A game every two days (or so) doesn’t leave a lot of room to talk about other things, but the hockey world spit out two important items yesterday. The NHL draft isn’t moving, and that means we have a helluva lot of work to do here in about three months. Stay the hell tuned.
Second, Oscar Klefbom will have surgery in March. That should mean he’ll be ready to play at some point in the 2021-22 season and that means his cap hit remains and he’ll need to be protected (or lost) in the expansion draft.
Finally, there’s the playoff race. Edmonton sits alone in third place via points and point percentage today. The battle is joined.
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: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Dominik Kahun, Dylan Holloway and a perfect storm on the Oilers’ left side
- Lowetide: Why Oilers GM Ken Holland shouldn’t wait for the deadline to make a trade
- Lowetide: Three Oilers prospects form hottest line in the AHL
- Lowetide: Oilers’ top 20 prospects, trade deadline edition
- Lowetide: Why are some Oilers fans hesitant to give Darnell Nurse his due?
- Jonathan Willis: Can Oilers improve enough to beat TML it in May?
- Lowetide: Top trade targets for the Oilers at the 2021 deadline
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers 2021 trade value rankings
- Lowetide: February report cards for the Oilers
- Lowetide: Difficult season for trio of Oilers prospects playing in the AHL
- Lowetide: Jesse Puljujarvi must be on the Oilers expansion protected list after breakout
- Jonathan Willis: The Oilers’ 2020 trade deadline splash: What we learned, a year later
- Lowetide: Revisiting our preseason predictions for the Oilers after 20 games
- Lowetide: If Dylan Holloway turns pro this spring, will it be with the Oilers?
- Jonathan Willis: Could an Ethan Bear trade improve the Oilers?
- Lowetide: Philip Broberg and the Oilers’ Leftorium
- Lowetide: Jujhar Khaira, a waiver reset and the Oilers’ future at No. 3 centre
- Lowetide: Is this peak Connor McDavid?
OILERS AFTER 29 GAMES
- Oilers in 2015-16: 12-15-2, 26 points; goal differential -10
- Oilers in 2016-17: 14-11-4, 32 points; goal differential +5
- Oilers in 2017-18: 12-15-2, 26 points; goal differential -10
- Oilers in 2018-19: 15-12-2, 32 points; goal differential -1
- Oilers in 2019-20: 17-9-3, 37 points; goal differential +8
- Oilers in 2020-21: 17-11-0, 34 points; goal differential +9
The two Dave Tippett seasons are superior in points and in goal differential (and mojo rising for all I know) and the general manager (Holland) is more a brick layer than a riverboat gambler. Whatever this is, I prefer it to the last vaudeville act.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN MARCH
- At home to: Toronto, Toronto, Calgary (Expected: 1-1-1) (Actual 1-2-0)
- At home to: Ottawa, Ottawa, Ottawa (Expected: 2-1-0) (Actual 2-0-0)
- On the road to: Vancouver, Calgary, Calgary (Expected: 2-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to Winnipeg, Winnipeg (Expected: 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: Montreal, Montreal, Montreal (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: Toronto, Toronto (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 9-6-1, 19 points in 16 games
- Current results: 3-2-0, 6 points in five games
This is a big game; getting eight points from six games means the club has the final 10 games of the month to secure 11 points in reaching my predicted monthly point total. I’m not sure how many soft spots on the calendar are left this month after tonight.
OSCAR KLEFBOM
If he’s healthy, I would protect him. You’re going to lose a young player and a good one, but Klef is a veteran who can help you now. Edmonton has plenty of defensive prospects but not many players the calibre of Oscar.
- Protected List: Mikko Koskinen, Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Kailer Yamamoto, Jesse Puljujarvi
- Available: Alex Stalock, William Lagesson, Kris Russell, Zack Kassian, Kyle Turris, Domink Kahun.
What does your protected list look like with Klefbom in play? Or do you ignore him, assuming the Kraken will pass on picking him in the expansion draft?
2021 DRAFT
The Oilers would draft No. 18 overall in 2021, but don’t have the second- or third or fifth-round picks this year. My estimates have Oilers picks at No. 18, 114, 178, 181 and 213. You’d like to see a couple of picks inside the top-100 overall added to the group.
I’ll have something resembling a top-100 list soon, but am obviously working at an extreme disadvantage. The OHL won’t play before April, the WHL has played very few games (Dylan Guenther’s NHLE is 61.9 btw) and the QMJHL also has a small sample ( Zachary L’Heureux has an NHLE of 26.2). In order for my list to take shape, everyone needs to play a bunch of games. I’m not sure we’ll get enough, but I will begin to compile the first list this weekend. Stay tuned.
KEN HOLLAND
Holland held a terrific media avail yesterday, some great information (including a Klefbom update) for fans. The big item was this: “If there’s a player out there that we think can go into our lineup and have an impact more than depth, probably that would be something I look at.”
What does that look like? Based on the names we’re hearing (Eric Staal, Jake DeBrusk) Holland is shopping in more than the soup and crackers aisle. There are two things to remember: Edmonton is dollar in and dollar out, so DeBrusk would require an asset sent back making similar dollars. Second item: Likely not a rental. Something along the lines of the Andreas Athanasiou deal is my guess.
It sounds like the Canadian teams have some hope the 14-day isolation period might be modified by April 12 and that could be a game changer.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, we kick out the jams and start the weekend early. TSN1260, Steve Lansky from Inside the Truck Podcast and BigMouthSports talks Oilers, CFL-XFL and the OHL opening. At 11, Matthew Iwanyk from TSN1260 will give his opinions on the CFL news this week and we’ll chat about the Oilers and what they can do about the Maple Leafs. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
Didn’t have time to really participate today, but:
1) Oilers are 15-5 in their last 20. Those Leafs losses still sting, but that’s one hell of a run.
2) Oilers magic number is 26 (Oiler wins + Flame losses to make the playoffs).
3) Dys magic number is also 26 (Canadiens wins + Dys losses to miss the playoffs).
My magic number is also 26…(oz. of whiskey purchase for tonight’s game…:)
HUNTER1909’s Death March™
Update: from Hunter1909’s Death March Regular Season 2021™(since 2014)
With Oilers now on pace for a 70 point finish, here are the current leaders in the Death March game which might pay out to all winners at the end of the season.
Boil-in-the-Oil; Cowboy; Z Mac; Crazy Pedestrian
Will replace previous leaders:
dcsj-57; Slocanoil; SOS; JAMCON; Hot Eire; Enigma
Want to play the Death March™ experience first hand? Follow the link: http://www.oilersdeathmarch.com
Three questions come to mind:
Yeah he seems to ghost you the minute you mention all these points or is it just me?
1 Not sure on that
2 Hopefully he see”s you soon I know I have many times
3 I think I heard you mention a couple times that it was you
1 – Yes, but there’s always another contest. Playoff Death March is getting prepared as we write this.
2 – You are constantly being told the same thing. Your entry should have been registered, and since it isn’t and we can assume you’re honest – therefore your entry exists, despite temporarily floating around in the ether.
3 – Do you believe you won last season? if so, why? Cancelling the season screwed up everyone’s prediction, that’s for sure.
Well as we used to say… fuck this for a game of soldiers
In future please ask your questions on the website directly.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Would be great if you took this advise as well
Hi Hunter
On Feb 11th according to our records I requested
67 points
47 goal tiebreak
I don’t see it Marching fine sir.
You can request anything you like, but people have to register themselves via the website. But yeah, since the season is a fuck up to start with your prediction is duly noted.
There’s men my size twisting and turning in their sleep in or around Vancouver sweating about Jesse bearing down on them tomorrow night. Smiling. Dominating. Turning the Puck over. Smiling. Damn.
JP reminds me of Bam Bam from the Flintstones.
Eakins gets the vote of confidence from the GM….
It’s a shame CGY jumped the gun hiring Sutter, they might have found a real gem from the league’s discard pile.
Sutter will start off interested but soon will revert to lecturing them about how he won in Los Angeles twice and bore everyone half to death.
And with no Kopitar/Doughty it won’t be anything like that LAK team.
Eakins is a stand up guy…for himself.
You nailed it. Your doing a good job there’s always a couple of whiners.
6 goals scored by 6 different players. That’s something new. Very impressive win by this group. I must say, when they work hard and skate hard like they did tonight…I like them alot.
As for tomorrow’s game, if Koski stops pucks, we win (duh).
GO OILERS…clap clap clap
Nurse-Barrie were excellent. With teams collapsing more and more down low (at one point in the third, Ennis had the puck behind the net and there were FIVE sens below the hashmarks), having D that are a threat to score is an imperative.
Larsson, in addition to being very strong defensively, made a few very nice passes.
Lagesson acquitted himself well — such a solid player. Lagesson and Larsson out there together must feel like one of those mirrored fun rooms at a carnival for the opposition.
I really liked Jones-Bear tonight. Jones is so aggressive stepping up and cutting off developing plays in the neutral zone. If he can master the risk/reward of doing that against the elite teams, watch out.
Bear continues to get better every game. Nurse was 350 GP before he popped this season. Bear has just 106 to his name.
I really like the pairings that were used tonight.
This post rings true like a Leon top cheddar one timer snipe from the goal line.
Bravo.
7 of 18 wins are against Ottawa
HH
Given the Oilers blowout victory, its highly unlikely he drops by to post this evening, just like he was AWOL on Wed (but very activate last night and after every game of the TO series).
He’s here, he’s got the comments open while he’s making the goal posts bag skate in his garage.
Takeaway the games against the Oilers and Ottawa only has 13 losses.
I believe Ottawa is 8-7 in their last 15 games against teams other than the Oilers.
Then you can discount Draisaitl and McDavid’s points v Ottawa and both sink out of the top ten in NHL scoring, the point sucks.
Undefeated against OTT.
— Nobody, except EDM.
Would love to agree with you, however Vancouver to this point is also undefeated against Ottawa (3-0).
Who?
And what does the Nuck’s record look like minus those 3 wins?
Let’s not forget, every freaking W has come at the expense of another sad sack Northern Division team.
With the score out of reach there needed to be a response for the cheap shot by Dadanov on Mcdavid unfortunately Smith is the only one that realizes this. Hopefully Kassian will be in the line-up soon.
Kassian generally retaliates for cheap shots taken on Kassian.
Holland needs to add someone that doesn’t need cue cards and start protecting Connor and Leon. Teams will start running them more and more because they can.
They’re welcome to try.
I’ll relish the open space and resulting goals it creates.
Monday ?
I wish they would have kept Paddy but Lucic fuked that up. He’s a big reason why St.Loo and Tampa have cups.
Clearly that’s more on the GM than the players who didn’t get along at the time.
Guys can dislike one another and still win championships.
Hate to burst your bubble but Kassian rides his own horse. He likes to make his own trouble, and is adept at doing so. Riding down from the hills to save McDavid might happen with Kassian, but I wouldn’t count on it.
That big lunk who used to play on McDavid’s wing who wasn’t good enough to play for Edmonton then won 2 cups in 2 years on 2 teams would react in a predictable way and pound him out lol
In other news, Tkachuks have now lost eight in a row vs. the Oilers.
Lol.., why didn’t you tweet it? I like the way you put it better anyways (but didn’t want to directly plagiarize).
I skidded my social media accounts last year.
I would say social media is the tool of the devil, except devils exist only in imagination (and New Jersey).
What the hell is wrong with that guy? You got pumbled again, get off the ice
I love how Smith skated right to the front of that little discussion at the end there.
If there is one quibble about tonight’s game, it’s the offense drying up from the goalie position.
haha
Smith was ready to shoot someone’s lights out
I have really liked Bear’s game tonight. A ton of smart tight plays
Last two games have sure helped the goal differential!
Guessing Senators going to very happy to get the hell out of Edmonton! Lopsided trio of games. Bring on the Canucks!
More Kafuk circus act. Walt was a hard nosed player, but I don’t remember this level of stupidity from him. The league has to put up with what 15 more years of these clowns?
what did you think of Keith?
Read above
Maybe the oddsmakers know what they are doing.
fuckers.
im still happy but poorer
I disagree with Louie on that – that wasn’t unfortunate for Tkachuk – that was stupid and dangerous.
C’mon man, that’s an observation on the order of saying Connor skates really fast.
Is what that family does.
The ol’ shit apple doesn’t fall far from the shit tree.
Haasta mañana Ottawa!
Our Haas… In the Middle of the Crease
Our Haas…
[Mr. Burns voice]
Excellent…
I think you should write goal songs for the morning show lol
i might give that one a whirl lol
Nice
How did you get a -1 saying “Nice”? Frigging bizarre. Stinks of harrassment. I hope there are no commenters trying to get LT embroiled in harrassment issues. Be horrible to lose this place.
Apply the opposite test.
If a post gets ratio’d positively but adds little in the way of the conversation is it doing much for the discussion/blog? Is that fostering an echo chamber?
People have opinions and don’t always want to respond in kind. The +/- is a reasonable, if flawed, gauge of opinion no matter how much you like to rail against it.
:”Nice” gets negged and you’re trying to tell me its the post and not the person?
Right.
Reja been harassed? You mean the guy who has had posts deleted for saying blantantly sexist things? The guy who never misses a chance to denigrate female broadcasters?
And implying that the minus button is being used as part of a bigger conspiracy to get this place shut down (by who?) due to harassment?
You are one of the top contributors to this blog. And I appreciate the time and effort you spend on your content. But that’s a pretty extreme take.
I alleged no conspiracy.
What I said was that if people are going to engage in negging sheerly because of someone’s name, and follow them around this site continuing do the same… well, that’s harrassment, which is illegal, and exposes the blog.
It is shocking that you think the content of a few deleted posts, or not liking female broadcasters, justifies harrassment, because that’s how it appears.
You didn’t say any of that in the post i responded too.. But you did insuate the possibility that someone is using the voting system to harrass people with the purpose of getting the blog shut down. Which is just flat out ridiculous.
I never condoned any sort harassment. I don’t think any harassment has even occurred! I’m just struggling to believe that you think what you described is criminal harassment.
Good goal
What a goal by Haas and what a loser play by Tkachuk.
That was ridiculous by Tkachuk. No effort on his part to go for the puck or the stick, just a dangerous play.
I thought for sure Haas would be knocked out there as his head collided with the cross bar.
The Avocado Man strikes!
I thought for sure that was going in.
It’s so refreshing that the majority of the talk about change on the Oilers defense is about people wanting to give someone else a chance. So many other seasons everyone was calling for players to be swapped out of the line up because they had someone playing like garbage on defense. Now it’s let’s sit so and so because we want to keep them fresh. Oh the joys of depth!!!
Strange, isn’t it.
Or how about the season not being completely scuttled because of the loss of one top-4 defender? The W/L record of EDM without Klefbom in years past is abysmal, I am truly encouraged by the results thus far.
A little reward for Nurse from Tippett getting on this PP
Here’s an interesting fact
despite all the covid cancellations and power outtage cancellations the league schedulers still found a way for the Stars to have only 3 b2b games the rest of the way
Oilers have 5
Leon has had looks at two open nets he hasn’t buried…….
Sigh for Sens fans – what a poor place to ice that puck.
just over 21 mins for 97 and 29 right now
Nurse 20:55 Barrie 21:25
HUNTER1909’s Death March™ Crystal Ball Edition
With Oilers ahead vs the Senators Death march has declared Oilers to be a winner ahead of the final whistle.
Update: from Hunter1909’s Death March Regular Season 2021™(since 2014)
With Oilers on pace for a 70( point finish, here are the current leaders in the Death March game which might pay out to all winners at the end of the season.
Boil-in-the-Oil; Cowboy; Z Mac; Crazy Pedestrian
Will replace previous leaders:
dcsj-57; Slocanoil; SOS; JAMCON; Hot Eire; Enigma
Want to enjoy the Death March™ experience first hand? Follow the link: http://www.oilersdeathmarch.com
Skinner stops 23 of 24 in the 4-1 win.
Condors keep rolling.
McLeod – 1A
Benson – 2A
Marody – 1G/1A
Marody with 100 AHL points in 102 games, while having a whole season ruined by a concussion recovery is amazing.
Why is the Mcdavid line out there still?
got a game tomorrow
I’ve been trying to look at ice time but NST down.
Yamamotor firing on all cylinders but running lean tonight.
Unreal, every dam game is close or or a million in donations. Beautiful. Wish i could get in the cash back. Nope, im in Ontario
I didn’t play today.
I haven’t checked the numbers from the Walter 50/50 yet… In my mind I’m a winner till proven otherwise lol.
So far though “proven otherwise” is pitching a no-hitter.
Yams getting odd mans like he’s at the circus.
A veritable traveling pint sized one man freak show, on ice!
I love that whoever is in charge of the music at Rogers Place is a Phish fan! Chalkdust Torture tonight, and on HNIC First Tube
It’s the Charlie Daniels every game that blows me away
One might say that McDavid Run(s) Like an Antelope, out of control.
Barrie taking development time away from Bear and Bouchard is sure divergent from this blogs long held mantra that the NHL is not a development league. Narratives.
The mantra is flawed though.
The NHL is a development league – Look at Nurse’ development over the last 5-6 years.
The NHL is not a league for a player to develop in to an NHL player but NHL ready players develop in the NHL.
Bouchard is an NHL player and needs ice time in the NHL to develop further.
Winning is primary on any given night for this franchise.
You would expect players to develop playing in the NHL if their floor is higher than replacement level though.
Otherwise you wouldn’t have them play the games in the big league.
If a player is better than an AHL-tweener, they should be plying their trade at the NHL level so they learn league appropriate lessons accordingly.
Yes, which is in line with the theme of my post.
Yes. I was clearly agreeing with you from a divergent perspective.
Both on their off wings on the 2 on 1. Good look off. Thought Yammer would score for sure.
Good fight back pressure from the Sens but that beauty play by Jesse and nice touch by Ennis looks like it deflated them.
Notwithstanding his excellent play of late, I’d love for KRusty to watch some tape of Yamamoto defending. The way he closes on the puck carrier and takes up space (especially for a small player) is textbook incredible.
Was typing this up just before the Ennis goal. Love the knock on effect of smart defending.
I ask, I receive.
Ennis puts the nail in the coffin.
What a forecheck by Jesse – won’t get an apple but caused the chaos.
pEnnis!
ENNIS!!
Ennis anyone??
Jesse is amazing
The Ennis Mightier!
Would really like the 2nd line to get a goal.
Skinner with a solid save on a high slot shot but the rebound is buried.
4-1 Condors mid-way through the 3rd.
I liked Mikkelson more than Cassie.
Does Bob Stauffer need sunglasses?
It did look like he was starring into the sun or something… that squint.