It’s never a good thing when news arrives half an hour before game time that pertains to your best shutdown defenseman. No matter what you think of Adam Larsson, there was no dispute about his ranking before last night’s game and there sure as hell isn’t any debate after that game.
Oilers missed an opportunity last night. A big one. Tipped pucks, bad luck and a parade to the penalty box. Bitter pill. How will this team perform on Friday? Perhaps we’ll see 60 minutes of complete hockey.
THE ATHLETIC!
Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. I am proud to be part of The Athletic. Here are the most recent Oilers stories.
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Oilers Observations: Analyzing the questions that remain after Game 3 loss
- New Jonathan Willis: Through 2 playoff games, here’s what we know about the post-pause Oilers
- New Lowetide: How Dave Tippett’s lineup tweaks propelled Oilers to Game 2 win
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: If Game 2 wasn’t Connor McDavid at his best, it was damn near close
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘Just not good enough’: The Oilers have a lot to fix after disastrous Game 1
- Lowetide: Homegrown Oilers players will again take a featured playoff role
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Bang for your buck: Ranking the Oilers based on contract expectations
- Lowetide: Could Oilers’ lack of centre depth mean postseason roster shuffle?
- Daniel Nugent Bowman: What the Oilers should be thinking after watching Chicago in exhibition
- Lowetide: Splitting the Draisaitl line may create hot August nights in Edmonton
- Jonathan Willis: Is Philip Broberg on track to be a top-pairing defenceman?
- Lowetide: Oilers’ productive prospect pipeline a welcome change for playoffs
- New Mark Lazerus and Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Breaking down storylines, scouting reports and X-factors for Blackhawks-Oilers
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Oilers scrimmage: Colby Cave gets Maurice Richard treatment in fitting tribute
- Lowetide: Imagining the city of Edmonton with the Oilers in a deep playoff run
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s roster construction options over the next five months
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Inside the bubble: Details on where and how NHL players will live in Edmonton
- Lowetide: What should Oilers fans expect from Connor McDavid in the playoffs?
- Lowetide: Dave Tippett’s postseason strategy against the Blackhawks
TIME ON ICE
Always listen to the coach after a game like this one, you’re going to get some raw emotion. However, another thing to observe is time on ice. Here are the forwards five on five, I’ve placed in bold the lead stories:
- Kailer Yamamoto 15:39
- Leon Draisaitl 15:28
- Connor McDavid 13:36
- Andreas Athanasiou 11:28
- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 10:58
- Josh Archibald 10:07
- Jujhar Khaira 9:58
- James Neal 9:34
- Alex Chiasson 9:25
- Zack Kassian 6:19
- Tyler Ennis 6:12 (injured)
- Riley Sheahan 5:42
When a coach faces an injury, he can double shift one of his best players or drop two forwards (usually penalty killers in my opinion) and run three lines. Tippett, who needed that win, ran three lines and benched two veterans. There’s no way to mistake what happened here.
THE GOALS AGAINST
Olli Maatta’s first period goal began with Patrick Kane retrieving the puck from behind the net, Kris Russell and James Neal having won the battle but losing the war. Kane sends a pass right to left and Maatta grabs it at the blue line. Maatta’s shot finds the net, with Dach, Highmore and Russell all providing a screen for the goaltender.
The first Jonathan Toews goal was a fluke but still counted. Darnell Nurse couldn’t stop the pass nor the shot (it wasn’t really a shot) with Koskinen and Draisaitl also in photo. A damnable goal, the Gods must like Jim Cornelisonson.
The Matthew Highmore goal saw Nurse poke the puck to Bear who sent it along its merry way to Riley Sheahan. Sheahan not only didn’t get the puck out, he booted it to Hawks’ forward Ryan Carpenter. Carpenter to the point, Maatta across the ice to Koekkoek, who hammered it (fly-by from Kassian was disappointing), nice tip, Koskinen had no chance.
The second Jonathan Toews goal, Toews wins faceoff, nice little move from Kubalik to get the puck back to Duncan Keith, over to Connor Murphy and a perfect tip by Ethan Bear for the GWG. Credited to Toews, no idea why.
MAKING SENSE OF IT
The Oilers took too many penalties. You can blame the ref and there were some ghastly calls for sure, but the lack of discipline (Yamamoto, Archibald, Athanasiou) was incredible. The call against Russell was silly, especially when the team was already down a man. The non-call on Dach versus Ennis was ridiculous. None of it matters today. The game is in the history books, the Oilers lack of discipline derailed any chances of the team rolling four lines and three pairings.
THE LINES (Numbers five on five)
Athanasiou-Draisaitl-Yamamoto: 7:37, 3-4 Corsi, 2-0 shots, 1-0 HDSC. The line cycled well on a couple of shifts and had two good looks. I expect we’ll see this trio on Friday afternoon. Athanasiou gives this line a completely different look.
Nuge-McDavid-Archibald: 7:25, 7-3 Corsi, 5-1 shots, 1-0 HDSC. I liked this line but would have loved it if there was a five on five goal. Nuge played a strong game, he’s a different player this year. He could always be counted on to be in the right place and right time, but now he’s impacted the plays more and it’s more obvious how smart he is. McDavid is such a talented player, his goal showing off superhero hands. Archibald was a little filthy on the night, took a penalty and gave Kirby Dach the scare of his life.
James Neal-Jujhar Khaira-Alex Chiasson: Played 6:28, 9-6 Corsi, 3-4 shots, 0-1 goals and 1-1 HDSC. I’m so happy with this line I hope to see it in December. Khaira’s faster, Neal’s healthy and Chiasson knows how to work. Khaira found iron, Neal had a couple of fine chances and Chiasson had a couple of lesser opportunities.
Ennis-Draisaitl-Yamamoto: 3:58, 4-3 Corsi, 3-0 shots, 1-0 goals, 1-1 HDSC. This line scored at five on five and I wonder if we’d be having a different conversation if Ennis had played all three periods. Draisaitl had a fine game, scored twice and had an assist. The success was tempered by a lost faceoff to Toews and the emerging pain in the ass that is Kirby Dach. Yamamoto is one of my favourite players, love his buzzing around but he can’t take penalties 10 miles from his net.
Athanasiou-Sheahan-Kassian: Played 2:40, 2-0 Corsi, 1-0 shots, 1-0 HDSC. Sheahan-Athanasiou had a nice look early, could have been a difference maker. Kassian was physical and didn’t take any penalties, but he didn’t accomplish much. His ole on the Koekkoek shot that resulted in the Highmore goal was poor form.
DEFENSE (Numbers five on five)
Darnell Nurse-Ethan Bear: 14:13, 13-12 Corsi, 6-8 shots, 0-2 goals, 3-5 HDSC. Definitely too high event, and the duo played in some bad luck. Nurse was part of the slow-mo first Toews goal, Bear tipped in the winner. Nurse had a tough night. He had three giveaways and seemed out of sync. Bear, despite doing many good things, was a major factor in the winning goal. I stan both of these players (my kids say stan means good) but they struggled on the night.
Oscar Klefbom-Kris Russell played 13:55, 7-14 Corsi, 5-4 shots, 1-0 goals and 1-0 HDSC. Klefbom played well, lacking only his usual offensive flair. Russell won the battle behind the net that preceded the first goal against, but he and Neal couldn’t secure the puck. Russell did have enough time to screen his goaltender. Made a fantastic block on a Dach point-blank chance later in the game. The penalty against Russell isn’t called by a referee familiar with hockey.
Caleb Jones-Matt Benning: Played 8:16, 10-2 Corsi, 5-1 shots, 1-0 goals and 2-0 HDSC. I thought this pair should have played more. Jones played a safe game and I thought he did well. Benning picked up and assist on Draisaitl’s second goal by coming off the bench and sending an excellent shot on goal.
GOALIE
Mikko Koskinen stopped just 21 of 25 (.840) but the only goal he played poorly was the Toews power-play marker (he was out of position). I have no quarrel with his game beyond that play.
THE FUTURE
I wanted to give you a head’s up on the next few days. I’ll have GDT’s up each morning the Oilers play, followed by a postmortem the following day. After that, I’ll be spending time on the offseason shuffles and the draft. Do you have a preference? Let me know.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, we have a great lineup loaded with hockey talk on TSN1260. Daniel Nugent-Bowman from The Athletic joins us to talk about last night’s game, including penalties and the injury to Tyler Ennis. Frank Seravalli from TSN will pop in at 11 to give us a world view of the playoffs and a big weekend for the seven remaining play-in series. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter.
I am not, and was not, laying it all on one player and have spoke about how bad the team has been since Saturday. At the same time, that does not mean that the plan, negative or positive, of any particular player, and his role in the next game and going forward, cannot and should not be discussed.
Kassian has been bad and hurting the team. Its a discussion point and a story line. One of many.
That is a reasonable line-up. I like. I doubt the coach will experiment with the first line on a do or die game, but it would be very nice to see at some point
These clowns were schooled in 2017 by the Quacks so it won’t exactly be surprising.
Still we can argue the pressure of performing to the hometown fans could have got to them lol
Does anyone know the moment when we lost Pouzar? Woodguy? Andy? Dave? Any analytics on what caused their last game at LTs.
Is there a succession plan in place if LT decides to go on a holiday? When you follow a charismatic leader usually the place burns down when they leave the building or go over the hill and far away.
Does LT have a board of directors to make sure LT lives on and on and on even when the founder moves on to white on white and takes take a sabbattical with his family?!
This place is so fricken awesome baby!!!
If you are not familiar with the Edmonton Journal’s Cult of Hockey, they do player grades after each game. There is usually a table of stats that go with it and you can see each player’s TOI.
https://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/player-grades-bounces-finally-go-against-edmonton-oilers-in-4-3-loss-to-chicago-blackhawks/
I doubt Tippett shakes the lines up much. Scoring hasn’t been the problem and it risks making Tippet look bad if it is a disaster. I wonder how much the ice times for Sheahan and Kassian were. Kassian’s lack of special teams ability may cost him.
Nuge-McDavid-Archibald
AA-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Neal-Khaira-Chaisson
Nygard-Sheahan-Haas
Kassian isn’t consistent enough to be a true top 6 player.
How you view his worth depends on what you consider to be valuable play.
Kassian when forechecking well has value. He can disrupt a team’s system with his speed and the opponent’s fear of getting caught by him. He’s far better than Archibald. Arch is easy to like bcs he’s a game rooster, but he has 4th liner skill.
Kassian also was placed with McDavid to protect him as much as can be done. Tippet said as much.
However Kassian’s terrible D zone coverage has cost him, and his ineffectiveness offensively. Chicago isn’t running Connor so the deterrent factor whatever it’s worth doesn’t matter.
Against a dirtier team he’ll be back up there.
Connor needs another winger that has top 6 skill. It’s a shame he has to drag a 4th line forechecker around.
It’s do or die time, as I posted before game 1, Kassian is not one of the top 12 players on this roster. He clearly needs to sit.
AA is not a good fit with Drai or McDavid, he needs to be stapled to the 3rd line.
Here is the line-up (less Ennis, AA takes Nygards spot, Nygard in the Ennis spot) that I proposed before game 1 and my opinion hasn’t changed.
Nygard – McDavid – Haas
Nuge – Drai – Yamamoto
AA – Sheahan – Archibald
Neal – Khaira – Chiasson
Haas and Nygard play well together and have the speed and defensive conscience 97 needs. Besides, they are on great contracts for next year, so why not find out what they can do with 97.
Reuniting the DYNamite line is a no brainer.
C’mon Tip, dontchya read this blog?
Tesla’s Hair….Dave? Dave? Dave!!
Are you there? C’mon let me in man! Dave?
I doubt it’s Tesla. I offended Tesla last night with a post. Woodguy would have straight up told me to Foff. He’s laying low around here. He finds the mask stifling…
Yes, you have been arguing that. And now you want to
Prove yourself right.
I’m not arguing zacks performance itself, I’m saying you are hanging him when he does not hold sole responsibility.
When you lay it all on one player then by removing that player they should win the game. That wasn’t the case, the whole team was awful in real time.
Harper’s Ingrown Hair.
Calgary with an empty netter and a 3-0 lead with 2 min left
WPG is out
*edit 4-0
Jets join the discarded pile. Will karma win them the lottery?
I think Tesla’s Hair is Andy Dufresne.
How can I call down!?!? It’s starting me right in the face. The best 3rd line in hockey: Benson / Nugent-Hopkins / Neal!!
Hahaha. I’d love to see it just for how great a story it would be. The local kid, Benson, gets his chance, the longest serving Oiler find his groove with a fellow highly touted Albertan Junior. Older veteran,
The Real Deal, mentors new talent and reinvigorates his career. 2 very responsible players in Benson and Nugent-Hopkins, paired with a goal scorer. Benson shows his vision and passing skills now that he finally has 2 legit goal scorers on his line. Do it Tippet!!!
These Playoffs are like NHL Survivor or Big Brother.
Get kicked off the island.
Get kicked out of the house.
Get kicked out of the bubble.
Kassian has done massive damage. Big mistakes and lack of effort on goals 3 and 4 in game 1. Total disinterest in the tying goal in game 3.
All goals against are not equal.
I have been arguing that Kassian has been a significant net negative on the team for years.
And well, we have Connor’s reaction to the tying goal on national TV after watching the replay. “F. O. K.”
Two of my family members have/had Vitiligo. I wondered last year if Nurse may have it. It seems more noticeable this year. If he does happen to have it, I hope he embraces it like my family did.?
#weareallunique
Calm down Jaxon?
Put Benson in the game! You know I had to say it.
0.3 to go in the period. Unbelievable. Typical Flames.
I don’t agree that the coach is part of management but that’s not really here nor there.
Of course management (Holland) and coach (Tippett) were involved in team building and player procurement and both were on board with singing Mike Smith and bringing him in.
Since that date, I don’t believe Holland has had a part in who started in goal in any of the 73 meaningful games the Oilers have played. In that regard, I don’t agree with statements such as “clearly management doesn’t rate him” – of course, if you are including the coaches in “management”, that is a different analysis.
I think Tippett likely starts Smith – I think that has nothing to do with management.
There is some serious lack of concern and general laziness in this Leafs/Blue Jackets OT.
Ya there has been a lot of that and also unobstructed down the wing, cleanly beaten snipes. Not many goalies have been consistently reliable.
– Yeah the Winnepeg based one. He once was looking at a new job, and asked for opinions and got great isnight from a bunch of posters
– There was another funny guy who used to work for Woodguy, and he would post, and Woodguy would tell him to go back to work: that was good stuff
There has been some great posters over the years for sure. The first Pouzar, you know the original guy to have this name, Is another favorite of mine that doesn’t post much any more
The thing is, yes, even in the limited minutes, he is doing damage – directly culpable for 2 goals in the first game and that “get out of the way” last night was egregious.
Right now Kass isn’t just “not helping the team”, he’s actively hurting the team.
– Yeah, VOR was great. He also seemed connected in some form to someone who knew what was going on internally.
– He had nuanced insight and was a great contributor on hockey and life. A few other we miss: NYC and Georges and G-Money, Ricki, and a few others I’m blanking on. Plus that angry “bot”, was it maudite, who would send randomly generated hate emails when team lost a few in a row.
– And that guy who would go down rabbit holes and was called out for his BS often who vowed to hate the Oilers forever, and others would trot out his infamous quote
Given that Chicago has started the same Goalie for three straight I would think Edmonton would still have the advantage.
– Of course. That’s the part of the reason for the success of the team: Many times they both have talked about how they discuss things day to day.
– This isn’t Chia and Coach, where Chia would get players, and Coach wouldn’t play them
– And the coach is part of management. And Holland signed Smith (based on Tipp’s advocacy for him, given their tenure many years ago)
– Its not a point of contention: Holland and Tipp agreed to sign Smith, and they agreed conceptually on how to play him. That a proper GM coach relationship.
– What happens day to day is surely mostly on the coach, who is part of management
– I dont’ get it: no one disputes that Smith’s role on the team requires the buy-in of management.
– We will see what happens to the starter situation next game(s) and we will see what happens in off-season, and how GM evaulates Tipp, and how the goalie composition looks going forward.
– Who do you think starts next game? Is that the same as who you think they should start next game? And why?
I miss VOR
He dissapeared the exact second Hitchcock signed his contract with the Oilers.
What I witnessed was time and again our defence would get the puck up the boards to the wingers….and time and time again the wingers could not clear the zone.
Then a cycle would start again.
Chicago’s supposedly poor d men are pinching all the time.
Oilers solved this early in the season by going up the middle. Regardless. The hawks choke off the boards. Hammer the puck at the net and hope for the bounces. It’s worked g. Tippet please solve this!!
Godot you are single handedly hanging Kassian out to dry.
There is no way you can hang these losses on one player. Contract value right now is poor, but he’s only playing 5 minutes, hard to do too much damage. If he was playing, there is no way these refs let him make a single hit without calling a penalty.
IronGuys
Repent, Repent, Repent, Pay Your Rent, Dont get Bent, Repent, now i know what Leonard Meant
My Oh My
How we miss the Woodguy
OK, this is twice now over the last few days that you’ve implied management is making decisions involving which goalie starts on a particular night. Do you believe that Holland is involved in lineup decisions and Tippett does not have autonomy on this?
He didn’t lose much if he welshed like HH.
He lost another bet to you and now he’s Tesla’s hair, isn’t he
Oh, he’s still here from time to time.
See if you can pick him out.
Speaking of Woodguy, seems like we won a lot of games this year when he did his game day morning analysis.
It’s time to pull out all the stops.
Woodguy, are you out there?
– I didn’t realize that there was no day break betwwen game 4 and if there is a game 5
– They ought to have started Koski in game 1
– Clearly management doens’t rate him, and clearly Smith sucks but they rate him higher
– Isn’t it clear that they start Smith next game? And if they win, he gets the next start
– Conversely, they start Smith and he be Smithing and still sucks: what do they do next year?
– Or if team wins with Smith because they play great, what do they do going forward?
– Paying a starter goalie starter money, and he performs like a good starter when afforded the opportunity, but he doens’t get to be the starter is a problem for the organization (and for Koski)
Yes, of course. I guess I meant guys in their prime, not on ELC or bridge.
It’s very difficult to get a player with an established level of play in a trade for Klefbom who’s better value for money than Klefbom is.
The Jackets succomb to the Oiler special own goal off a dman. Boy are these “playoffs” turning into hot garbage.
Worth noting that Cam Talbot has been excellent for Calgary.
You are like a pimple on your ass that never goes away. Have you ever had to have your ass cash a check your mouth wrote! I think not, for you, it has always been have your lawyer talk to my lawyer. Cowered when Messier glared at you and your man balls shrivelled and died that day. I feel very sorry for you!
It’s the Oiler motto.
“We pay more for less.”
Salic grabs Burakovsky for a second third, and a nobody….
The Oilers pay two seconds for AA.
The Hamilton / Reinhart mirror trades.
Francouz vs Koskinen cap hits.
Holland has done some nice things, but I took umbrage at the Kassian and Chaser contracts.
Mike Smith was a pretty piss poor goalie for what we paid in contract and bonuses too.
All the above would be in the box by yesterday’s reffing. The Oilers will have to beat the refs and the Hawks to win. 6-2 penalties when they finally made a call on the Hawks. Oilers score and no more calls although plenty of sticks in the hands of McDavid and slashes and holds when convenient.
Enough. Just win next game. Lets go from there.
I expect the trade for AA will soon join the list.