These are the standings from early March of 2013, the lockout year. The Oilers would go 11-13-2 to finish 19-22-7, in third place in the division and outside the playoffs. This is the Ralph Krueger season. This year’s Oilers are through 20 games, and have 20 points, that’s pretty close to what the 2012-13 edition of the team was putting down. Is this going to be a spring with no playoffs?
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: Oilers’ Ryan Nugent-Hopkins into 2nd decade of being misunderstood
- DNB: Oilers have a long way to go as defensive problems persist
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ Jack Campbell will be better, but can he be a true No. 1?
- Lowetide: The Edmonton Oilers and early-season trades during road trips
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers’ lack of secondary scoring is a critical situation
- Lowetide: 5 Edmonton Oilers trade targets from the AHL
- DNB:How Oilers star Connor McDavid went from poor to unreal in a pivotal win
- DNB and Jesse Granger: Is the Connor McDavid vs. Jack Eichel rivalry finally about to become reality?
- Lowetide: How the Oilers can replace Evander Kane’s production on a budget
- Lowetide: Why the Oilers need to trade for an established defenceman
- Lowetide: Five curious Oilers trends that may or may not regress
- Lowetide: What’s Xavier Bourgault’s NHL ETA? Does he get a look this season?
- DNB: Stuart Skinner’s 40 saves lift Oilers over Panthers
- Lowetide: What should the Edmonton Oilers expect from Klim Kostin?
- DNB: Oilers’ Evander Kane hospitalized after skate blade cuts his arm
- Lowetide: Oilers top prospect is unclear for the first time in a dozen years
- Lowetide: Oilers rookie Stuart Skinner is chasing history
- DNB: Ryan Smyth on Oilers memories, keepsakes and the current team: Q&A
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers start October slow but finish month strong
- Jonathan Willis: Jakob Chychrun would look good on the Oilers, but is there a deal to be had?
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers reasonable expectations for every player in 2022-23
- Lowetide: Oilers top-20 prospects, summer 2022
OILERS AFTER 20, 2015-2022
- 2015-16: 7-12-1 (15 PTS), 44% goals five-on-five, No. 7 Pacific Division
- 2016-17: 11-8-1 (23 PTS), 54% goals five-on-five, No. 1 Pacific Division (playoffs)
- 2017-18: 7-11-2 (16 PTS), 44% goals five-on-five, No. 7 Pacific Division
- 2018-19: 9-10-1 (19 PTS), 46% goals five-on-five, No. 5 Pacific Division
- 2019-20: 12-6-2 (26 PTS), 52% goals five-on-five, No.1 Pacific Division (playoffs)
- 2020-21: 12-8-9 (24 PTS), 52% goals five-on-five, No. 2 Pacific Division (playoffs)
- 2021-22: 15-5-0 (30 PTS), 48% goals five-on-five, No. 1 Pacific Division (playoffs)
- 2022-23: 10-10-0 (20 PTS), 43% goals five-on-five, No. 5 Pacific Division
This year’s team is comparable to 2018-19, a non-playoff time. There should be some urgency based on the team’s record so far, but I don’t see the team missing. The 43 percent goal share five-on-five is the lowest since Connor McDavid arrived.
It’s interesting to note that the Oilers have made the playoffs in four of the previous seven seasons, and were in first or second place after 20 games in all of those seasons.
This year’s Oilers have 10 quality starts (in 20 games) and get one 50 percent of the time. Last year, in a full season, Edmonton received 40 of 82 quality starts, so the numbers are about the same year over year.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
The Oilers are in a tough part of the schedule, but things should ease in December. If the Oilers go 1-1-1 to complete November, the team will be 11-11-1, 23 points after 23 games. A quick glance at December’s opponents suggests the Oilers might get 18 (or so) points from the 15 games. That would help them (assuming 9-6-0) as the team would sit 20-17-1 (41 points) after 38 games. That’s a pace that would land them 88 points, far from the playoffs. In other words, Edmonton needs to go on a fantastic winning streak somewhere along the line. This team needs 11-3-1 in December. Tall order. One good thing: This happened early, there’s plenty of blacktop ahead.
RECALL OPTIONS FOR DECEMBER
Philip Broberg leads the way, he is less than two weeks away (is my guess). He is 2-2-4 in seven games and holds a 2-2 goals at even strength through the AHL season. His performances recently have been high quality, despite a few tough results for the team.
I think names like Mike Kesselring, Xavier Bourgault and Vincent Desharnais are candidates for recall, but the Oilers won’t throw the youngsters into important games (and they’re all important right now). We could see them by the end of the regular season.
Tyler Benson should be recalled or waived soon, I think Dylan Holloway will go the other way. James Hamblin is also a candidate for recall, I think he might stay longer than the kids. In order, I believe the recalls might look like this:
- Philip Broberg
- Tyler Benson
- Seth Griffith
- Vincent Desharnais
- James Hamblin
- Mike Kesselring
- Xavier Bourgault
- Raphael Lavoie
Summarizing!
Lachance’s goal was the only one by an Oilers NA prospect.
Määttä, Wanner (3rd star), and Schaefer each picked up an assist.
Brind’Amour, Petrov, Chiasson and Münzenberger were held off the scoresheet. Mazura was not in the lineup.
Well, looks like the Oilers will, miraculously, be waking up in a playoff spot. Thanks to both the Wild and Blues both losing in regulation. They are currently the best of 4 in the 4-way tie of Mediocre .500 record holders.
huh.
You’ve got to funnel pucks to the net. You’ve got to go hard to the blue paint — harder to the blue paint — and you got to do it over and over and over again.”
I think they are doing that. But those words describe a feeling about things, not a strategy or technique
They need to watch film of lines that penetrate defenses and can regularly create quality chances, and do that
Where to be to support the puck and be able to get a quality shot off so it’s not straight into pads or crest – or not even on net. Passing with a goal of opening the D structure and hitting a guy moving into position, at the right time
Instead of what they are doing that obviously doesn’t work
Lachance pots his 10th of the season:
https://twitter.com/YtownPhantoms/status/1596327888269508609?cxt=HHwWgoDU1bbwpacsAAAA
CHYCHRUN
23 mins.
1G 1A
This year and 2 more @$4.6 mil
Lets do this.
#WINNOW
Holy small sample alert, Batman.
Going to the cabin for a rare late November camping trip. -1 out right now. Crazy.
Ill be listening to the radio and cheering on Broberg’s season debut!
Kick some ass, Oilers!!! You’ll probably hear me shouting from the wilds of Nothern Alberta!!!
Hat ✅
Jersey ✅
Ice cold scotch in a frosty steel adult sippy cup ✅
Dont make me waste an ultra rare 11am scotch!
Lets Do This!
GO OILERS!!
👊🏽👊🏽👊🏽
Wow the west conference is terrible. Oilers moved up a spot to 9th after Minnesota lost. It would be kinda funny if the Oilers moved back into a playoff spot tonight without even playing a game if St. Louis loses in regulation tonight. It would be a 4-way tie at 20 points with Oilers having the most Reg. wins.
You know what is hilarious is that Arizona could move to with 2 points of a playoff spot with a win tonight in Detroit and they would still have a game in hand on the pack.
Arizona kind of ruins these ideas, although it’s a compelling thought. They Coyotes will make three trades to dismantle the team between now and the deadline. They should give this group a chance.
It’s mostly remarkable because they are already built to lose but the WC is such a mess they are struggling to do so.
I expect, as you say, they will make the moves necessary to accomplish the task.
If you have a team full of nobodies like Vegas their first year are the Germans a few years back and the U.S.A in 1980 just to name some obvious ones. Anyhow anyone can win in Hockey if the players buy into team first attitude. Basketball is different you only need 2 Stars football a QB and a defensive End that’s unstoppable can carry any team to the promised land. Hockey unlike any sport takes guts to win in the playoffs. We had 6-7 bonifide Superstars and we barely got by Calgary and the Jets when we were winning Cups.
Barely got by the Jets? The only year the Oilers had trouble with the Jets was 89/90. During the Gretzky years with the Oilers, the Oilers were 18-1 in playoff games over the Jets. None of those series were ever in doubt. In 89/90, the Jets only finished 5 points behind the Oilers in the regular season standings.
That 89/90 series was rough on me. Wont go into details here but probably the worst bender I have ever experienced. My ex-wife still gives me the side eye over that one!
We were down 3-1 in games and 3-1 past the mid-point of the 2nd period in game 5. The Jets were playing lights out everyone thought we were done. We get 2 late 2nd period Goals, Messier scores in the 3rd for a 4-3 win. Game 6 is tied late in the 3rd Jets coming on hard looking for the series winner, sphincters tightened up from developing Mill Woods to well past Winterburn road Kurri scores a late one for the Win. We’re going to game 7 Ladies and Gentlemen winner takes it all. Game 7 the Oilers up 2-1 going into the 3rd the hungry Jets would not give up easily Edmonton ends the Jets dreams with a 4-1 win and 4-3 series clincher. Everyone thought the Oilers were done after game 4 the reason why they win the Cup was because of this series unlikely comeback.
Billy Ranford was poor at the start, got himself together in that series and then played outstanding goal the rest of the way. Poor Winnipeg.
Ranford was amazing the rest of the Playoffs. Billy probably tops my list with Moog vs Habs, Joseph against Dallas and Roloson willing us to a Final a close second.
Fuhr beating Hextall in ‘87 is also a happy memory.
Fuhr’s penalty shot save was huge I believe it was on Sutter. We were lucky Tim Kerr was hurt him and Dave Andreychuk were the best in front net presence ever that I can think of. My top 3 Oiler in front of the net presence were. 1. Glenn Anderson 2. Ryan Smyth 3. Craig Simpson.
Oilers were fortunate the opening round had extended to best-of-7 by then. They had twice swept the Jets 3-0 in best-of-5 affairs along the way, but the rules changed in ‘87.
PS: honourable mention to Bill Ranford stopping Dale Hawerchuk on a breakaway in Game 5 of 1990. That was a big turning point.
When the Islanders won 4 in a row they barely made it out of a couple of Series along the way. Gillis, Trottier, Bossy, Tonelli, Sutters, Bourne, Nystrom, Smith and Potvin one of the best all around D-Man ever. The Stanley Cup is the hardest Trophy to Win in any Sport.
Tell me you didn’t watch any of those games without saying so in so many words.
In the Gretzky years the Oilers won 3 of 4 series vs. Calgary, winning 15 games & losing 8.
Surprised this hasn’t been talked about more widely, but most of the teams that got past the first round last season have ranged from inconsistent to way below expectations so far.
What was it 2 less weeks of off-season this year?
Hockey players are creatures of habit. 10-15% less recovery time in the summer appears to be having an affect. Add on some injuries to key players in the playoffs where they may not be fully recovered.
Don’t watch any of the other teams closely, but the Oilers look lethargic at times. Like a bear getting woke up from hibernation early.
Broberg Barrie please.
Never thought I’d see the day that you’d be asking for Barrie. You’ve grown.
The lack of alternatives clears the mind marvellously.
I love it when you speak from experience.
This talk about trades is tantalizing but this is not time to think it’s realistic. Look at Ottawa, they’ve been dreaming of getting a D for awhile now and everyone knows it so it’s basic leverage. You can’t win a trade when you’re desperate. Talk about a call up making a huge impact is also curious. It takes a special call up to make a splash, and Broberg, as talented and valuable as he is, is not that splash me thinks. Not at this point. Neither are the others.
The answer is within. The Oilers have the horses to improve their situation. It boils down to coaching and each and every player listening, playing the best within themselves and tagging each other when they go off the ice with the attitude “now you go get them, I’ll be back and will have your back”. This attitude in infectious, as each player will come to see they’re in it together to honour the system and coaching. Fancy stats, while instructive, doesn’t account for this intangible. Just ask the players on the Islanders dynasty how they felt after every blood and guts game. Mike Bossy’s – even Ryan Smyth’s – back could tell the story. Maybe I’m wrong, but what the heck….
We’ve watched Treliving acquire Hamilton Lindholm Huberdeau Weeger when everyone knew he was desperate. You can’t win a trade when your sleeping at the wheel. How many trades has Holland made are won since he’s come to the real HockeyTown
Painful but true
Other than an out of body experience for Lowe for a few months, the Oilers haven’t had a GM in front of things since Slats
It seems on the napkin about 25% of the GM’s are active, trying to be proactive not reactive. Maybe 5 of those seem strong
Our fella is a good GM, stable and respectful, but not a shaker. He’s be better for a team that needs a quality caretaker that can sell tickets, and has no real aspirations
That is not what Oilers fans want as far as I see it
I wanted Keith Gretzky but the fan base was out for OBC blood even though Keith was more than qualified. Instead we get Holland who settled things down for a cool 25 large while setting his kid up to take over. Keith got fuked over this was his job to be had he was next in line.
Jake Sanderson leads all rookies, with 11 Points. and yes, he’s a Dman.
I believe Matty Beniers leads all rookies in scoring with 14 points.
You are correct my friend. I remember Sanderson’s Dad, great skater. Haven’t seen him play …. Beniers is outstanding !! sorry for the error
No worries obviously!
well, when your team can’t win games, the next best thing to do is cheer against teams they are competing with for a playoff spot.
CALGARY – currently losing in the 3rd
MINNY – currently losing in the 3rd
🙂
Calgary almost has the same record yet their fan base is ooh well another year of being losers at least we get the 16 pick in the draft. Oiler fans on the other hand are going to be irate if we lose the next couple of games. Holland might have to find out where Pete was hiding when he was on his last leg.
Those are two teams I cheer against in perpetuity.
Not Toronto?
Doesn’t really seem fair to limit it to only two or three teams…
Y’know, just sayin. 🙂
The Campbell bet will be interesting to watch.
Best case scenario, he rebounds and maybe he’s an average to slightly above average starter. There’s maybe even a scenario where he goes on a heater and plays like a Vezina calibre goalie for a stretch, but then that’s followed by a downbeat.
Worst case scenario, he’s finished and what would you need to package off the last four years of his contract? At least the contract isn’t buyout proof, but the 3/4 years of the buyout aren’t great.
A middle of the road scenario is that he he our new Mikko only half a million more cap., so a vastly overpriced backup. A cap millstone during the last years of the 29/97 contracts.
Goalies are difficult to predict. They often look different playing on different teams.
You seriously believe this is the ‘middle of the road’ scenario?
11 games at 0.876 is a huge hole to climb out of.
Let’s say assume that Campbell gets 29 more starts this season and runs at his career average of .913, that would have him finishing the year at a .903.
League average this season is .906 which is basically Mikko’s career average.
So the season’s over, you’re the GM of the Oilers. You have a goalie with $5m x 4 years who’s now 31 years old and ran 3 points under league average.
What sort of asset do you expect that you now have?
I don’t know any more Ryan.
Wondering if you saw Willis’s breakdown of Campbell’s multi-year performances at the Athletic.
These extended swoons are the norm, not the exception.
Basically, he’s way below his career average — 37 points off. If this continues to be a community that believes in stats/math *and* we all agree that regression is real, then the most obvious conclusion is Jack Campbell will go on a serious heater at some point this season. Perhaps it will coincide with when the players decide to commit to playing tighter defensive hockey and taking fewer bad penalties. Talk is cheap.
The most likely scenario is Campbell will revert to his historical average exactly as Ryan has outlined.
Sure, there’s a chance he will go on a “Vezina level” run at some point but that is far from an obvious conclusion.
If Campbell runs .913% for his remaining games, Holland would probably assume he has a .913% starting goalie for 4 more years and the goalie had a swoon to begin his Oilers career. If the team wakes the fuck up and actually makes the playoffs, Campbell will have plenty of opportunity to prove his value.
I would only add that his career average of .913 likely consists of various periods of .876 (or thereabouts) and other stretches of .935 (or thereabouts) and it would be logical to think that he’d have “heater stretches” this year and not just play at .913 for the rest – that’s what his history shows, right?
Goalies are notoriously unpredictable. There are no certainties.
There are different possible scenarios. We’ll see.
If I were a billionaire owner of a hockey team, I’d hire a group of derivatives traders or physicists to try to devise a way of as ascertaining who to target via trade or free agency.
Campbell doesn’t really have enough track record to make any certain assumptions.
There’s only a handful of goalies like Hellebuyck that are reliably good, in a starter role, across multiple seasons. These guys are never available.
Even then, these guys that are absolute money in net are only good until they’re not.
John Gibson was absolutely dominant across a four year stretch. He’s only now 29, but he hasn’t been good for four years.
Freddie Andersen sucked in Toronto, has an amazing year in Carolina until getting injured, and now he’s off to a rough start.
Goalie | GP | GAA | SV% | W | L
source: https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/nhl-goalies-stats.html
I’ve sorted by GP and (mostly) cherry picked the negative outliers among famous names and a couple who’ve been proposed as an upgrade here prior to this year.
Apparently JC isn’t the only one having a tough start to the season.
Reimer is looking pretty good right now (at $2.25 MM, I might add). Ullmark is having an insane start, surely that won’t last… will it?
One ray of hope, the next two names following Campbell (ranked 28th by GP) are:
It’s a five year long bet. It’s going to take some while to play out, lol. If Holland is anything it’s patient, especially with the bigger bets. And to a certain degree, he’s right… Goalies have an emotional and mental stress to their game that no other players faces to the same degree. Adjustment periods to new environments aren’t unknown. Even if the signing doesn’t fly as well as hoped this season, then I’m pretty sure Holland will give him every chance to have a bounce-back season next year. That’s my guess, anyways.
For better or for worse, we’re probably locked into this decision for some time. And in truth, it’s a little early to pull the plug on the bet. He wasn’t my first choice for signing, but his play thus far doesn’t automatically mean I was right.
And man, it’s not like the rest of the squad hasn’t played some shit defense in front of him either. The goalie has to trust the skaters as much as the skaters do the goalie. He’s the new guy. How much back and forth confidence is there between the two right now? So I’d say he doesn’t own his whole record, and there are always synergies to the downside as much as there is towards the upside.
The whole team needs to pull their heads out of their asses. I’m cheering for them, but damn they make it tough some days. 😉
And confidence is definitely a thing right now. Up and down the line-up. December last year came in November this year. Woodcroft righted them once. Can he do it again?
Campbell and recent-Skinner will both have to be better for it to happen.
The way I see it, the Oilers need a 2nd pairing LHD & RHD Broberg isn’t the answer and nether is playing players above the ability.
The Oilers could save some CAP dollars by trading ether Bouchard or Barrie, having both players is redundant.
Oilers need to trade assets now. Clock is getting dangerously close to midnight.
Good luck replacing Bouchard for less than a million dollars.
who said it had to be Bouchard?
You post talked about saving cap dollars by trading either Bouchard or Barrie……
How do the Oilers save cap dollars by trading Bouch.
I think the play of each this year has shown that Bouch does not make Barrie redundant, at least not yet.
To this point in the season, Bouchard has helped crater offence at 5 on 5. Its mind-boggling to me given his pedigree and last season but its where we are right now.
Is this the time to throw the young D in the deep end and see if they can swim? I’m sure a trade is coming to shore up the D at some point, but a problem with the current roster construction is known quantities on D playing too high – Ceci on the 1st pairing and Kulak on the 2nd.
Let’s get nuts:
Nurse – Bouchard
Broberg – Ceci
Kulak – Barrie
You are indicating that the D are playing too high yet you are putting the guy with the worst goal differential on the team (maybe in the league) on the first pairing with Nurse.
Its a bit too nuts.
NHL isn’t a development league. with the team the Oilers have putting kids in positions to see if they can make it or not should get every single member of the Oilers organization fired.
Colorado tried Alex Newhook at 2C. Should Sakic and McFarland be fired?
Broberg isn’t Newhook and the Oilers are not Colorado. The teams are completely different.
What do you mean by “Broberg isn’t Newhook”?
I mean, they were drafted 8 spots apart in 2019 and, while its tough to compare d-men to forwards, I would say their relative levels of NHL success are somewhat equatable.
The Oilers were hoping Broberg would take a step and be the opening night 3LD and maybe move up through the year. The Avs were hoping Newhook could help fill the Kadri-hole. Neither have panned out so far.
Well I would say the difference is Broberg has not played an NHL game this season so we really do not know what we have yet.
Yup, like Newhook, Broberg has filed to live up to pre-season expectations – Newhook has been in the NHL and has failed to succeed as the 2C and has played mostly a 3rd line role with middling results.
Broberg failed to grad the 3LD position at camp, perhaps large due to an early camp rib injury, but failed in any event. Now that he’s back up and running and healthy, he’s getting an opportunity to succeed at that position.
Wildly inconsistent is AN identity.
1) Kesselring – this was brought up yesterday and I opined that I think the org would bring Broberg up and even play him a bit on the right side as the primary option. As it turns out, Broberg was recalled this morning and Woody specifically mentioned him and his ability to play the right side.
Kesslering is having a great AHL season and he’s now firmly in the conversation as a real prospect. From listening to Chaulk and Gretzky over the last month, I think the org wants him playing big minutes as a Condor and working on the defensive zone aspect of his game – he is a big rover at the AHL level and the weakest part of his game is in his own zone – he won’t be able to rove like he does at the NHL level and he’ll need to play a “calmer style”.
2) Bourgault – after a dynamic start, he’s come down to earth but is settling in as a pro hockey player. Definitely showing his skill and talents, he impresses every game, but also learning and developing as a pro hockey player – he struggles with the strength of the opponent and will need the year (and off-season) to continue to get stronger. He’s coming.
3) Deharnais – I think his issue now is an infection stemming from the recent surgery. Doesn’t sound like it’ll be long. I know the org loves him at the AHL level – not sure, if he’s got an NHL future.
——————–
I don’t think either Kesselring nor Bourgault will be able to “impact the NHL lineup” but I do see the benefit, at some point, of having each take a sip of coffee at the NHL level, just a couple of games, to give them a sense of the skill and speed and what they need to work on in the AHL playoffs and the off-season to give themselves a chance at camp next season.
That is exactly what I said, in about 500 more words! Well done!! 🙂
Personally, I think there are some individual thoughts and additional details from the words of the Condors GM and head coach in those 500 words but your mileage may vary….
Woody specifically mentions that one of the things he likes about Broberg is that he can play his offside. Now, I’m not personally a fan of this generally but recall Manson did play him quite a bit on his offside at the NHL level last year and Bro had some of his best games on the right side.
Of course Woody didn’t commit to anything but I could see 11/7 tomorrow with Broberg getting shifts on both sides.
woody also non-committal on the starting goalie.
I’m most excited about the prospect of Bro making it as a LH playing by his off side. Would alleviate a roster problem.
Replacing Barrie or Bouchard?
It would seem bumping Kulak to the third pairing might be more beneficial.
Holy hell, I actually agree with Hairball on something. Checks to see if hell froze over…..
Prospectrola!
A bevy of activity on NA ice, as all eight available prospects are in action tonight.
You are asking, “Why only eight?!?” Glad you asked! There is a four-team NCAA tourney being held in Belfast, Northern Ireland this weekend, featuring Brind’Amour and his Quinnipiac squadron. They have already played today, winning 5-2 but the Son of Rod went pointless.
Youngstown (Lachance) @ 5 p.m.
Vermont (Münzenberger, Määttä) @ 5 p.m.
St. Lawrence (Mazura) @ 5 p.m.
North Bay (Petrov) @ 5 p.m.
Brandon (Chiasson) @ 6 p.m.
Moose Jaw (Wanner) @ 8 p.m.
Seattle (Schaefer) @ 8 p.m.
All times, as always, are Pendryl time.
The old Pendryl store closed down this fall. They had good pizza and ice cream.
Was reading through the Athletic power rankings today and noticed an awful lot of teams with similar records.
Checked the standings and indeed there are 12(!) teams with a record somewhere between 11-10 and 9-11. Forgive me if I’m off by a point or two, it’s Friday.
The Oilers are the anomaly in that they have no loser points; and yes, the underlying numbers and the eye test are both concerning at this point; and yes, we all thought the team would be one of the good ones instead of one of the just-ok ones. But with all due respect to our host (and that’s a lot), I do think it’s a bit early to start fretting about missing the playoffs when nearly half the entire league is similarly stuck in neutral. This is salary cap era hockey, peeps.
Does play automatically stop when the goalie looses a glove like we saw in the Wednesday game?
Good to see Broberg up. I Want to see him play 15 mins a night none of this 11-7 garbage. If he isn’t helping the team then send him back down.
I think the Oilers can bounce back and be the better team for it but it better start soon or the hill will be too big to climb. I haven’t noticed many 2 on 1’s against the Oilers this season which is good but once the Oilers get chasing in their zone they break down easily. Usually its Bouchard who fails to tie up his man and its in the back of the net. I’ve come to the realization that the sky is blue and Bouchard will be on the ice for the first goal against the Oilers. At this point I don’t even care about his offensive draught. I thought Rishaug had an accurate scathing summary of Bouchard on Gregor’s show yesterday saying he doesn’t seem to have the ability to recognize danger in his end. He doesn’t have his head on a swivel to pick up guys before it’s too late.
Not NHL level defending. Either has minimal interest in defending or minimal defensive awareness.
Looks like a combination of both
And a propensity to fly the zone early.
Noticed that a couple of times last game.
Yup you’re right. He’s clearly talented but he’s just so darn unaware and to my eyes, disinterested in his own end, especially in front of the net, Can you teach that stuff? I’d hazard a guess and say no
LT has the article on RNH ! What a consistent player.
RNH this season:
20 Games. 9 Goals. 12 Assists. 21 Points.
Projection: 49 Points
RNH-MCDAVID-PULJUJARVI
KOSTIN-DRAI-HYMAN
FOEGLE-MCLEOD-JANMARK
HOLLOWAY-RYAN
I feel like RNH & McD have been playing well together.
Give Drai a sniper (Kostin) and good player (Hyman).
I feel like you CAN’T play McLeod and Holloway together. So give McLeod 2 veterans and see if they can start to out score their comp.
Cycle Holloway up and down the lineup depending on injuries, game state, etc …
Throw 97 & 29 out for 1 – 4th line shift per period. Try to catch the other team with their 4th line on.
When has Klim Kostin ever been a sniper..
🙂 a little humor for sure. He’s got a good shot. and to your question, it looks like he has never score much at any level … How was he a 1st round pick?
He was dominant in the Russian junior leagues when he was 16 and 17 (35 goals in 33 games in the Russian U16 and 10 goals in 10 games in the Russian U17) and highly ranked by NHL European scouts because of his size and physical skills. He did very well at the 2016 Ivan Hlinka tournament as well shortly before the draft.
He probably hurt his own development choosing only to play in men’s league’s at 17 (MHL/KHL). So once Kostin was drafted (31st overall in 2017, which is only 1 spot higher than Benson in 2016), St. Louis had him playing in the AHL at 18. He was physically strong enough and fast enough, but his lack of experience likely had him not getting enough touches to better develop his puck skills. Getting 28 points as an 18 year old rookie in the AHL was pretty good, but he doesn’t seem to have really progressed much offensively from there.
Thanks for the info 🙂
Good insights – thank you.
NCAA Football, Basketball, NFL, NBA, NHL and to complete the Parlay World Cup Soccer. It’s a good time to be alive if your a sports fan.
We’re watching in real time as the MNT climb up the world rankings and challenge the FIFA elite.
Broberg up, Niemelainen down.
I thought Niems was starting to get comfortable. He had a better game defending last game but still treating the puck like a grenade.
Gonna miss his physicality but he will benefit from touching the puck more in the Bake.
Hope Bro knocks it outta the park, if for nothing else, to shut up his haters for a bit.
I’m not trying to jinx the kid but how long before Broberg gets hurt? Everytime I watch him he puts his body in compromising positions way to often. Maybe that why he was trying to beef up so quickly.
I haven’t watched his play in Bake but have heard this from others reporting.
That was something I hated seeing from Klefbom, tbh. He would get nailed against the boards, repeatedly, game after game. I started off thinking “this kid is tough. He’ll take a hit to make a play” but over time I started to wonder if he lacked a sense of awareness regarding those plays. A lot of guys will spin off or juke out of the way but he never mastered that play and mostly just took the hit.
Hope Broberg figures that out.
A week or two earlier than projected but this was the clear move coming.
Managment was certainly going to let this player get up to speed and give him some real track in the NHL before any material external move on D.
He had a rib injury all camp long and still played decent. He’s been very good in all zones in his 4 AHL games (although still took a beating every game with sticks to the face, etc.).
Im sure he starts at 3LD but he’s the one internal option they could step up to 2LD this season. The hope is he fills that spot in the next few months and the team is rolling.
Sure, many will be upset at losing Niemo’s aggression but he is a 3rd pairing tweener with no deal projection of ever being more.
This team needs help in the top 4 and Broberg has the potential to bring that help later this year.
Necessary move. Now stay healthy Bro!
It’s encouraging to know Broberg was injured at camp and he still played. Ribs are tough to deal with. I think Holland needs to give Broberg 20 games in the NHL before he makes a move. Who knows the kid may play great and we could be talking about upgrading the right side on D.
That’s exactly it.
Is Broberg going to be the 2LD needed to help the roster this season? Probably not but, then again, maybe so.
He’s got the pedigree, the skill-set and, now, the experience. He’s got the AHL experience and some legit cups of coffee at the NHL level. He’s now healthy and up to speed and ready to go.
At some point, this player is likely to “pop” and it very well could be over the next few months.
If he doesn’t, well, then its on Holland to provide some external help but it behooves the org to see how Broberg plays for the next while.
I’m cautiously optimistic!
If Broberg doesn’t stem the bleeding the Oiler’s defensive zone … after 20 games it won’t matter, cause the Oilers will firmly be a lottery team by then.
So I will ask the question. What exactly is Yamo’s injury and why are we hearing nothing? At least he would help the PK. He’s been out for a while and crickets.
Tell me just how he would help the PK?
Because he is actually pretty effective on the PK…..
Suspect it’s concussion. Vage timeline for return, etc.
All signs point to concussion.
We’ve head about it when the media has asked Woody and as much as any other player out. Listed as day to day with an upper body injury. Woody was asked right before the trip if it had morphed in to more than day to day and Woody said it hadn’t and then Yamo had “stacked a good day on a good day” and that he may join the team on the trip.
Of course, he hasn’t joined the team so he didn’t progress to the point they had hoped, but there hasn’t been any “secrecy” about this any more than any other injury I don’t think….
43% is a dog’s breakfast of a team.
I did not expect a regression to post 2017 playoff numbers.
Good test for the two big guns:
Can they get their 5v5 numbers up to out scoring the opposition?
I’m noticing a lot of McDavid-Draisaitl criticism and that’s fine, the numbers need to be better.
I do have some concerns about how high even the Campbell games are. All numbers five-on-five from NST.
Draisaitl-Skinner five-on-five: 2.61 goals-against per 60
Draisaitl-Campbell five-on-five: 4.94
McDavid-Skinner: 1.83
McDavid-Campbell: 3.50
That’s a gap.
If Leon and Connor start taking too much heat the Coach needs to step in and up by deflecting the heat off our heart and soul of the team.
Or… the coach could step in and do some coaching.
What’s going on with this team?
Is Evander the heart and soul of this team after 40 games?
What happened to last spring’s team?
What happened to happy Jay Woodcroft with his positive verbosity and his ability to get this team to play hard for 60 minutes per game?
Kane seems to speak his mind and is very outgoing. Not only do we miss him on the ice but in the dressing room. We lost Archie and Kassian 2 Veterans that seemed outgoing as well. To me it looks like we have a very quiet and soft spoken team. This is just my opinion but I feel we need a couple of crazy pricks to balance it out.
This site has had many posters be heavily critical of Mike Smith and his fiery personality. Contrary to the view that the players bristled at his “antics”, I believe the Oilers loved playing with Mike Smith and had no issue with his demeanor. He hated to lose, as did Keith, and that rubbed off on the players around him.
I think the Oilers are still trying to find out how to replace the loss of those two veterans in the team chemistry even more so than Kassian and Archie.
There is not one answer to what blend of personalities is required to be a championship team, but the Oilers appear, from the outside, to need to figure out which players are going to compel accountability from everyone else. I doesn’t just have to be McDavid or Draisaitl, thought they have to be a big part of it.
I don’t remember posters on here being upset with Smith’s personality?? I do remember them (and me) being upset that Smith would usually let in 1 soft goal every 2nd game AND that he would give up a Freebie about once every 4 games when mishandling the puck ..
I still maintain if Edmonton had Average Goaltending against Colorado last year, Edmonton wins that series. Smith was terrible in that series
Many posters would comment on Smith allegedly yelling at or staring at his own defensemen or players after a goal against and on how much of an ass they (his teammates) must think he is. They have even commented this year on how refreshing they find Campbell’s demeanour towards his teammates.
Yes, no question Smith had a couple of bad games against Colorado. That’s not the only reason they lost the series. The Oilers probably aren’t even in the playoffs without his stellar play over his last 15 regular season games. He also had a .927 save% in the two rounds prior to the Colorado series.
While Smith did let in bad goals overall, I think you are misremembering the frequency of that occurrence and same with the frequency of goals against for mishandling.
On that last point, the Oilers d-men and coaches often mentioned that yes once and a while his puck handling would lead to a goal against, that the good that came from it far outweighed the bad.
Smith had 15 of 27 quality starts (56 percent). The last Oilers goalie to do that in a full season was Mike Smith in 2020-21 (63 percent) and before that it was Cam Talbot 2016-17 (59 percent).
Smith couldn’t stay healthy. That’s a big deal.
I am not clear on whether you are criticizing someone on Smith having trouble staying healthy.
I’m not criticizing anyone and am not ripping Smith either. He was strong in the Oilers net but they couldn’t count on him. If anything, I’m pointing at age and erosion. Smith played well when healthy, I don’t think there’s a reasonable argument against it.
Ok thanks. I understood the stats you showed of him were favourable and that you wouldn’t blame Smith for his injuries either.
My reason for asking was based on a lot of the criticism many others directed at Holland right through to the end of their playoff run for having him on the team in the first place (ie. for taking a chance on a 39/40 year old goalie).
No question, the risk of injury was there for sure, though Holland did explore other options. Injuries and all, I think Smith helped the Oilers get as far last season as any option could have that Holland had still available to him when he re-upped Smith for only $2.2 million.
We’ll never know what might have happened if the team had decided that Smith’s physical condition through 2 rounds had degraded to the point that Koskinen should take the net in the 3rd round. It couldn’t have ended up any worse in that round, but hindsight is 20/20.
Holland’s history is that he has no concern at all about the birth certificate, but does value the numbers being posted. I think his Campbell bet is similar, and suspect he’s thinking in terms of years instead of games. Patience is his calling card. I have no idea if it will work out, but like the bet more than Mike Smith and he was excellent.
Yes patient indeed. Holland’s been here going on 4 years and Campbell is only the 4th tender to start a game for the Oilers and Holland inherited 2 of them: Koskinen and Skinner (signed and drafted, respectively, by Chiarelli).
I had hoped Holland could have gotten a longer term solution last summer before Smith was re-upped as well. I too think some patience is required to evaluate Campbell. While he has been more bad than good, the team’s lack of predictability in front of him is not helping him get into a groove.
Maybe people forget how bad/inconsistent Talbot and Smith were at the start of their first seasons with the Oilers. Talbot first 12 starts yielded an .890 save % and 3 wins. Talbot effectively lost the starter’s job to Nilsson in mid-November but then grabbed it back in Mid-December. For the balance of the season Cam’s save % was .924. Smith was 7-9-3 before Jan 3, 2020 with a save% of .892. He then went 12-3-3 through to the shut down with a .912%. Both these fellas got legitimate Vezina votes in their 2nd seasons with the club.
If Edmonton had average goaltending against the Kings, they likely lose that series though, right? I mean, he was excellent overall in that series, right?
Kane has been around the team quite a bit and is even on the current road trip as I saw a picture of him in the new NYI arena. Of course they miss him a ton but it seems he remains “in the room”.
Archie wasn’t on the ice or in the room for most of last year.
I don’t think his absence has one iota of a negative effect in that regard.
Also a gap: run support.
McDavid-Skinner: 1.83 GF/60
McDavid-Campbell: 3.11 GF/60
Draisaitl-Skinner: 2.24 GF/60
Draisaitl-Campbell: 4.12 GF/60
Net results aren’t great with either goalie.
McDavid-Skinner: 50.00 GF%
McDavid-Campbell: 47.06 GF%
Draisaitl-Skinner: 46.15 GF%
Draisaitl-Campbell: 45.45 GF%
I feel like blaming Campbell isn’t the correct answer here. I certainly haven’t been happy with his play, but he’s not the leading factor in McDrai’s 5v5 goal differential issue.