The Edmonton Oilers delivered an exceptional performance on Saturday night, and fans hope they can do it again. Vegas Golden Knights were fire in Game 1, but chased it Saturday. Who will have the edge tonight? I expect we’ll see a game that sees both sides have success during the first 60, and a one-goal game for one side or the other. It could go to overtime.
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: The Edmonton Oilers’ 6 biggest playoff surprises so far
- Lowetide: Identifying a 2023 NHL Draft sleeper prospect for the Oilers
- New DNB: Oilers flash power-play strength, ‘identity’ in Vegas
- Lowetide: Oilers’ young players taking on bigger role in 2023 playoffs
- DNB: Why Oilers’ playoff fate depends on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins finding another gear
- DNB: Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl’s 4-goal outburst doesn’t mask Game 1 disappointment
- Lowetide: 6 keys to Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft’s playoff success
- DNB: Why Oilers’ Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl combo is the ultimate luxury: ‘It’s magic’
- Lowetide: Why the Oilers beat the Kings — and can beat the Golden Knights
- Lowetide: 6 biggest AHL Bakersfield Condors stories from 2022-23 season
- DNB: Oilers move on to Round 2 after Kailer Yamamoto’s goal rescues them from Stuart Skinner’s blooper
- Lowetide: What’s Oilers prospect Dylan Holloway’s future NHL role?
- Lowetide: Oilers’ forward-heavy pipeline suggests defence-driven 2023 NHL Draft
- Lowetide: Stock up or down for every Oilers prospect in the system
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects, winter 2022
HEAVY, HEAVY FUEL
Jay Woodcroft is testing the boundaries of chemistry with his line combinations this spring. That isn’t true, but it feels true. Here are the top postseason lines by time-on-ice, with the results via NaturalStatTrick. All numbers five-on-five.
- Kane-McDavid-Draisaitl: 43 minutes, 3-3 goals, 50 pct expected goals
- Foegele-McLeod-Ryan: 36 minutes, 1-1 goals, 84 pct expected goals
- Nuge-McDavid-Hyman: 28 minutes, 0-1 goals, 67 pct expected goals
- Hyman-Nuge-Bjugstad: 24 minutes, 2-0 goals, 26 pct expected goals
- Kane-McDavid-Hyman: 24 minutes, 0-1 goals, 49 pct expected goals
- Kane-Draisaitl-Yamamoto: 21 minutes, 1-2 goals, 55 pct expected goals
- Nuge-Draisaitl-Yamamoto: 20 minutes, 0-1 goals, 53 pct expected goals
- Foegele-McLeod-Bjugstad: 18 minutes, 0-0 goals, 57 pct expected goals
- Hyman-McDavid-Draisaitl: 17 minutes, 4-0 goals, 45 pct expected goals
If Woodcroft runs Kane-McDavid-Draisaitl, then it follows Hyman-Nuge-Bjugstad and Foegele-McLoed-Ryan are the other two lines. It appears the die is cast or close as it pertains to lines. So, expect completely different units tonight! Draisaitl played with six different forwards at five-on-five on Saturday night: McDavid 6:10; Hyman 4:27; Kane 3:49; Nuge 3:10; Yamamoto 2:51; Kostin 1:19.
Woodcroft shuffles lines often, but McDavid rotates most of the time with two of Kane (76 minutes), Hyman (71), Draisaitl (68) and Nuge (31). All numbers five-on-five, no other forward is over 12 minutes.
Bottom line, we know the lines and pairings. We know the Oilers are going to run the top two lines and top two pairings until they get a lead they can hold. If you wanna run cool, you gotta run on heavy, heavy fuel.
POSSIBLE 2023-24 ROSTER
- Signed RFA’s Bouchard, McLeod, Kostin, Lavoie and Philp to walls and bridges contracts
- Traded Warren Foegele for a pick (Philadelphia)
- Bought out Kailer Yamamoto (I did it to annoy you)
- Signed UFA’s Barbashev, Ryan, Bjugstad
I’m not sure Cody Ceci stays either, but couldn’t find a reasonable replacement in a quick race among the ruins of free agency. He isn’t 100 percent, or at least hasn’t been. I kept Brett Kulak because he keeps reminding me every night what he can do. Yes this comes in with money to spare.
The big moves are Barbashev in over Yamamoto, Broberg sliding ahead of Desharnais, and a youth movement based on qualified personnel graduating to the bottom-six forwards. I signed Derek Ryan and Nick Bjugstad over Mattias Janmark, could have signed all three but Dylan Holloway needs to be free.
DYLAN HOLLOWAY
When he was drafted, I compared Dylan Holloway to a bunch of college kids. One of them was Reilly Smith. Over his development time, other players have shown themselves to be similar at times. Smith’s offense popped one year later than Holloway, but they are both on track in draft +3. Holloway went 3-6-9 in 51 part-time games with Edmonton, Smith scored 3-6-9 in 37 with the Dallas Stars.
Smith would blossom at 22, scoring 20 goals and 51 points in 82 games with the Boston Bruins. He got traded over the summer (in the Tyler Seguin deal) and emerged as a most useful NHL player. I think that’s about where Holloway is now, opportunity awaits. I’m not sure about his offense, but it’s time to find out.
TONIGHT
There isn’t much to say about this game. The Oilers have a template that works, we saw it in Game 2. Vegas, same, in Game 1. Get the jump on the other guy, score soonafter being scored on, stay out of the penalty box and mark your man like it’s 1966 and you’re Claude Provost.
I’m not sure there’s much to say now, today. You are unlikely to see much of Vincent Desharnais or Philip Broberg when the game is in doubt, and you’ll see a lot of them if it is another blowout. Running the heavies this hard may be necessarry but it increases fatigue and possible injury. I’m not being critical, Vegas is a formidable team and there’s just no way this series has been decided. Game 3 is massive right up until it’s over. I think this goes seven.
The fear factor and desparation will grow as the series goes along. Hockey players know better than ever losing Game 3 and then playing a flaccid Game 4 (like the Toronto Maple Leafs yesterday) would result in all kinds of hell breaking loose. Both teams have worked too hard to get here, worked too hard to make this the year, to play poorly tonight. Edmonton has enormous riches, including Leon Draisaitl playing as well as any human in playoff memory, and the omnipotent Connor McDavid.
The time is now.
LOWETIDE AND JAMIESON
We’ll have coverage of the coverage inside the coverage about Game 3, plus the draft lottery 10-2 today on TSN1260. Your questions and comments welcome (where were you when the McDavid lottery flattened a nation?) at 10-1260. See you on the radio!
LT I think what’s happening is where your site is on a lower-cost shared server, there are probably a lot of security issues amongst the hundreds of sites sharing the server. Losing a couple of days is perhaps BlueHost reverting to a safe backup due to some security breach on another customers site.
If Ryan reads this, I’d recommend jumping to SiteGround… they even do the site transfer for you. Its more expensive but their security and backup system and support is the best.
You could register a KOHO card, it’s a reloadable VISA that anyone can email funds to, instantly appears on the card. Would allow your readers to chip in and cover the monthly costs of siteground
Here’s a thread we can chat in
https://lowetide.ca/2023/05/10/game-four-round-2-golden-knights-at-oilers-game-chat/
If you missed it here’s today’s article at The Athletic focusing on the best lines for tonight
https://theathletic.com/4500570/2023/05/10/oilers-mcdavid-draisaitl-lines-vegas/
John Shannon
@JShannonhl
·
3m
Certainly sounds like Zach Hyman will be in the line-up for the #Oiler vs #VGK.
— if we really are stuck in a parallel time continuum and it’s 2 days ago do this: short AirBnB and Twilio. Bet that Santos gets arrested and the Jays get swept in Philly. Back the truck up.
Currently on with Bluehost and trying to restore last two days. Taking time to do it.
Thank you….
You bet. I think this site is just too damn big and old.
thought it was just me the site broke on
that gudas hit was vicious
I don’t have the game on, but the longer that Cats-Leafs contest stays scoreless, the more the pressure mounts on the Leafs, no?
Houston we have a website problem….
— awesome Lowetide is now a time portal. I’m back a day in time with the knowledge of the day that just happened!
“Adin Hill hasn’t started an NHL game in 2 months. He gets the nod tonight.”
Company leader to identify Baker Team- Rambo, Messner, Ortega, Coletta, Jurgensen, Barry, Krakauer confirm!
This is Colonel Trautman.
Talk to me Johnny!
Oops wrong channel.
Dang. Issues with the website again?
The ONLY thing I’ve learned about playoff hockey this year is that no single team has shown the abilty to sustain anything close to the dominance you’d expect to see from a Cup champion. Teams like Carolina and Dallas get close and then completely shit the bed.
I’d think a truly dominant team would have a range of outcomes between an overwhelming win, to a close win, to a close loss; but rarely would be outclassed. Is there some truth to this?
The Avs last year had 6 blowout wins, 1 blowout loss, 10 close wins and 3 close losses.
Florida has been mostly able to do that other than the one 6-2 loss to Boston.
The Oilers as well fit that narrative. When they lose they lose close. When they win they win close OR convincingly. So far we’ve got 2 blowout wins, 0 blowout losses, 3 close wins and 3 close losses.
So either that trend continues with a 2-1 OT win/loss tonight or if they are just another team…they lose 5-1.
nicely done, kt
The Knights coach pointed out that there wasn’t much they could do, because they didn’t have the puck. Oilers owned the puck; they were playing hard & fast, winning battles and not giving up the puck. I suggest this is the template to defeat the VGK and moving on to win the cup.
Who knew the answer to “who will be our 2006 Pisani this playoff?” Would be Bouchard? Pisani earned himself a huge raise in that playoff and Bouchard is doing exactly that.
Nice touch on the buyout “to annoy you”, but I think that buyout puts your roster over $83.5M (assuming that was your starting point).
I could be mistaken, but I think your roster would be compliant with a trade to remove Yamamoto from the roster rather than the spiteful buyout 😉
Don’t see this going 7.
So, the Oilers need 3 more wins to end round 2 in their favour. At a 66.6% win rate, they would need 4.5 games and would have to round up to 5 games to satisfy the outcome equation.
However, one of the VGK wins was in the ‘Bettman’ session during the regular season. Call that game a ‘tie” and disregard it for both teams. The Oilers then improve to a 80% success rate (4 wins out of 5 games). Projection would then be Oilers in 6!
Is LB the new Markstrom? Is he shattered mentally by seeing the Germanator come over the boards?
Oilers in 5! GOG
Love the write up LT. You have been so spot on this year. 🙂
GAME 2 shocked me! So I am hoping for more of the same from the Orange and Blue.
No Idea what to predict. Just know that Rogers place will be jumping and the path to Stanley is begging the Oilers to get past the Knights.
LETS GO OILERS !!!!!!!!!!!!
— Leaf nation in a tiffy. When I drop kids off I get to listen to talk radio. On the weekend the talking heads were all trying to convince themselves that the Leafs were in an ideal situation to be playing game 3 in Florida away from the press here and it was going to be great.
— Today of course it’s who are they going to move out in off season. Is Dubas safe, etc.
— Personally I think that locking up all of Marner Tavares Nylander Matthew’s at all cost was their error. : should have picked 3 of 4 and had more flexibility.
— Leafs Oilers final looking doubtful….
— A big win tonight I think is an opportunity for Oil to make a statement: “we are the ones to beat”. They know this.
Signing Tavares was and always will be the mistake.
Prioritized a UFA ahead of his three RFAs who’d done nothing but get better each and every day, set a very high bar for all their salaries, assured there would be a Shiny New Toy wearing the C and prevented them from fixing their backend and goal. It messed with the Feng Shui
— Maybe he was the wrong one. But he was a good get perfect age, wanted to be here, stud, knew what you were getting Vs projecting (they all turned out basically what you’d hope best case in hindsight) etc.
— It did box them in for sure.
That is not the position the Leafs were in when JT was signed.
The Leafs were trending hard upward the two years before Tavares. Jumping from 69 to 95 to 105 points in the first three seasons of having the Big Three playing every game. After the Tavares signing it took them four years to get back to the 17/18 point pace.
At the time JT was signed the Leafs were already 3.5 lines deep at forward with one of the better prospect pools at the position. Everyone there from the Big Three through Kapanen, Johnsson, Hyman, Kadri, Van reimsdyk and Connor Brown were all under team control.
Dubas used his first signing to add to the teams best position at the highest possible price right before he had to pay his own drafted and developed players. All the while knowing that cause of the flip flop focus on F over D for a five year stretch TO’s window would be opening right as it was trying to integrate a ton of Rookies on the backend (which is exactly what’s played out).
Its almost like Dubas didn’t actually look at his team before taking the run of all runs at Tavares.
The only way it makes sense was if Matthews told Dubas he’s a two and done on his TO contracts. I have time for that argument because its the only one that could make sense.
One of the things I’d like to figure it is what is “allowable” for a GM in various situations. You mention a key element here. He was the right age, they were going to get a few good seasons before the downturn. If you’re trying to win, who else was there to bet on?
I don’t know how to specifically rate any of these big transactions, but I think that one was justifiable even with the obvious risk. Trying to win Stanley means piling talent up brick by brick.
In real time my thoughts were, “well that just shortened the window to win” ….
The Leafs have been a Good Team. There problem year in and year out is that they have been scraping the Barrell to try and add depth due to the Top Heavy Big 4. And it just hasn’t worked.
Dubas has also cleaned out the prospect closet now, so the Leafs will most likely have to try and move one of the Big Four and then get a better blueline and roll the dice.
Love Johnny T, but the Leafs bought his declining years and now he is largely ineffective at 5×5.
And he remains the 5th highest paid player in the league (drops to 7th next year).
At no point during the deal has he been a top 5 or top 7 player in the league.
The big mistake was signing Tavares as a UFA. It raised the bar for the Mathews and Marner deals. The wrong deal the minute it was signed.
I love it. Leaf fans are pointing the finger every which way trying to assign blame on this player or that, the GM, the coach.
There is a feeling of resignation in Toronto that the team as presently constructed is toast. I for one can’t wait for the purge to begin.
Ultimately IMO, the buck stops with the boy blunder and his construction of the roster and with the coach, who has been there for a few years riding out a huge regular season winning percentage but can’t motivate his squad to adapt in the playoffs.
Aside from O’Reilly, there is no grit or push back on the team. No drive to compete.
Also, in what world are we getting Bouchard at 2 mil on a bridge? Are we talking a one year deal?
One year is best option right now, Two has him expiring same time as Dra, three has him expiring same time as McD, four has him going to FA. Saleable to agent and player as next year Cap will resume normal rise with escrow debt retired. Buys both sides time to reach a normal salary envirnment.
Too much deference to an opponent attempting to play the exact same style as a team that is flat out better than them. Colorado and Tampa respected their opponents, but there was never doubt in their minds over who was better. Oiler fans should take the same approach.
Watch Leon after game one. Watch McD and Leon after game two. Watch Woody everyday.
Ice in their veins.
This series is already over. It was over at the puck drop of the first game regardless of the score. Just like the Flames series last year.
When you lose game 1, as the Oilers so often do, you have to win 2 in a row at one time to win the series. No time like the present, on home ice. It would be nice to not have to chase a series (for our collective blood pressure).
Logic would suggest we are going to get something in the middle of games 1 and 2, which Oilers fans should be okay with. Then again, Seattle and Dallas have been trading lopsided victories, so who knows?
New Jersey and Carolina as well — but I don’t think that’s the case here.
Vegas should adjust and have a better game, but I thought a lot of the Oilers’ success was the result of the forwards doing a much better job supporting the defence — and that’s something completely within Edmonton’s control.
So I’m predicting a closer game, but one the Oilers win in regulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZBF9oMfQE
“put a quarter right into that can all that played was disco man, c’mon baby, baby let’s get outta here right away.”
Make ’em scream and shout, boys. LFG
That was Game 3 for the Leafs last night, LT. And already flaccid. Although I thought they were full measure in the first two.
But the Leafs did fail to get up for the game down two already. Manwood aren’t in the same bed and can come back from a game 3 loss.
The Leafs got up just fine for their games. Their starts have been good to great.
They haven’t closed.
In the first two they played hard to the final whistle.
Weird to see a projected next year roster mid playoff run, but I’m here for it.
Rather than bridge, what’s the price on 8 more years of Bouchard? 7.5? I might make that my off season priority and do the painful things necessary to make it work.
Yeah, I agree. Not sure if it’s that high but I would guess that $2M is too low even for a bridge deal. The cheapest contract might be the one that takes him straight to UFA status. I don’t think the Barbashev signing will happen to have room to sign Bouchard, and Foegele and Yamamoto may still have to go. If that’s the case, I think you still have to do it.
Next year is better by far for a long term deal, unless the escrow debt is retired this year or renegotiated to allow for a normal increase to 87.5 in the cap for next season. Otherwise we gut the roster for one guy. Not just robbing Peter to pay Paul, but robbing Mary and Joseph as well.A one year is very saleable as the Cap will be much much higher after next season to allow for a better outcome for the player long term.
Big game on home ice… same old stats around 70% on the series for the winner…
https://puckdrunklove.net/2015-articles/statistically-which-game-is-the-most-important-in-an-nhl-playoff-series.html
Skate – Forecheck – Defense – Discipline – Sticks up!
Looking for Nuge to have a noticeable game tonight
Seriously… where is OP? Did he get a red card? Bueller?
Sticks up, or keep your stick on the ice. Which is best?
On the ice should prevent accidental high sticking (see Bouchard, Evan vs Kings).
Great post, Lowetide! I still have to pinch myself before every game to remind me this is real, we are here. I was 13 during the ‘06 run. It made me a fan for life. Now I have a daughter of my own and getting to share this together is one of the greatest joys of my life. Cheers!