and the ecstasy is about to return. Welcome back, friend.
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: Caleb Jones represents Oilers template for development success
- Lowetide: Oscar Klefbom’s return and usage a key element for Oilers stretch run
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: How ‘little firecracker’ Josh Archibald went from unknown to vital with Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Determining Connor McDavid’s linemates remains a pressing and perplexing problem
- Lowetide: Reasonable expectations for Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Ennis over the next 15 games.
- Jonathan Willis: Ryan McLeod offers the Oilers size and speed. But will he score in the NHL?
- Jonathan Willis: Which players pose the biggest threat to Leon Draisaitl winning the Hart Trophy?
- Lowetide: How the Oilers deadline deals might alter summer plans
- Jonathan Willis: Splitting Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl saved the Oilers’ season
- Lowetide: Is the OHL still the Oilers’ primary resource at the draft?
- Lowetide: The Oilers’ 2017 draft and the value of waiting five years
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ AHL factory has produced three NHL defencemen, with more on the way
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Are Oilers poised for a long playoff run after Ken Holland’s deadline moves?
- Lowetide: Making sense of the Oilers forward depth chart for the summer
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Stepping out and up, Leon Draisaitl puts himself in the Hart Trophy mix in Connor McDavid’s absence
- Lowetide: Making sense of the Oilers defensive depth chart for the stretch run and the summer
OILERS AFTER 70 GAMES
- Oilers in 2015-16: 27-36-7, 61 points; goal differential -32
- Oilers in 2016-17: 37-24-9, 83 points; goal differential +19
- Oilers in 2017-18: 30-35-5, 65 points; goal differential -37
- Oilers in 2018-19: 31-32-7, 69 points; goal differential -23
- Oilers in 2019-20: 37-24-8, 82 points; goal differential +8
Last night’s results on the out of town scoreboard give tonight’s game at Rogers even more tension. It’s all happening and this week’s three games are going to be a big part of the story.
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
- Sixth 10 games: 6-3-1
- Current 10 games: 5-3-1
OILERS IN MARCH
- Oilers in March 2016: 3-2-0, six points; goal differential 0
- Oilers in March 2017: 2-2-1, five points; goal differential +4
- Oilers in March 2018: 3-2-0, four points; goal differential 0
- Oilers in March 2019: 4-1-0, eight points; goal differential +6
- Oilers in March 2020: 3-1-0, six points; goal differential +7
WHAT TO EXPECT IN MARCH
- On the road to: NAS, DAL, CHI (Expected 1-1-1) (Actual 2-1-0)
- At home to: CBJ, VEG, WPG, NYI (Expected 2-2-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- On the road to: PHI, WAS, OTT (Expected 1-1-1)
- At home to: TBY, ANA, COL, SJS, ANA, VEG (Expected: 3-2-1)
- Overall expected result: 7-6-3, 17 points in 16 games
- Current results: 3-1-0, 6 points in 4 games
I don’t know the tough games from the easy anymore, I had tonight as a loss and Winnipeg as a win, Islanders as a loss at the beginning of the month. Now the Islanders look like a lock the rest of the week not so much. Oh well, Oilers usually play up and down to their opponent.
OILERS 2019-20
I’m not certain the Oilers will run with the same lines as Saturday, illness caught some of the players and that might have been a move made for cover. I didn’t think the move helped either line in a big way. One of Athanasiou and Ennis needs to catch fire in the coming days, would solve a lot of problems.
Damn near everything went right for the Oilers this weekend, with Arizona dangerously close to disappearing from the conversation. Vancouver’s last 10 games (3-6-1) have crumbled a fine season by an upstart crew. Goaling. It’s important. Calgary can still catch Edmonton for second but will need better goaltending. Question: Would you rather play Calgary/Vancouver or Minnesota/Nashville/Winnipeg?
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, TSN1260, we begin the week discussing the Oilers and the playoffs. Music! Jesse Granger from The Athletic Vegas will tell us the latest on the Golden Knights as they arrive in Edmonton. Jason Gregor from TSN will give us the Oilers pov and we’ll no doubt get an update from practice about lines, pairings et cetera. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
Oilers stomping their way to win the Canadian version of the Cup is a super storyline add the 2 top players rated in the world and look out lol
This was the 4th game in a row that the Oilers were heavily outshot
Heck, the Blue Jackets had 9 regulars out and still whalloped the Oilers in the shot department.
Id say that something ( flu) is running thru the locker room.
But if one looks back on the last 15 games, the Oilers have outshot the opposition 3 times.
They are running on fumes coming into the home stretch of the playoff race. Will need to get better, whether its the flu or whatever.
Fans also banned from WH__L O_ F____NE
If Gary could arrange that they would not need refs
You posted the teams shots though. This is not on Athanasiou.
Fine to pick on him but he’s not the cause of recent problems.
If you look at the 13 Oilers forwards who’ve played at least 30 minutes 5on5 since the trade deadline, AA is 8th/13 in corsi for (as above) and 6th of 13 in shots for (43.6). A hair below team average in both cases.
Oilers picked up a tie last night. A cynical point in the race for 1st in the Pacific/2nd in the Pacific.
Ha ha I’m sure the management understands it takes this level of player up to 20 games to figure things out.
Everyone can’t be Paul Coffey who sat out the opening of the season, got traded half way through from Edmonton to Pittsburgh then stepped onto the ice and took the game over.
If Flames want to wear themselves out hoping to meet Oilers for all they know Oilers go on a tear and overtake Vegas then Flames open in the desert lmao
Not quite; Draisraitl’s leading the NHL in scoring though which covers up a multitude of sins.
Oilers making the playoffs would have been hotly contested 4 months back and suddenly the best scorer alive today is suspect is my counter argument. I would probably want to give him many more games before criticising lol
I agree big time I think it’s huge for us to get home ice against it’s looking like Flames are Canucks in the first round.
What are you trying to say here?
That we should do nothing but praise the top players, and save criticism for the poor ones?
239-156
That’s how much the oilers have been outshot the last six games, and have gone 4-1-1
The trade deadline was 7 games ago
Does anybody have AA’s cumulative corsi since he got here?
When Nygard gets back AA will be a healthy scratch
Makes Yakupov look like Guy Carbonneau
44.51% for AA.
Yeah, watching AA is like watching Yak, Slep, and Puli. It seems like they should be able to make things happen (good things) but nothing ever really materializes in full. Like someone who looks good but is bad in the sack.
It comes with the territory of needing to win the Art Ross trophy in order to give a 20 man team a shot at making the playoffs. The team is fatigued right now it sounds like flu so once more taking a point away tonight is no problem.
The important thing is to put distance between Oilers and the rest of the herd(Calgary, Dys etc)
The oilers have been badly outshot in 5 of the 7 games since the trade deadline
aa has looked really bad
Basically cost us the game again with another turnover , this time right in front of our ne
I want the two seconds, Sam and his expiring $3 million contract back
If he changes your correct it’s a 2-0 coming the other way then the whiners would really be whining why did he change… why did he change…
Kassian’s skating
Jones likely back in next game
Larsson
4th line
PP didn’t not score
McDavid didn’t play – got a point against a good team
You’re calling it hogwash and then make the exact same point? Okay then.
No, I’m saying he had plenty of time to get off the ice. Nuge and Yamo changed. So did Kleff and Bear. Too dam selfish. Tippet even admitted the fact he was tired but protected him by saying he was headed to the bench for a change when the goal was scored. Look at the highlights… clearly standing on the blue line.
I said the only opportunity he had to get off the ice was during Bear and Nuge’s scoring chance. You then said “hogwash” he had an opportunity to get off the ice during Bear and Nuge’s scoring chance. Lol!
So glad we are in agreement there.
I have recently seen a fair amount of frustration creeping into Draisaitl’s body language over the past week or so. He appears to be expecting to score rather than busting his ass to score. Just a slight difference but it is noticeable. He almost comes across as pouting. I saw it a couple of times tonight.
It’s actually on Nuge, IMO. When he’s taking the puck up on his initial rush, once he crosses the blue line he needs to red dog the puck, like Vegas was doing, to buy time for Drai to get safely off.
He played it far more aggressive and got a good scoring chance out of it… followed by several quality Veg chances.
Draisaitl can be the 3rd Oilers Art Ross winner in history and so let’s slag him off?
When after factoring in the data Oilers are fortunate to have 1 point tonight.
They moved another hard to get point further away from Calgary tonight, despite the Flames moronic fanbase celebrating the Vegas OT win lol
Munny,
Ya I think he just got stuck out there. Vegas was relentless on the puck. They wanted the extra point badly.
This has been my take too, though yours appears better informed and is most definitely better articulated. Thank you.
Yeah. If it just killed old people and sick people quickly you pays your dimes and you takes your chances.
But the nature of this game is 55 is the new 80. It starts with 5x the mortality of the seasonal flu and if you keep hitting for 21 ten percent of cases go into the ICU for weeks until you can’t sustain that and mortality jumps skywards. No one fhas the appetite to stay at this table Ante up or lock down. But to ante up just makes the lockdown more costly.
Just watched the OT again…
The only real chance Drai has to change is during the Nuge-Bear scoring opp when Drai is the last man back and in fact defended the 2 on 1 that came back the other way. If he goes off there, decent chance it is a 2 on 0. Hard to say, maybe if he gets to the bench early enough he changes in time… of course if the other two cough the puck up earlier, then there’s nothing but open space In the way.
He tried to give the puck to Koski it looked like at one point, but the pressure from Vegas prevented a safe pass.
That is a bunch of hogwash. He could have changed while Bear and I believe it was Nuge were attacking the Vegas net. Consequently he was dragging his ass while Vegas had pressure on the Oilers. When the goal was scored, Draisaitl was sitting at thee blue line looking for a pass. Terrible!
BG19,
Reading, very important.
Drai was off. Nuge good. McDavid totally invisible.
Overall terrible effort. Sucks watching them hang the goalie out to dry for an entire game. Tippett needs to reign in Draisaitl’s OT ice time. No one is effective after one minute unless they spent that minute gliding; either way, it’s an awful strategy.
Totally selfish play by Draisaitl !!!!!
Not just OT. Draisatl has done it numerous times this season when the chance of an empty net point was available.
It’s great that he is scoring all the points, but he’s been playing a pretty selfish game all season long.
They need to get Kassian on a line with Draisaitl. Does the team have a selfish LW to ride shotgun?
Any chance of going back to the lineup they had before the trade deadline. ?
that was very frustrating to watch.
Lucinius,
It’s fine when it was drai and yamo, and mcdavid and nuge, i remember when yamo was injured, tip decided to put drai and mcdavid together again, and they stayed on way too long, eventually lost when the other team counter attack…
Isn’t that normal? I’ve seen a number of OT periods where Drai and McDavid seemingly refuse to leave the ice. Not sure if it’s intended or not, but it is a glaring and common occurrence.
Nuge was very good.
Kassian had good jump tonight too.
Well we were a Yamamoto & Bear chance away. Beer???…?
damn.. leon too tired.
Had his chance to change on the 2:1 with Nuge/Bear but chose to stay on and paid the price. Would have been a 1min shift at that point.
Still can’t believe Vegas took no penalties – I guess that’s one way to beat the Oilers. Ref even prevented an Oiler breakout on that 3 vs 3. ‘
Oilers gotta get there shit together
Well. Only good things from tonight;
– Koskinen
– Pity point
– Pissing off Calgary fans with our pity point.
I want to see Tippet bench Leon next time it goes to OT. There’s no reason he has to be on the ice that long.
What the F was Drai doing staying on the ice. Had 2 or 3 chances to change and didnʻt.
Best part of upcoming playoff hockey is I won’t have to watch Draisaitl fail to change on a 3 on 3 ot
leon stayed on WAY too long
Team played awful in front of Koskinen. I mean come on.
Weak ….
Oilers have nothing in the tank. 3-on-3 really exposes it.
I would almost be willing to bet money that this hasn’t happened to another team in the league all season.
Sure, you’re bound to draw less penalties when the puck is rarely on your stick, but that few is an absolute joke, especially when penalties are being called against us at a normal rate.
Awful OT effort. Wow. Played like they were skating in mud.
They’re better than us
Damn, Nuge sets up Bear but he can’t bury a glorious opportunity and then Bear with a glorious defensive play.
Drai is still on the ice, yes he is – only 1:55 in.
It was Nuge, Bear was in the corner
Hopefully Draisatil is saving all his effort for the playoffs.
I don’t think it was lack of effort, he was gassed. Now, it was his own fault he was gassed, but I don’t think effort was the issue.