This won’t be an ordinary day, and that’s as it should be. This northern city had its heart broken in two late yesterday afternoon when news of Joey Moss passing became official, and it’s going to take some time for this community to gather itself.
When I heard the news, it took me back to Dave Semenko, and the shock of his passing. I can’t imagine this city without Joey Moss, and things still don’t feel right with Semenko gone. I have found in my life there are some things you never get over, you just learn to live with them. This is one of those times. We will never forget you, Joey Moss. Rest in peace.
THE JOEY MOSS (Sept 21, 2010)
This is Joey Moss. His place in the history of the Edmonton Oilers is without question, but his “game” wasn’t on last season’s schedule. Not surprisingly, the team had their worst season. Moss has given 25 years of his life to the Oilers, and for many fans (my children included) is the most popular member of the entire organization. In a city crushed by disappointment on the sports pages in the last few years, Joey Moss remains the same today as he was 25 year ago: a winner.
Last year didn’t feel right from the moment I found out this game wasn’t going to happen. Sing the crap out of the anthem, Joey. And thank you for 25 years of serving the Oilers and the community. It is great to have your wonderful game back where it belongs. All the best.
The Lowdown will focus on the passing of Joey Moss this morning, beginning at 10, TSN1260. We are lining up several guests who knew Joey over the years and can pay tribute to one of Edmonton’s greatest citizens. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter if you would like to share your thoughts.
THE ATHLETIC!
I’m proud to be writing for The Athletic, and pleased to be part of a great team with Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Jonathan Willis. Here is our recent work.
- New Lowetide: The 2020-21 Oilers and value contracts: Career opportunities
- New Eric Duhatschek: For one season only, bring on the NHL’s Canada Division
- New Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ organizational depth chart: Where does Edmonton stand today?
- Lowetide: Dmitri Samorukov’s KHL impact and what it means to the Oilers
- Lowetide: How many goals will Tyler Ennis score in 2020-21?
- Lowetide: Oilers extend Kris Russell, solve expansion issue
- Lowetide: Can Kyle Turris centre an outscoring No. 3 line in Edmonton?
- Lowetide: Tyson Barrie’s skills and how Oilers coach Dave Tippett will deploy him
- Jonathan Willis: Can Oilers unlock James Neal’s scoring potential at five on five?
- Lowetide: Why is Ilya Konovalov no longer starting in the KHL?
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 prospects, post-draft edition.
- Lowetide: Finding Connor McDavid’s optimal linemates among 2020-21 Oilers
- Jonathan Willis: A cautious free agent period boosts an Oilers team still on the upswing
- Lowetide: Oilers bring back Mike Smith for another year.
- Lowetide: Oilers sign Tyson Barrie to a team-friendly deal.
- Lowetide: Oilers sign Kyle Turris, Tyler Ennis in early hours of free agency.
- Lowetide: Jesse Puljujarvi signing overshadows a strong day for Oilers at draft
- Lowetide: Oilers draft Dylan Holloway on Day 1, with trades possible Wednesday
PUCK IQ LEON LINE
Nugent-Hopkins
Draisaitl
Yamamoto
I keep trying to move this line around because it’s for your own good (Tippett knows best) but holy lord these Puck IQ numbers rhyme.
Draisaitl’s numbers (like McDavid) against elite and gritensity bins are excellent and solid, respectfully. Middle opposition? There’s struggle there but he was 48 percent against the middle opp, certainly not a mortal wound.
Yamamoto’s sample size in all three bins is too small to make any sweeping statements about the future. It’s probably fair to see these numbers are unlikely to repeat, but you could let a lot of air out of these tires and still have a fantastic player.
Nuge is pretty evenly deployed in the three bins, Dave Tippett rolled him over consistently among the three levels of competition. Nuge and his line outscored all three levels, but dominated only the gritensity group in possession. A full year with Leon and Yamamoto should improve that number. We’ll look at Connor McDavid’s line tomorrow.
Perhaps you should reflect on this
London Jon,
I tend to see this place as an office water cooler type of joint. For the most part, you get the slackers and the bored worker/commenters that post half-ingenuous things that are really only meant for their own entertainment on here. They are usually looking for a response more than anything. Some posters choose to entertain them.
We walk by the water cooler when this is going on, but we don’t stop.
We sit at cubicle within earshot, and occasionally something interesting is overheard. We give it a better listen for a minute or two before getting back to work. Maybe we shoot off a quick reply to something (before throwing our paper cup in to the trash and getting back to business).
We remain being somewhat attentive for the good stuff.
The good stuff is a bit more rare these days. The environment has changed so much over the years that this was inevitable. More commenters means more people testing the waters, and more people emptying the damned coffee maker without making a new pot 😛 The more prolific workers have been promoted and are much busier with other things which means they post less often as well.
The good stuff these days comes from the blog’s author (boss man), the skilled workers that drop down a floor to the the cooler maybe once a day to drop knowledge, the next wave of talent, and then mostly from the fun anecdotes, opinions, and inspired discussion, from the regulars that populate this place.
Sometimes, though… Usually someone out of the blue… Posts an absolute gem.
Coffee is spit out.
A crowd gathers around the stale doughnut box.
The boss comes out from his office down the hall to see what the commotion is about.
It’s something someone might call…
Magic!
Thank you for this – some really amazing tributes there
HH
Almost every single day the comments section is sidetracked and ruined (for me, and I suspect many others) by your everything Canucks is great, everything Oilers sucks schtick. Yes OP bites at the baiting (so do I, so do others) but it’s the deliberate baiting that needs to stop. It’s so constant, so tedious and such a horrible, negative vibe for this board.
You may get some sort of enjoyment out of it but it materially reduces the enjoyment here for I bet 100’s of others.
I’m guessing you aren’t aware of the impact you’re having as I’m sure you wouldn’t want to make coming here far less enjoyable for 100’s or 1000’s of other people just so that you can get a bit more pleasure out of it yourself?
I use to love reading all the comments. And it’s such a damn shame that I don’t anymore.
Joey was the purest fan in all of us.
Transcendent.
Legendary.
He will be missed.
Did Noah Dobson see any ice for the Islanders other than minimal heavily protected minutes in half the games during the regular season?
Ty Smith was in junior hockey last year.
Those are Bouchard’s “comparables”.
Yeah, that wasn’t a wise move. If he’s at 90 pitches, sure.
Anyone actually watching the WS?
Yanking a starter throwing an absolute gem… TB outsmarted itself.
Congrats to the Dodgers. Hoping to see a real season and a proper Yankees-Dodgers WS next year.
Sorry boys – can’t make everyone happy.
There are many many subjects, some non-Oiler and non-sport that clog up the blog (in my opinion) routinely.
Not to mention, in today’s thread:
– less than 60 total posts and maybe half
– more posts complaining about my discussions with HH than posts I have with HH
Some individuals seem to always have to have the last word … they are incapable of recognizing bait.
It may be enjoyable to you, but I suspect having to wade through it each and every day isn’t enjoyable for most of the rest of us here.
I’m not sure why any d-man needs to be ready for the NHL straight out of junior in his first year pro at 20 – that’s a ludicrous suggestion.
I would much rather take Bouchard’s 19/20 season showing great development and working on his deficiencies than the Dobson treatment, being healthy scratched for half the game and, when playing, being essentially the most sheltered player in the league.
I note the Canucks new shiny legit puck moving 1st pairing d-man wasn’t ready for full NHL employment until he was 25.
Not to mention, LT actually started this one and was the first to bait – in jest but a bait.
Just talking Oilers and Oilers hockey related matters – pointing out the utter bias and simply explicit wrongness of many posts is enjoyable.
It’s called lack of confidence in a player who, given his draft pedigree, should have been ready for sheltered third line minutes.
But he wasn’t.
Not sure why it’s necessary to take the bait every single time.
When the Oilers had an injury on RD, Evan Bouchard was a 20 year old fresh out of junior. Clearly there was a likely development benefit to him playing in the AHL and, clearly, from his progression, he saw that development benefit – having a fantastic second half of the season and being an AHL all-star as a rookie.
Mike Green was acquired for extra veteran depth for the stretch and playoffs as Bouchard continued to develop in his rookie pro 20 year old season.
Its called normal development.
Ilya Kovalchuk, apx 1.5 P/60 last year, great possession numbers and massive goal share (65%) – potentially zoomed by Danault. Love Montreal and playing is a “hockey market”.
Where did you hear that?
He wasn’t called up because the Canucks had no injuries at RD.
Of note…the Oilers DID have injuries at RD but rather than call up Evan Bouchard they spent a draft pick on a broken Mike Green rather than call up Bouchard.
Must have been gunning for the AHL playoffs 🙂
Classic recency bias. They must have overlooked Demko’s unsustainably high save percentage.
A bit off-topic but I couldn’t be more excited for Wisconsin to start their season in just over a few weeks. The snippets that Wheeler put together really made me excited for this player – as a teenage rookie in college he was able to physically dominate in battles – combine that with the fact that he will get stronger and his speed and skill and, from accounts, work ethic and smarts, I can see him taking a huge step in college this year.
but, but, but what if Utica needs him in 2024/25 for their pursuit of a Calder Cup – I read that is what inhibited his call-up this year……
McDavid has indeed shown that he drives offence irrespective of who his wingers are but I don’t agree that he drives the player necessarily regardless of who his wingers are.
He didn’t win the goal share battle in 2020 and, if we are honest with ourselves, there is no way this team has real success if McDavid isn’t well above 50% in the goal share.
Without looking, I believe his dominance in possession metrics has reduced over the last few years as well.
The Oilers had great success in 2020 but, it was driven by (a) special teams dominance and (b) the Nuge/Drai/Yamamoto line running at 77% goal share. I think both are unsustainable but for sure the goal share of that line.
While the 3rd line should be much closer to 50% goal share this coming year (and the Sheahan line(s) did get caved), the team still needs both McDavid and Drai to be well over 50%, likely over 55% going forward.
McDavid doesn’t need help with GF but if he’s got Kassian on one wing, a poor defensive and board player, he needs help on the other wing in order to not leak on the GA.
At least that’s what we’ve seen lately.
Holloway seems like the perfect skill set for McDavid’s LW but that’s 2, 3, 4 years away.
defmn,
Suddenly got a bit dusty in here.
If only they hadn’t gotten worse. Goal tending and D both with a down grade could be problematic for a team that had problems in the regular season and happened to catch lightning in a bottle for a short period.
This is what almost everyone experiences when moving to a different country. It takes individuals different amounts of time to adjust. Even if there aren’t language barriers there are subtle differences as in going from a high school environment to university and other social differences. It is real and should be taken into consideration when looking at athletic performances. See Dylan Holloway. He also went from playing against his own age group to playing against men. There is an adjustment period.
Darren Dreger
@DarrenDreger
·
42m
OHL GM’s will virtually meet tomorrow. It’s expected the league will announce a Feb 4th season start. Training camps are expected to open Jan 25th. Eight team playoff also expected to be unveiled.
defmn,
Thanks for these thoughts…much appreciated
That idea of switching JP to his off-wing reminded me of something that I’ve been wondering about for awhile.
Why is it that we don’t see many, many more players playing off-wing in the offensive zone? It’s common in Europe. I understand it makes zone exits harder, but you also have the C and guys can move around.
Off-wing forwards have:
A) More options to pass the puck
B) More opportunities to pass on their forehand
C) Better shooting angles
D) Better one-timer opportunities
E) Are more dangerous on net drive plays
To me, this more than outweighs making a few more plays on your backhand on the end boards. Most of the time it’s a chip play to the streaking C, an area pass to the opposite wing, or it’s muscled out along the boards.
It’s a completely different scenario with D-men, who often need to make a precise pass under duress when outletting.
If I’m a coach and I have a volume shooter, in particular, I would want that guy on his off-wing as much as possible, ala Ovechkin.
It would be interesting to look at peripheral shots (outside the box), and compare shooting percentages with on and off wing shooting attempts. Or frequency of one-timer events (which I suspect correlate with a higher shooting percentage).
Just as an anecdotal example, a top of the circle shot from an off wing player seems much more dangerous than one from a guy on his proper wing.
From ‘far away and long ago’ to ‘here and now & close by’ the messages tell a story we can all learn from.
Sam Gagner
@89SGagner
·
19h
The best man I’ve ever met. I have so many great memories of our time together and I cherish every single one of them. A true legend. Rest In Peace, Joey.
Connor McDavid
@cmcdavid97
·
18h
With the greatest of all-time… and #99. Oil Country sure won’t be the same without you, Joey. Thanks for always brightening up any day and may you rest easy my friend.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
@RNH_93
·
18h
Heavy heart today. Had the pleasure of calling you my friend for nine years. Edmonton won’t be the same without you. Love ya Joey. Rest In Peace.
Milan Lucic
@27MilanLucic
·
20h
RIP Joey
One of the best people I’ve had the pleasure to be around in hockey
Cam Talbot
@ctalbot33
·
20h
There was nothing better than coming off the ice after a huge win to a Joey Moss high five on the bench. His energy and passion for the game were infectious and made you want to come to the rink everyday. He truly was a legend and will be greatly missed. #RIPJoeyMoss #Legend
New York Rangers
@NYRangers
·
20h
The New York Rangers are saddened to learn of the passing of Joey Moss – legendary member of the Edmonton Oilers family. We send our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to the Oilers organization and to the many friends and family of Joey.
Pat Maroon
@patmaroon
·
20h
R.I.P Joey Moss
Broken heart
you will be missed. I’m going to miss all those laughs we shared together. I know I’ve been gone for a few years but always thought of you. Till I see you again moser
https://instagram.com/p/CG090EJDko7/
Jarret Stoll
@jarretstoll
·
19h
Joey you were a special man..this was one of our many dinner parties during the ‘06 playoffs. He always made our day from the second we walked into the locker room..you will be missed by so many everyday. Rest easy Jo Mo
Max Domi
@maxdomi
·
19h
When you think of the Edmonton Oilers… names like Gretzky, Messier, Coffey and McDavid come to mind. Joey Moss is right there with them. He is a Canadian legend and a true inspiration to all of us. My thoughts and prayers are with his family. Rest In Peace Joey.
Sean Burke
@SBurkie1
·
20h
RIP Joey Moss @EdmontonOilers
One of the people you always looked forward to seeing when playing in Edmonton. A pure soul he will be missed.
Joaquin Gage
@JoaquinGage31
·
19h
After practice one day I was told I was going down to the minors. Sitting in my stall with my head in my hands I felt an arm around me, it’s was Joey. He told me, “Keep working hard and you will be back up here in no time.” In a way only Joey could. #RIPJoeyMoss
Dallas Eakins
@dallaseakins
·
19h
We are heartbroken to learn of the passing of Joey Moss. He always found a way to put a smile on our faces and remind us what was really important. He went out of his way to make others feel great. The memories of Joey will continue to inspire me. Condolences to the Moss family.
ToddMarchant22
@MarchantTodd
·
21h
So saddened to hear that Joey Moss passed away. In all my years in EDM he always brought a smile to your face. From singing the Anthem to vacuuming the locker room to folding towels or watching a James Bond movie he will be missed. Once and Oiler Always an Oiler. RIP Joey.
Agreed. All references to should be ban-able offences costing a woodguy to a Moss-related charity to recover from:
http://edmontonoilers.com/Joey
You must have missed the top line of Edmonton Oilers
Closest to bonafide
I, for one, would be very grateful if we didn’t go down the usual Canucks > Oilers etc etc etc etc rabbit hole of sadness today…
I get the sense you have a lot of interesting stories that you could tell…
I was talking about the ‘dark horse” rankings.
#toobin
Influenced to a 19th place ranking
It appears four rookies will be competing for two spots in the bottom pairing.
Juolevi, Rafferty, Rathbone and Chatfield.
I presume that over the course of the season and/or years we will see each of the deployments but, for me, at this point Drai/Yama and McDavid/Jesse make more sense just given history and performance together in the past (and Drai constantly praising Yama and how he likes to play with him).
All three rated as “bubble teams”.
In fact, both Oilers and Flames had the same 6.8 rating.
Interesting that 42% of voters rated the Canucks a “dark horse” to be better but only 27% rated the Oilers there and 19% had the Flames as a dark horse.
The Canucks taking out the Blues in the play-in and only being one period way from the conference final seems to have influenced voters.
“Gretzky”…
Fun article here re: McLeods experience in Switzerland.
Sounds like he may be forced to eat better (if he can’t figure out the McDonalds drive through or get his hand on his favourite sauces…..)
https://www.si.com/hockey/news/ryan-and-akils-excellent-adventure
Ahhh…I remember it well.
Barry T’s after the 1988 cup winning game. Joey bursts into the bathroom & starts high fiving everyone. Me thinking, let the boys wash their hands first. He made everyone happy.
OP, if Kassian is the second best player on the McDavid line then the line won’t work. So you need a non Nuge LW that helps the line as the second best player. Now, if Puljujarvi can develop into that 1RW and become the second best player on the McDavid line than you need a less material LW to be the ‘third best player on the line’ like, say, Ennis. Kassian does not need to be stapled to Connor.
This would result in keeping the second line together and pushing Kassian into a more suited bottom six role. And that would, IMO, maximize our roster.
RIP Joey.
+1. He will be missed.
That’s future HHOF inductee Brogan Rafferty to you LT. When the Canucks eventually call him up during the 2024/25 playoffs he will be well seasoned in Utica and ready to go!
Is this with Brogran Rafferty?
RIP Joey…definitely an oiler icon!…sad news for sure..you will be missed sir!..I think Gretsky went out with his sister Vickie who was a singer around big E in the early years.
I remember Joey when I worked as game night staff for the Oilers in the late 80s and early 90s. He was always such a character and welcoming presence in the dressing room. He always had a smile on his face and a slap on the back for you. The only time I would see him upset was if you walked on the dressing room carpet that he had just vacuumed. I was really saddened to hear of his passing and consider myself fortunate for having had the chance to meet him. His memory will live on. Rest easy, Joey, and thank you.
Rest In Peace Joey.
A model for all of us.
An eternal bright spot in the organization and city.
Athletic power rankings has us at 12; flames at 13
Canucks are at 19