There are times in life when fun things begin to wear and become a burden. Such is the case with the Edmonton Oilers. Enjoy your day and the people you love. the Oilers will be worth discussing again.
For all the talk of how Mcdavid must be so mad about how bad the team is…he is tied for 65th in league scoring. Sam Gagner has as many even strength goals as Draisaitl and more than Connor. If Connor is unhappy about the team’s record he could really help by scoring on the breakaways he gets and creating some goals for the team. The play of Connor, Leon and Nuge is about half the reason the team is below .500 right now…
McSorley33
November 6, 2023 10:30 pm
Woodys PK will end it…
Brantford Boy
November 6, 2023 8:15 am
It appears Ziggy is not impressed… this is clearly not the place where walks occur or treats are handed out from a drive-thru window!
maudite
November 5, 2023 9:15 pm
Tonight was the 5th devil’s game I’ve watched this year. I’m pretty certain I wish the oilers would have signed McLeod brother to 1 yr @ 2ish million over brown.
The Oilers would have had to run with a 20 player roster (with no injuries) to make that swap.
OriginalPouzar
November 5, 2023 7:51 pm
James Hamblin.
Well, at least he’ll work hard tomorrow night….
jp
November 5, 2023 7:05 pm
This is a bit random, but I was looking at the league standings.
I was told last night by more than one poster that the Oilers season is already lost, and to ‘look at what they’d need to do’ to get to a playoff spot.
So today I looked at the current standings. By points% the last East wild card team is currently at .550 and the last West WC team is at .545. That’s 90 and 89 points in a full season.
Last season the numbers were a bit higher – .561 and .579 (92 and 95 points), and the previous year they were higher again (100 and 97 points).
Over the previous three full seasons the Oilers played .648 hockey (106 points per 82 games). And in the 1.5 years under Woodcroft they played .683 hockey (112 points).
If the Oilers play .648 hockey (as they did on average over the past three years) for the rest of this season, they’ll finish with 98 points. If they play like they did previously under Woodcroft, they’ll finish with 103 points.
They obviously need to get back to being the team they were, but if they do then they’re highly likely to at least earn a playoff spot.
I wasn’t really sure how big a playoff hole they’ve put themselves in, but was pleasantly surprised to see it’s a damn long way from an insurmountable climb.
Note: Dom’s model at the Athletic now has the Oilers finishing 4th in the Pacific with 96 points tied with Minnesota who are projected to take 4th in the Central but only 2 points ahead of Nashville.
The # 6, 7 and 8 teams in the WC are on pace for 98 (ANA), 90 (WPG) and 89 (STL) points.
If the Oilers play at their 3-season average the rest of the way (and those teams maintain their current trajectory) the Oilers will finish ahead of all 3 of those teams.
You already did which is why I threw in the Tocchet record.
You are assuming that all the teams in competition will continue to play at their current pace while the Oilers are the only team that will from horrid to world beaters.
If they stay there it doesn’t matter how many games the Oilers have in hand, so why bring it up?
The Central team to watch is STL.
The Oilers need 7 points to pass them for the final wildcard which us likely their best path to make the post season if all of Minnesota, Nashville and Seattle flame out.
It’ s not insurmountable. But there are very serious reasons for concern. After yesterday, it’s not unreasonable to think they could miss the playoffs. They can go 0.648 in the next 10.
But the defense is all time bad, the big guns aren’t firing, McDavid’s injured, the goalies are fragile, the “new system” isn’t working, Broberg isn’t even third pairing, Brown isn’t the add we thought he was, and it’s doubtful they can add another Ekholm at deadline.
I certainly didn’t say there’s no reason for concern, or that they couldn’t miss the playoffs.
But the defense is all time bad
It’s the exact same defense as last year (aside from having Ekholm instead of Barrie all season).
Everything is shit now. And yes, it is bad.
But the same damn players and coaches accumulated 109 points last season and had the #2 goal differential in the NHL.
I’m honestly a bit amazed that near everyone seems to think that the 109 point/#2 goal differential team and coaches have actually turned into a pile of shit over the summer.
The “same players” have not “played the same” over the 10 game sample. Their performance over these 10 games – what McDavid is calling “death by a thousand cuts” is all time bad.
GordieHoweHatTrick
November 5, 2023 6:56 pm
Stop making sense
this is one of the best days of quality comments I have read in my about 8 years of nearly daily reading!
That’s fair. There’s no way for us to know if he’s going to come back 100%, so I’m just speculating that if you put him on retro LTIR and give him more time to heal it might be better because too often, guys seem to be coming back before they should.
Harpers Hair
November 5, 2023 4:33 pm
Jack Hughes out week to week with an upper body injury.
Too bad for the young man who was having a monster season,
samIam
November 5, 2023 4:04 pm
Which model matters? The following shows R2 for November 5th, 2022 5v5 measures to 82 GP GF% for the 2022-2023 season.
When predicting end of season 5v5 GF%, measures taken November 5th have value. “Non-advanced” measures like SF%, GF%, G60 and HDGA60 are predictive. Defensive measures exhibit higher R2 to 82 game 5v5 GF% than offensive measures.
EDM’s poor rankings for GF% and HDGF% are significant and meaningful.
EDM’s poor rankings for GF% and HDGF% are significant and meaningful.
Interesting work.
Edmonton’s current poor GF% and HDGF% does appear to be meaningful.
I guess you’d conclude their current excellent SF%, FF%, SCF%, xGF% and CF% are even more meaningful though? (all better correlated to full season 5v5 GF%). Or were you taking away something different?
Also, you mentioned significant, how did you look at that?
No one can predict the future and strictly speaking none of these “models” are great.
It’s no longer in fashion to point towards a certain single measure or model for prediction. The better sites will use game simulations and will recalculate future states using the most recent results, like this one.
If you repeat my analysis, across the sixteen (or thirteen for 82 GP) seasons of Corsi data R2 will be different for each measure in each season, and the rank may change. When analytics used CF% as the best measure for predicting FGF% it was considered a strong predictor with an R2 value that was between 0.33 and 0.38.
The values in my little analysis here are surprisingly high in comparison but this is with a 9 to 11 game sample (November 5th cut-off) used to predict within-season FGF% at 82 games. I would say that a measure between 0.3 and 0.5 is waving at you, saying: “Pay attention to me!”
Where I’m going with this is that if an analyst or blogger is pointing towards EDM’s healthy xGF% and saying “nothing to see here” regarding their GF% or slot shots against, that’s clearly wrong. EDM is a team with talented offence and seriously flawed defence and goaltending. The defence is so flawed currently, it’s difficult to evaluate the goaltending from the spreadsheet.
EDM has a serious problem on their hands, and they have 5 to 10 games to sort it out.
The first 5 metrics you posted that correlate best with full season GF% show the Oilers as a top 10 team in the league (they’re top 5 in 4/5 of those).
You highlighted the #6 and #7 best correlated metrics (where the Oilers are bottom 5 in the league) as ‘significant and meaningful’.
Do you honestly not think that your analysis shows more positive than negative for the Oilers going forward?
And you didn’t reply – did you look at statistical significance in any way?
There’s no “significance” with this analysis. I’m not selecting a sample and then trying to determine it’s significance relative to a population. We have data for the complete population. That would be the case if looking at games in 10 unit blocks and then trying to determine which sample of 10 game blocks is more valuable. R2 with all of these measures is low. None are a “true picture of the future”.
You seem to want me to say that an elevated xGF% means that the Oilers are likely to make the playoffs. What I am saying is that their xGF% (likely to regress btw), is good. Great even. But there are other measures that indicate serious problems and those numbers also have value and are meaningful (relatively). I would say that the great results come from the play of elite forwards (who are having difficulty scoring).
Did you look at this? It’s probably the best projection we have access to through public analytics. It has EDM at 92.8 points with a range from 90 to 97 points (90 as cut-off for making the playoffs). I’m not contesting a projection like this, generated using thousands of simulations. If the “pink line” continues to decline in this projection, EDM will be shown as out of the playoffs.
EDM has elite forwards and elite aspects to its game. They are a very good team that’s in trouble. There is quantitative evidence that shows they are in trouble, and if this bad play continues for another 10 games, projections will show them as missing the playoffs.
There are no “good models” in hockey analytics (pick an R2 value 0.8 or 0.9 or more??) and there are no results that meet scientific criteria for significance (pick a p value, 0.05?) when trying to predict future states (usually held to be future seasons, not things like predict values for game 82 from game 79). Hockey is unlike baseball. It’s all “insignificant”.
You used ‘significant’ in a way that typically indicates statistical significance, so I thought it was fair to clarify.
I am certainly not suggesting the Oilers have no issues, but I do find it odd that you’ve picked some of the less correlated predictors out from your larger set and are using those to argue the Oilers have a ‘serious problem’ and are ‘in trouble’.
Even that projection you link has the Oilers making the playoffs by 5 points (ie – very comfortably). We have folks here who believe the season lost already, but I’m not aware of any projections that expect the Oilers to miss. Even with their poor performance through 10 games.
Tarkus
November 5, 2023 3:45 pm
Summarizing!
On a day where his team put up eight goals, Stonehouse somehow avoided the scoresheet. Soup shall not be his.
Akey did not play, reason unknown to this correspondent.
Prospecting takes a break until Wednesday.
knighttown
November 5, 2023 3:21 pm
This might be a waste of time and I’m certainly not here to defend Campbell and Skinner, but I’m trying to recall a real howler of a goal against this year. Last year’s version of Campbell would have pucks sift through him so the argument was always that we needed him to make the “easy” saves and that would be enough. Sure, there have been some goals the guys would “like to have back” but do any really count as 5/5 howlers?
I’m not sure what this proves. Maybe that things could be worse? Maybe that the team has given up an astonishing number of 5-alarms?
Stinkiness rating; 5 is just an absolute howler down to a 1 where prime Hasek doesn’t make the save.
I count only 3 goals against (of 40!) as either 4/5 or 5/5. That leaves 37 as either no chance, little chance or really tough save.
Vs Preds
Forsberg wrap around. You’d like to see him play that better but not a howler. Probably equally as fault as Leon and Ceci for the failed backcheck and not getting to back post. Stinkiness 3/5
O’Reilly goal 1. Again, don’t love the rebound and positioning but primary error to Nurse. 3/5
O’Reilly goal 2. Almost the same but even less of a chance. 2/5 for stinkiness
Novak snipe. Campbell sucks sure but a great shot. 2/5
O’Reilly PP goal on a great feed by Forsberg. 1/5. Primary on McDavid and Ekholm leaving a full 2-on-1.
Vs Stars
Duchene. 2/5. Sure it’s through Skinner but terrible pinch and Nurse overplayed pass so much that it was pretty much a breakaway.
Paveski. 1/5. Broberg turnover and no chance
Hintz. 1/5. 3-on-2. McDavid backcheck and mediocre effort by Bouch.
Hintz. 1/5 PP. Pavelski/Nurse tip and a tap-in for Hintz.
Vs Calgary
Kadri PP. Body deflection. No chance 1/5
Greer PP. 2/5 Ekholm walked. Not a great rebound but still.
Vs Rangers
Fox PP. 2/5 God the PK sucks. Royal Road pass and Fox roofs it even if it wasn’t that hard.
Schneider. 2/5. Turnover and bad line change. He walked in from the blueline to the middle of the slot and got to pick his spot.
Lafreniere. 1/5. Awful gap by Nurse and Kulak. Royal Road pass by Panarin and one timer.
Vs Wild
Rossi. 1/5. Nice shot pass and this was the Bouchard game. Didn’t bother tying him up.
Hartman 1. 3/5. Prolonged shift. Terrible rebound control but again not coverage by Bouchard. This is probably the worst goal yet but certainly not a 5/5 and arguably not even a 4/5
Hartman 2. 1/5. Incredible pass by Kirill and then a kick pass by Zucc. No chance.
Zuccareallo. 1/5. Hilarious turnover by Bouchard and two quick passes and no chance.
Eriksson Ek. 2/5. Spectacular move by Joel after Nurse gets sucked out to far.
Hartman 3. 5/5. The first Howler! It was a breakaway but Hartman fumbled it into the net.
Vs Winnipeg
Morrissey 2/5. Slapshot though a perfect screen.
Namestnikov. 4/5. Terrible read by Skinner (and weird plays by Nurse) but I’m measuring soft goals specifically around shots. I’d say not quite a howler. bad tho.
Scheiffele. 2/5. Lazy Leon in OT. Tip into the net
Vs Philly
Farabee. 1/5. This was the pick play on Desh and Kulak but looking at it again I hate the effort by Foegele. No chance
Atkinson 1. 2/5. Bouchard being weak again. Would like to see Campbell attack the crease a bit more but still.
Walker SH. 4/5. I mean, people hated this and I didn’t love it but a bad turnover, weak play by Bouchard and a snipe by Walker. Top 5 weakest goals tho. One of the few from distance.
Atkinson. 1/5. Oh Bouch. Not much chance for Campbell but he really wasn’t close.
Vs Preds
Tommy Novak. 2/5 Turnover by Ekholm and Novak snipes from the slot.
Vs Canucks
Kuzmenko PP. 1/5. Tip in front
Hoglander. 1/5 Tip at the side of the net.
Studnicka. 1/5 2-on-0 with EP 40. Worst play of the year by Nurse.
Lafferty. 3/5. Classic “you’d like a save” because of the moment but Lafferty beat Ekholm badly and had a clean shot from about 10 feet out just sligthly off angle.
Vs Canucks
Garland. 2/5 Great flip pass by EP40
Boeser. 2/5. The first time seeing the Zone’s weakness. Wide open and an absolute snipe.
Boeser. 1/5. Turnover and odd man rush. Shot by 17 and rebound saved and then second rebound in. No chance.
Boeser #3. 2/5. PP. Petterson fires it off Boeser leg. Almost no chance.
Petterson. 3/5 PP. Total screen but it’s a wrister from distance
That’s alot of mentions of Bouchard and weak coveage!
Looks like a combined team effort of putrid defending and average to below average goalies struggling to make the difficult saves.
Not a good combo!
they should and must be playing better but they are not the primary factor for the the poor team performance. Their statistics correlate strongly with the overall capacity of teams defense against their peers.
OutsideObserver
November 5, 2023 2:25 pm
I’m a Penguins fan, but I started to watch the Oilers after the 2022 Battle of Alberta. McDavid and Draisaitl reminded me of the Lemieux-and-Jagr Penguins of my youth (no, not Crosby-Malkin, someday I’ll get around to explaining why). I like hockey to be entertaining. I’m partial to teams that can score goals in bunches. The Oilers were fun to watch.
But because the Oilers are not my primary team – and because I’ve watched the 66-68 and 87-71 Penguins religiously—here are 3 outside observations, FWIW.
1. The goalies need to make more saves.
Ten-bell chances, chances off the rush, blah, blah, blah. I don’t care. The goalies need to stop the puck. And frankly, if this doesn’t change, the next 2 things are immaterial.
2. The GM needs to figure out how to give the coach 12 forwards and 6 defensemen.
The forwards are regularly playing down a man. October-November hockey is generally a slopfest, but all those too many men penalties might be greatly helped by regular forward lines.
But 11-7 worked last year!
But McDavid’s clearly not 100% this year. You have years of data telling you running Draisaitl 25 minutes a game early in the season causes serious issues by December. 11-7 occasionally, with a purpose? Sure. Selectively.
But regularly playing down a man, this early in a season, is wearying physically and mentally. And the Oilers have regularly been playing without a full lineup.
3. Once the GM gives the coach 12 forwards and 6 defensemen, the coach actually needs to roll 4 lines, and he needs to stop pairing McDavid and Draisaitl together as a regular deployment strategy.
I don’t like McDavid and Draisaitl together regularly for a bunch of reasons. (Yes, the Battle of Alberta with them on a line was awesome, but Draisaitl had a severely sprained ankle.) Tiny Exhibit A: Second period yesterday, Drai/Nuge/Gagner shift, where Draisaitl looks like Draisaitl in the offensive zone. Other benefit: Against a team like Nashville, if you split McDavid and Draisaitl from the start, one of them doesn’t have to play against Ryan O’Reilly. (Believe it or not, deployment matters even for elite players!)
I’m an outsider who lacks emotional attachment to Nuge, so perhaps that’s why I see him as a good secondary/complementary player at even strength, but not a line driver, so constantly trying to make Nuge a high-end center rather than deploying him regularly with McDavid or Draisaitl centering baffles and confounds me. McD needs help now – give him Nuge, maybe, or give Draisaitl Nuge? But every time one of McD or Draisaitl “struggle” shouldn’t automatically mean they get to be reunited.
But what I see right now – especially when the Oilers get behind from some awful combination of terrible goaltending/mental mistakes – is that a team that’s not icing a full complement of forwards doesn’t have the energy to outscore. I do not think this is “effort” or “focus” or “attitude”; I think it is the literal reality of what happens when too many players are regularly playing too many minutes—the top-end players can’t physically or mentally do what’s needed when they’re gassed, and the “bottom six” players who most need to get in a consistent rhythm with linemates have no chance to establish any rhythm. (No, this isn’t about it being early in the season or the top players not being in shape; it’s that, in general, high-end forwards shouldn’t be playing number 1 defenseman minutes except in extraordinary circumstances, not as par for the course in October.)
Very insightful post. I survived the decades of darkness by jumping on the Penguins bandwagon during their cup runs.
The 11-7 issue is a complex one. It’s an attempt to cover up for the problem of not having enough bottom six players. I had just looked at the Pens the other day and posted here. Generally, the Pens didn’t lose the goal share when the Malkin and Crosby were on the bench during the cup winning seasons. They were generally around 50% goal share or higher.
The Oilers bleed out when McDavid and Draisaitl are on the bench generally except last year or the season we lost to the Ducks.
Years of poor professional scouting, losing trades, inefficient cap management, suboptimal goaltending, and recently poor drafting have all contributed.
You raise a really important/interesting point. In the years the Pens didn’t win – their bottom six was generally not “good enough.” That matters, even if for players headed to the HHOF. Matt Cullen, Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin – hugely important bottom-six players to Pens’ Cup winning teams. (The Penguins have been struggling to replace Cullen since he retired/aged out, and darn it if a younger Matt Cullen wouldn’t be tremendously helpful to the Oilers right now.)
For Oilers fans who feel hopeless, the Penguins looked pathetic in the first round of the 2012 playoffs (emotional meltdowns, totally undisciplined, goalie who couldn’t stop a beachball, record-setting bad PK) and in getting swept by the Bruins in 2013. Lots of things came together for the championships they eventually won in ’16 and ’17, but if you had told anyone in 2012-2013 that the Pens’ core was going to get its crap together a few years later, they would have had a bunch of doubts about all the same sort of “mental” things that get thrown around about the Oilers’ core today. (2016 also had lessons Edmonton could learn from: a demanding but supportive coach who respected but still firmly managed star players and who built a system around those stars’ strengths, a willingness to make tough calls in benching a beloved franchise goalie, and calling up/playing rookies (Sheary/Rust) with Crosby and Malkin; I don’t know the Oilers’ system has any potential Shearys or Rusts in the minors “ready and waiting” but you’ll never know if they never get a shot.)
Yet it also raises something else that continually boggles my mind when watching the Oilers. Has McDavid had a tough injury-riddled start to the year? Has Draisaitl’s finishing been way off (even if his defense has been better than usual, despite emotions of a poor start possibly making that hard to see)? Yep, definitely.
BUT BUT BUT. When anything is wrong with the Oilers, it is on McDavid and/or Draisaitl to fix it. From the outside: it is insane deployment and insane responsibility, and pragmatically, it will eventually wear out those players.
Exhibit A: Rather than fix a penalty kill structure that doesn’t work, the team figures they will just deploy McDavid as a PK regular, and presto, McDavid immediately makes the PK better because yes, he is that good! But the team doesn’t actually have the depth players and/or the system they need to PK so McDavid could spend his energy on other things. (Usually McDavid has crazy reservoirs of energy and this is not an issue, but still…wouldn’t it be nice to avoid the injury risk and have other players who could actually PK, and use McDavid strategically there vs regularly?)
Exhibit B: Too often when there is a defensive zone draw of consequence, it seems Draisaitl must be on the ice to take it (hint: if your top offensive players are expected to expend energy doing this, at some point they are going to fail on offense or fail on defense because they are going to be too tired physically or mentally).
At no point in HHOF careers has Pittsburgh ever expected Malkin to win defensive zone draws regularly, or assumed regular deployment of 87 and 71 would be the ideal approach to fix a floundering PK. Meanwhile, in Edmonton, anytime there is an issue, it’s expected McDavid and Draisaitl should fix it, even when the issue is just that the goalies need to make a save.
If you’re regularly playing insane amounts of minutes – you can’t be 100% perfect at offense and defense, you’re going to be physically or mentally gassed and make mistakes, even if you have the unreal genetics of Connor McDavid or the innate hockey sense of Leon Draisaitl. If the Oilers don’t believe me – perhaps they should listen to Martin St. Louis when he says it’s an 80% league. The Oilers are doing no one—especially their superstars—any favors with this current shorthanded roster (and yes, it annoys me a lot even as an outside observer because it shouldn’t be THAT hard to be able to ice a full line-up, even if an imperfect full lineup).
‘Shorten the bench’ has been the motto to solving problems through Mclellan, Tippett, and now Woodcroft.
We had a brief reprieve when Woodcroft took over with him instantly finding more minutes for McLeod and other youth.
Very bright analytics folks like Dom at the Athletic often criticize Draisaitl for his poor defensive metrics while refusing to acknowledge the impact of him often playing more minutes per game than a number one defenseman. He is also often relied on for high leverage defensive zone draws as you’ve mentioned.
Still, personnel has been a major issue. You would think if anyone could have taken six plugs for the bottom six and make them play Yotes style hockey, it would have been Dave Tippett.
So the answer is certainly both roster construction as the root cause, but also agree on the deployment issue.
I’ve mentioned before how having Draisaitl taking PK draws is a great drain on that resource.
If he loses the faceoff, he is often forced to stay on the ice for an extended period in a very taxing situation.
Vancouver had a similar issues with Pettersson or JT Miller so went out and specifically acquired PK players including centre Pius Suter who is winning almost 58%.
The Oilers could and should have prioritized adding a 4C with penalty killing ability instead if gilding the lily by signing Connor Brown,
I’d wholeheartedly agree that roster construction and cap allocation are less than ideal in a variety of ways (as I think many (most?) would).
I’m intrigued that Draisaitl actually has really good public defensive analytics for the first part of the Oilers’ terrible start, but due to lack of finishing/polish on PP and lack of actual finishing at even-strength, the start is perceived as weaker than past starts where the public defensive analytics would have been bad despite outscoring. (I think public analytics have value, but so does “eye test” and so do the private analytics/tracking with pre-shot movement the public analytics don’t do yet.)
Leads me back to wondering if, given the sheer amount of ice time these guys play, if it’s just not physically possible, at that amount of ice time, to be that “on” both defensively and offensively (though I think there’s some bad luck/pressing too hard with some of the shots that haven’t gone into the net). Other thing about Eichel last spring and on Vegas — he played less than he did in previous roles, but was probably able to be more effective on both sides of the puck (perhaps due to playing less, not only a systems thing)? Would be fascinated by someone looking into diminishing returns analytically on ice time over time and when it’s just too much (someone probably has). McDavid’s genes might make him a rare exception to the general rule, but with him clearly not 100%, I just don’t get overplaying any player in that state…but when roster construction and injuries you’re playing with 10 forwards at times, well, I get why the coach overplays those two (but I dislike watching it).
I think the Duo should play less simply so they have more jump when they do
I think their production might in the end be better, and the bad guys on their heels more
Mostly on 2 lines
And Woody needs to create steady lines. Win or lose let them play and work their way out of this. They will make the playoffs, one way or another. Preparing for the playoffs is all that matters now, as everything else is toasted
Brilliant
thanks for the eloquent and objective summary.
i agree!
Darryl8843
November 5, 2023 2:18 pm
So if Woodcroft gets fired isn’t that an indictment of the players? How many coaches does this core gotta go through? Maybe it’s time to think the unthinkable and change some of the core and not the Coach.
I do not think so. When Woodie first got the job he coached differently than he is now. He split up McDrai and he played young players. He no longer does that and the team sucks. Plus he has shown numerous times that he cannot adjust in game and gets out-coached often.
Agreed. It feels like the wider hockey community is finally taking notice to what majority of the hardcore Oil fanbase already knew, McD/Drai have outplayed every coaching mistake for years; carrying a level of responsibility unprecedented and in doing so successfully, elevated the perception of everyone around them.
Aside from McLeod, he has never played really played the young players in the NHL. It even took him a LONG time to move on from Campbell as the main goalie last season.
1952barry
November 5, 2023 1:58 pm
am I upset about this team? yeah.is it on my front burner? nope. Katz has mismanaged this asset for 15 years or so but he makes money. at this point 97,29, 93, 91, and 18 -despite playing hurt- are reliable. 2nd tier, 37, 27, 14, 25 and 2. not of calibre 55, 10, 73, 71, 36, 74,and a couple others Gagner can play IMO
Katz can be criticized for hiring Bob Nicholson who was tasked with hiring the men who were at the top of hockey ops.
As far as being an owners, the man has been hands off hockey ops since acquisition (give or take Yakupov) and has done nothing but spend, spend, spend on coaches, management and players.
He as allowed for multiple managers and coaches to be fired so that he pays for multiple managers and coaches at the same time.
He has spend over the cap on player personnel year after year.
He has buried large one way contract in the minors.
He has agreed to sign players to the AHL team with very large AHL salaries.
He has signed players to help the AHL on 2-way contract with very large AHL salaries and guaranteed min compensation.
Shit, even on the Lucic – Neal trade, that cost Katz apx $12MM in real dollars.
Katz’s biggest flaw as owner is his inability to choose the right people to manage this team. Nicholson, Chiarelli, Holland, all poor choices. These were all “famous” choices who were respected for past accomplishments, and not for what they are capable of now and in the future.
And hiring Jackson may be showing that he’s learned from these past mistakes. I would expect that if Jackson lets Holland go he will hire someone with a good resume but a non-traditional hockey hire.
What about the recently departed Kim Ng, the former GM of the Florida Marlins? She is known in sports circles as a smart executive with an incredible mind and got the Marlins back to the playoffs.
I know this is thinking way outside the box, but you have a brilliant mind with a chip on their shoulder.
Lowe & MacT we’re also “famous” in their own way and drove the team straight into the ditch.
Lets not forget who hired Eakins and that soccer coach,
Kurri17
November 5, 2023 1:50 pm
Woody has fallen into the Tippett trap of undervaluing the depth players on his team. I can’t stress enough how much I believe that a team must utilize and see all of its members as integral to TEAM success.
How much better do you think a person will perform when they feel like they are needed and are a valuable contributor to a team? It’s the coaches job to ensure each member of the team understands that he brings value to the team and is given the opportunity to demonstrate that value through trust and ice time.
If the bottom sixers see themselves as merely a bunch of interchangeable bodies that Jay throws out only when Connor and Drai need a rest, they never get a chance to get into the game and will rely more and more on the “real stars” to win the game. This team MUST be more than McDrai, the team has to view itself as an entity that wins together. The eighties dynasty had the HOFers, but they also relied on the Lowes, the Huddys, the Fogolins, etc. to push them together to the top.
Right now, this team feels like McDrai plus a bunch of independent contractors who plug in the remaining minutes. I feel that must change.
This is not to let the players themselves off the hook, after all, one could say they could do more to earn more ice time as well. But I think the coach must instill that trust and team spirit first and foremost.
Nobody has a smokin bottom 6 because cap, at least for long
Its team building that has them play well enough
Side
November 5, 2023 1:37 pm
The Oilers are trying to take the 2019 St. Louis Blues cup route. Last place in the standings in January until turning it around and winning the cup. Bold strategy.
If Connor is not 100% he should not be playing north of 20 Min every game. It’s time Woody trusts the other lines. By not playing them they will never gain traction and don’t ever feel like part of the team. Time to distribute the playing time more equally like the Knights.
CrazyCoach
November 5, 2023 12:32 pm
This is a tough team to follow right now.
Had a buddy who invited me over to watch the game, but I had to be behind the bench for my daughter’s U-13 game, so off to the rink I go. My team is in tough this year as we are playing boys teams all season in our division, and my team is roughly a team of beginners 5 have never played, and 4 others are in their second year, but they are all enjoying their time and gaving fun.
We had a practice this morning and the focus has been very basic skills. My top end players have been instructed that whenever we do basic stuff, that they need to do it at high speed and high tempo. We had an excellent practice this morning and I only had to ask for more enthusiasm a few times. I’m a big believer in being enthusiastic. If you know the story of Jim Valvano, you know he was a very enthusiastic person and her spread that on to everyone eround him. I often think of his saying (You + Motivation = Success) and model my coaching after that. I also ask my team what day it is and they always have to respond (enthusiastically) “It’s a great day for hockey” (Thanks Badger Bob).
Anyway, practice this morning went very well and you can really start to see the progress happening all around in terms of not only hockey development, but in the development of personalities and team cohesion. It is days like today where you reaffirm why you got into coaching. The mind flows and so do the drills. You start simple with high repitition high success, into low repititon low success, whole parl whole. The players are enjoying it and so are you.
However, the flip side of that, and this is where Jay Woodcroft (and his team by extension) is right now. An area where this is no joy, no creativity, no flow, and no way out, or so it seems. When you coach kids, this is where the parents show no patience and have all sorts of doubt. They wonder how you ever got the job in the first place, and why you aren’t trying. The more vocal ones will certainly let you know, but it’s often the silent majority that are the worst, as they badmouth you in front of others and sometimes their kids, who just happen to be your players. It makes the most joyous of places, the rink, the last place you want to be. When that happens in minor hockey, you stick to your duties, play out the season, then pack it all away. That is the luxury of coaching kids. No one and I mean no one will fire you, unless of course, you step over the line, then of course, you should be removed and never be allowed to coach again, but really, which on of those parents could do wht you do? Not too many.
The tough part with pro coaches, is that you are not allowed to simply play out the string and you will be fired. Plain and simple.
I always say that it’s not that the coach is a bad coach, but is not the right coach at that time.
I have a feeling that is where Woodcroift is right now.
Thinking of you LT. I’d imagine a positive distraction would have been extremely helpful during this tough year. Remember how appreciated you are. I’ve been waking up to read your words since I can’t remember. I’ve moved to Australia and my partner knows who lowetide is.
Bling
November 5, 2023 12:02 pm
I find it baffling that in an era where even a 10 year old with a middling interest in sports has heard of “load management,” that the Oilers ran McDrai into the ground over years.
Look at how careful MLB teams manage their mid to bottom rotation starters, never mind the top end guys. Look at how the Raps/Clippers managed Leonard’s minutes.
The Oilers went against the grain, against evidence, against logic, and both guys look hurt/fatigued 10 games in.
A combined 20 plus million per year in salary and a 10 cent plan to manage their longevity. Thanks Ken!
Kwai Leonard gamed really silly fans into thinking it was smart to pay him $20 million a year for half a seasons work. The NBA changed the rules this year cause fans were getting pissed that stars were only playing 3/4 of their games. Only one team can win at the end of the year yet all of these very very well paid players were intentionally sitting out 5,6,10 games a season.
Basketball isn’t a real sport because of stuff like this. It’s why they have to have an inter-league tournament in the middle of the year to up the gimmick factor. It’s more like reality tv than a serious game in 2023.
Michael Jordan never wanted to sit like a priss and would have told Jackson to mess himself for suggesting something so bizarre.
I’ve thought about this for over 30 years. Players play way too many games, considering what they put their bodies through, I think the top leagues and their players are better served playing a 60 game season. Despite the fortunes several make, what price do they end up paying when they reach their 50’s and 60’s?
As for basketball, these are not only some of the best athletes on the planet, with tremendous speed, quickness and power, they are also giant humans. That comes with a whole lot of other issues.
I should have said today’s NBA isn’t a serious league, not basketball as a whole. Bad choice of words and I retract, because this is an NBA player problem, not basketball.
Basketball is unique in how much stars play and impact the game. But if you start poking across time and space, all of a sudden you see a very noticeable drop among Star NBA players, who far and away make the most money, and pretty much everyone else. Games played drops from say 78-82, down in to the 50s or 60s. It lines right up with the Raptors getting lucky and grifted in the same season. The richest guys un the league decided “yup brilliant, why play all the time if I don’t have to?”
Kahwi Leonard has never played a full season, since leaving the Spurs (where Popovich got tired of his crap), he’s never played more than 60 regular season games. In L.A. where he is making a MAXIMUM contract he’s never played more than 57 games. The Clippers haven’t won a championship and they’ve paid maximum dollar to have him sit out for 25-30 games a year. Sometimes legit injuries yes. But… maybe also one of the greatest grifts ever seen in sports.
Luka Doncic, brilliant player, too bad he’s only on the court for 2/3 of Mavs games.
The NBA seems to have come to the same conclusion and it’s what’s underlying the change in how load management is used. No surprise that Leonard wasn’t happy about the change. Bummer, now he has to work for that $36.9 million contract…
They have ‘2’ defenseman that are good NHL passers. They have 2 that are minus skaters, in the league as it is now
They overplay guys and allow shifts so long forwards can’t back check properly. Is Leon still lollygagging off the ice? I haven’t watched for it this year. Can’t figure out line changes, haven’t been good at it since MacT probably
Even with lots of skill the Oilers make NHL hockey look amazingly hard to execute at a basic level
Anaheim is doing it with 18 year old Leo Carlsson. They pre planned in the summer that he would play 52 games, never on B2B nights. The schedule was set up:
1 – To have Carlsson play a similiar number of games he would have played in Europe
2- To allow him to Rest properly
3 – To allow him to strength train and add muscle throughout the year
4 – To hopefully limit injury (which is common for 18 yr olds)
This LONG TERM plan and measured approach to one of their prized organizational assets is AWESOME imo.
Lewis Grant
November 5, 2023 12:00 pm
LT, this is oddly one of your more evocative posts.
Thanks for doing what you do. You have a real talent with the written word.
You’ve earned every right to feel this way after decades of fandom, combined with the very real possibility that a window is closing before our eyes.
W
November 5, 2023 12:00 pm
Swayman .954 S% 3rd in nhl, 1.38 gaa. RFA $3.5M cap. Bruins
Debrusk 5 points +4 in 10 games. $4M cap hit UFA.Bruins still have Ullmark .926 S% UFA in 2025.
Their cup window is still open.
Would you take Ulmark instead with Debrusk and a pick? We would have to throw in a million dollar player to make the money work, maybe Holloway and the pick we received would be a first?
Swayman would immediately go sub .900 on the Oilers and DeBrusk would be 2 points and -10
We need some better players in certain spots, but the Bruins thrive through their team play more than the players. We need a coach with a broader skill set to get these guys in line, and a GM that can make upgrades and find better fits
Not some burnt out old fart tough guy coach either. But somebody with more gravitas and better ideas. Tocchet made a team out of a sad sack Canucks group in a big hurry, with some GM support
I wouldn’t do this trade if I were the Oilers. I’d argue the Oilers could finally get their #1 defenceman they’ve looked for since Pronger left. Teams would be falling all over themselves if Draisatl was on the market. But knowing the Oilers, they’d let no one know and trade him for a #3 that they’ve fancied all along.
If you enjoy EDM/electronic at all check out DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. It’s like a mashup of a bunch of stuff but it’s mostly vibey stuff that is great background music.
Echo the DJ Sabrina and Jaimie Branch recommendations. Two of my top albums of the year. With the DJ Sabrina album, I’m not even a “vibes” guy or much of a passive listener, but the details of the al un are really worthy of a deeper listen, even if it is four hours.
Another great chill record is Gia Margaret’s Romantic Piano.
Tarkus
November 5, 2023 10:58 am
Prospectotum!
It’s Stonehouse vs. Akey in today’s feature about at noon Enilda time.
Darryl8843
November 5, 2023 10:55 am
So I’m guessing Jeff Jackson never envisioned anything like this would be possible this year. I guess we find out if he can prove his worth.
drglen
November 5, 2023 10:53 am
they are 1/2 step behind and I think the other teams have figured out how to defend macd and drei
This reminds me of Connor’s first season. He wouldn’t shoot, and that made it easier on the bad guys
But being Connor year 2 he came back with a shot. I think that they are very predictable, especially Leon. That makes it easier to defend them. They need more ways of doing things and/or better help. Coaching and GM
Really any team that clogs the net front causes them 5v5 problems, has been like that for years
Which is why they try to cycle. But they need some wrinkles to loosen things up and be less predictable. Woody is not showing he can get that going in any meaningful way
Oilers giving up more of most dangerous scoring chances off rush at 5-on-5 than any other NHL team: 2.86 expected goals against per game off high-danger shots is 32nd and TWICE as many as the top-6 teams … also 27th on PK, all per @csahockey … this isn’t all about goaltending
They’re being PDOd for sure, but it looks like they’re earning some of it too.
not getting a save that maybe other goalies would save. The team is then forced to chase the game. Bad pinches, 3 forwards deep etc follow.
The biggest reason to not play Draisaitl and McDavid together is never brought up. Which is who on the line will be the 3rd forward high in the Ozone.
I also wonder if the 11/7 setup is line blenderi g the forwards too much. Forwards are not used to each other and each of them looking at the other 2 to be the defensive conscience on that line.
Make no mistake – this is not a chance blip – the Oilers are in real trouble.
EDM is 100 percent earning their lowered SV% that’s what the real analytics are telling us.
On the SH% side, we see McDavid producing at a career low for iGF60, iSF60, iCF60, and SH%. His shot rate declined immediately after colliding with Kane in the Philly game, and by eye he was having issues before that injury. When your best player, who scored 64 goals for you last season, can’t shoot your SH% is going to decline. The guy looks like he’s delaying surgery to me. Draisaitl’s general shot rate is ok, but his high-danger attempts are down, as is his SV%. Neither player is able to deal with double-coverage right now. The big guns are broken and it’s not “chance”.
Regression happens to all measures (attempts, goals and percentages) and variance in smaller samples of SH% and SV% are not due only to luck – not as a hockey analyst or fan would understand luck.
If you want to talk about regression you need to look also look at EDM’s UNSUSTAINABLE xGF60 rate 5v5 of 3.39. Because that too will regress as the Oilers encounter teams and system that surrender fewer xGF60 – especially towards the end of the season when teams clamp down.
Lest we forget that none of these measures are predictive and mean anything without intelligent discussion and analysis, I put this together the other day.
————————————-
All sits measures & rank of Cup Winners
Coaching plays a big role in this, not using the talents you have to their strengths. The team should not have fallen off a cliff this fast.
W
November 5, 2023 10:44 am
It’s time to have that discussion about separating the glitter twins, and I don’t mean desperate lines but separate teams. Draisaitl is the obvious move as he is the second most loved Oiler. I don’t think he is going to resign here anyways. Top heavy teams don’t win cup, hello Toronto, balanced teams do, I’m looking at you Vegas. We don’t have to tear it down to the studs, but we need to drastically change the complexion of the team. It’s not the coaches, we’ve been through 4 of them and a couple of gm’s and I don’t think we can pin this on the owner. What can we reasonably expect to receive for 29 this summer, or even mid season?
I would accept this most horrible of options were there only someone with the savvy to pull it off. It would hurt. It’s hardly thinkable. But nothing is worse than wasting this window, wasting McD, and ultimately losing both stars.
Drai might be his ride or die, but I expect nothing is more determinate to McDavid staying on this team than winning.
Put another way: This season and next have been dressed as the Stanley window; This season might be it for the Drai window. Unless happy days are here and they go all the way.
The Oilers top core is younger than Vegas’ top core owing to Stone but pretty much the same otherwise. Vegas and the Oilers pretty much have the same allocations to their players in the same sort of spots. Vegas has a boat anchor deal in Lehner that was a very dangerous contact the second it was signed and is being bailed out by LTIR. Campbell is. goalie in the NHL. I’m not sure how bad the cap gymnastics will have to be for Vegas to get Whitecloud back into the lineup later this year with their LTIR status.
The difference is that Vegas is getting contributions from their whole lineup and 1/3 of the Oilers lineup has zeros while the tops aren’t producing at 1.75ppg pace they are capable of while giving up worse defensively. You know its bad when I haven’t had to complain about Hyman’s d yet. The goaltending has not been good enough when it needed to be but keeps getting hung out to dry on odd mans when defense river boat gamble or fall asleep. We’ve seen perfectly fine NHL play from bottom six players but also an allergy to posting crooked numbers on the scoresheet.
This is a funky funk but a funk all the same. Patience.
flea
November 5, 2023 10:27 am
It’s baffling in the NHL how stuck teams are with the players they sign. It should be performance based- next man up. The Oilers need to make a move at goal, now!
from reddit-
Despite a 0-10-1 record and allowing 20 goals in their last two games, the Sharks Tandem both have better save % than the Oilers tandem of Campbell and Skinner.
Stuart Skinner – 6 GP, 0.861 sv% and 3.62 GAA
Jack Campbell – 5 GP, 0.873 sv% and 4.50 GAA
Kaapo Khakonen – 5 GP, 0.876 sv% and 4.30 GAA
Mackenzie Blackwood – 8GP, 0.879 sv% and 4.78 GAA
The Oilers way is to cross their fingers and hope their goaltending magically improves on its own. Look how well that worked for Mikko Koskinen, Mike Smith, Jack Campbell, Stuart Skinner.
I totally agree. It very negatively impacts the game
I’m not saying go back to the old days when players were treated like livestock, but the way these guaranteed contracts work teams are forced to ice worse teams than they could if the managers are good
Can’t play up to the deal signed, there should be an out. Two way street
As in there is no way Campbell should collect another 20M when he can’t play at an NHL level. He shouldn’t have been signed yes, but his play is on him. He has no future development potential. The team plays terribly in front of the goalies, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a save
OriginalPouzar
November 5, 2023 10:17 am
I know many will be watching the waiver wire to see if Campbell is exposed and, while I guess there is a non-zero chance of that, I think the chances are low.
What we could see over the next 30 hours is an emergency call-up if both Brown and Janmark remain out for tomorrow night’s game.
Pederson is still hurt and Bourgault isn’t an option. Hamblin and Malone don’t move an needles at the NHL level.
I would expect maybe we see a d-man. Of course, Broberg could come up on emergency but I query if they want to give him a real re-set in the AHL.
Niemo is now healthy and starting to play like he normally does but I query Gleason, Noel. H or Kemp – all having very good starts to the season.
I don’t think Holloway is a tweener. And I’m pretty surprised you’d call Lavoie a tweener. Weren’t you calling for him play top 9 immediately? And lamenting that he likely wouldn’t play much?
I don’t think Holloway is a tweener. And I’m pretty surprised you’d call Lavoie a tweener. Weren’t you calling for him play top 9 immediately? And lamenting that he likely wouldn’t play much?
Holloway has 3 goals and 9 points in sixty or so games now and played about six minutes last night. If the organization had any options, he could be in line for another NHL assignment.
Lavoie is the definition of a tweener right now. He just passed through waivers and has one NHL game on his resume.
Yes, absolutely, I called for him to be in the top 9 – that is his skill-set, scoring goals, etc. and I posited he should be put in a position to succeed, and not seen 4-7 minutes with Ryan.
That doesn’t mean he’s not a tweener.
That line is made up of zero established NHL players – Holloway could/should be one but, at this point, he’s barely holding on to a roster spot.
They have both been great in every single one of their starts and are both top 10 goalies in the AHL (and were last year).
Rodrigue is really coming along but I would think that it would be Pickard, who has some NHL experience and is just, well, older.
Rodrigue is still 1B in Bako as much as I would like him to get at least half the starts.
Scungilli Slushy
November 5, 2023 10:04 am
The problem with coaches when you have a team with the quality of players the Oilers have at the top, is it’s easy to credit successes and growth to coaches when it can be all about the career arc of those very talented players
To me the coach’s assessment should be at least as much about team development and people management as anything else. Evidence of in game decisions done well and adjustments
Really we have seen little of that in a long time. When you have McDavid success should be measured in Cup drives. Yakking about anything else is weak sauce by the org. It’s ass covering
The playoff record over the last 4 years isn’t up to snuff. Connor is 9 years in right? Maybe except getting to the conference finals. But that was an ass kicking in the wrong direction
The amount of people attempting to measure performance of this squad without adding the caveat of “whoever is here is working with the two best players in the world as a starting point” is a real assessment mistake. Their low bar should be SUPER high.
One key contextual factor – in the hard cap world, with salaries having risen faster than the cap in recent times, its not about having the best players, its about having the players that provide the most value for cap hit.
Scungilli Slushy
November 5, 2023 9:53 am
The problem with GMs is they get a lot of rope
A bigger problem is the vision and ability of the people who hire them
Holland is playing checkers and his best competitors are playing Spock 3D chess
A big mistake hiring a guy who had his success and legacy in the history bag already and hadn’t been good for over a decade , and was at a career stage well past having any sort of need to push have drive or be innovative
He also to me didn’t need to try very hard to take over the Wings and have some success. And it fizzled out as he went along
When you have a player in the GOAT category that isn’t past it, this isn’t that hard to course correct. If some good decisions are finally taken. Some hard decisions that at the end of the day won’t actually alienate fans current or potential players, winning is all that anybody really cares about in sports if an organization has decency
Hopefully Jackson is working hard behind the scenes. And has the right head for the job. The players a better than before, but that is expected isn’t it if you’re competent – it’s not a feather in your cap – but the mix is way off. Way off. And the coaching isn’t nearly good enough
LMHF#1
November 5, 2023 9:47 am
You could see this coming 3 games in when combined with last year’s early playoff exit.
This organization decides too slowly. On everything. Full stop.
Decisiveness is rewarded in professional sports if practiced with consistency. You will make mistakes. Accept and keep going.
Fear of mistakes is the biggest mistake. And they are heavily guilty.
I want to push back a bit, if I’m understanding you correctly.
Woodcroft instituted a zone defense because he was tired of seeing a very good regular season team losing in the playoffs. He surely knew there would be some growing pains. That took cojones – enough to probably cost him his job.
I think it was a risk worth taking. Life is unpredictable, and some risks just don’t work out. Sometimes the market stays irrational longer than you can remain solvent. And sometimes Oiler defensemen/goalies can keep on breaking your heart longer than the Oilers fanbase can hold its nerve.
And sometimes the season isn’t over after 10 games.
My opinion is that the zone D was added as a tool and was never intended to be the Oilers main alignment all season.
Damn sure would be nice if they could lock things down once they had the lead though. (remember when the Oilers used to have leads?)
OriginalPouzar
November 5, 2023 9:46 am
This is very very demoralizing, very very bad, I don’t think anyone can, or will, argue that.
At the same time, I am not close to giving up on the playoffs or even a Stanley Cup run.
Sure, its a positive narrative at a time where catastrophic narratives seem apt but the fact is this team had an early season stretch of 3-7 last season and I would reckon that if we went back and looked at the posts during that stretch, it was just as dark as it is now.
There is tons of time left in this season but time is going to run short to flip that switch if it doesn’t happen soon.
There is little doubt this team can have a stretch of 2-7-1, maybe even a couple of them, and still finish near the top of the division/conference and make a run – we saw it last year.
Now, there seem to be absolutely no signs this team can flip that switch but, well, we know they can – the question is if they will?
Come on Oilers – flip it starting now, with this road trip.
There are three straight games starting at 8 or 8:30 and, if I have to stay up to the middle of the night to watch something similar to what I watched yesterday….
Your post has that undertone of hope and I feel the same way. Unfortunately, it actually is getting late enough that even an epic run may not save this team from missing the playoffs. If they were banking OT points etc then I’d feel a little better.
About the late games, who are you kidding? You are going to watch it, you are going to lose sleep and you will do it again!
Campbell cost the Oilers the division last year, and he hasn’t played at an NHL level with the Oilers other than very short stints. It’s time to punt him until he proves he can still play.
These streaks generally turn around when all hope is lost and most fans have thrown in the towel. Considering the way Vancouver has stormed out of the starting gate, a win there Monday would be an unexpected surprise.
What a change from the days when the Oilers were being lauded as Stanley Cup favourites to being excited about a November win in Vancouver.
The goalies are in a funk obviously so why not try Pickard out to see if he can supply a spark? We are going through the first significant slump of Connor Mcdavids career and he needs some help. It’s all well and good to say he is getting paid an enormous amount of money and he needs to lead the way, but he is struggling and whether it comes from the GM, the coach, or the players, the captain can use a hand.
TheMoops
November 5, 2023 9:37 am
Ok boys, it’s time. We just need a 10 game win streak and we will be back on track.
I like your thinking.
Van w
SJS w
SEA w
NYI w
SEA w
TBL w
FLA w
CAR w
WSH w
ANA w
Just in case you were wondering what that would look like. Then they would be so pumped they would probably beat VGK just for fun to make it an 11 game win streak. Then they would be 13-7-1. Something to shoot for.
Yah, I’ve mentioned it a few times over the last year or so, I don’t think this team goes out for beers. My guess is it is opposite to the boys on the bus.
Canucks PDO is 1087, Oilers is 956. Amazing what goaltending will do for a team. Campbell needs a stint in the AHL to see if he can turn his game around.
If McDavid is anything but 100% healthy it borders on criminal negligence to play him. I’d personally prefer him to have as long a career as possible.
Reja
November 5, 2023 9:04 am
What time do the fanboys arrive telling us how we had a random stretch of 3-7 games last year and if we just keep playing Eakins new system will be better of for it come Playoff time.
They have arrived after Winkin’ Blinkin’ and Nod promised them a 12 game win streak after Woody steps up his game and triple shifts a injured McDavid.
Munny 2.0
November 5, 2023 9:03 am
Holy hell, Dolphins. Gregor has likely had to pour himself a scotch and its only 9am. Chiefs look great jammin together… like Genesis back in 1974.
Skippy - the bush kangaroo
November 5, 2023 8:57 am
Do the oilers owe some type of draft compensation to Calgary if they use LTIR?
Janmark is still out, the brown injury looked bad and several players have been playing at less than 100% all year. But they’re still running with 17 skaters some nights.
Any other team would have fudged LTIR numbers to get some cap assistance.
Last edited 1 year ago by Skippy - the bush kangaroo
Woody won’t play them anyhow. It won’t be long before we see grossly overused players go down with injuries. This is all on Holland allowing this to happen.
Main non, Skippy was filmed in Australia. Here’s the jingle to bring back memories of your youth, times were much simpler then. No Oilers hockey team to drive you absolutely nuts…
10 goals. That is embarrassing. When a team goes to run up the score like that it’s time to go after Peterson. Send a message. Keep running up the score at your own risk. There some unofficial rules here.
Trust me, there are zero NHL players who want to tank. The organization might. The players want to keep playing in the nhl. They have ambition, pride ect.
Horseshit is thinking NHL players would throw games like that and purposely embarrass themselves.
Reja
November 5, 2023 8:54 am
This team was riding the best PP in history along with a younger Leon and Connor who you could get away with double shifting 82 games plus playoffs. Woody had lost the plot 5 games into the year Woody is not changing, adapting its Holland job to try and save the season by firing Woody tomorrow before Vancouver humiliates us.
GordieHoweHatTrick
November 5, 2023 8:53 am
This team hasn’t been right and ready to play since game 1. That is on the coaches. Unfortunately I don’t see an option to fix this. It has to come from the group. If they can’t get something positive going in the next 2, woody will take one for the team and be fired.
fishman
November 5, 2023 8:49 am
Emergency measures time. Coaching change, goalie change, call ups and how about we hear from upper management???? Has a last years playoff team with essentially same roster ever fallen so far so fast to start the next season???? Yikes!
All started with the systems change. Oilers were never built to play such a defensive-heavy system, and they don’t have the right mix of players to pull it off without stellar goaltending. I’ve mentioned this since game 2. GAME 2!
but what do I know, I’m just a tier 3 fan who has refused to watch an Oilers game this year since half way through game one. Had a bad feeling after the third goal against, and tuned out since then. Have only been checking in and watching highlights once in a while to see how much worse the team has gotten. I have better things to do then watch the Oilers implode for 3 hours and go to bed pissed off.
Apathy is all I feel for the Oilers at this point.
hh
,
For all the talk of how Mcdavid must be so mad about how bad the team is…he is tied for 65th in league scoring. Sam Gagner has as many even strength goals as Draisaitl and more than Connor. If Connor is unhappy about the team’s record he could really help by scoring on the breakaways he gets and creating some goals for the team. The play of Connor, Leon and Nuge is about half the reason the team is below .500 right now…
Woodys PK will end it…
It appears Ziggy is not impressed… this is clearly not the place where walks occur or treats are handed out from a drive-thru window!
Tonight was the 5th devil’s game I’ve watched this year. I’m pretty certain I wish the oilers would have signed McLeod brother to 1 yr @ 2ish million over brown.
Solid right hand center, 23 man roster.
Brown costs $775K on the cap right now.
The Oilers would have had to run with a 20 player roster (with no injuries) to make that swap.
James Hamblin.
Well, at least he’ll work hard tomorrow night….
This is a bit random, but I was looking at the league standings.
I was told last night by more than one poster that the Oilers season is already lost, and to ‘look at what they’d need to do’ to get to a playoff spot.
So today I looked at the current standings. By points% the last East wild card team is currently at .550 and the last West WC team is at .545. That’s 90 and 89 points in a full season.
Last season the numbers were a bit higher – .561 and .579 (92 and 95 points), and the previous year they were higher again (100 and 97 points).
Over the previous three full seasons the Oilers played .648 hockey (106 points per 82 games). And in the 1.5 years under Woodcroft they played .683 hockey (112 points).
If the Oilers play .648 hockey (as they did on average over the past three years) for the rest of this season, they’ll finish with 98 points. If they play like they did previously under Woodcroft, they’ll finish with 103 points.
They obviously need to get back to being the team they were, but if they do then they’re highly likely to at least earn a playoff spot.
I wasn’t really sure how big a playoff hole they’ve put themselves in, but was pleasantly surprised to see it’s a damn long way from an insurmountable climb.
Sounds good..but it’s far too simplistic.
You would have to assume the teams they are competing with are at the same level they were when the Oilers compiled those records …but they aren’t.
Vegas, the Kings and the Canucks are significantly better than they were then so getting points from them is more difficult.
The other teams in the division are not, but all the competing teams play them too. (Anaheim might be taking a step forward)
Its pretty safe to assume Dallas and Colorado will be playoff teams so that effectively leaves 3rd in the Central and the two wildcard spots.
There are effectively 6 teams competing with the Oilers for those two wildcards and all of them have at least a 5 point head start.
Note: Dom’s model at the Athletic now has the Oilers finishing 4th in the Pacific with 96 points tied with Minnesota who are projected to take 4th in the Central but only 2 points ahead of Nashville.
The Canucks record under Rick Tocchet 28-14-5
Should I quote the Oilers record under Woodcroft?
You seem to be overcomplicating things.
The # 6, 7 and 8 teams in the WC are on pace for 98 (ANA), 90 (WPG) and 89 (STL) points.
If the Oilers play at their 3-season average the rest of the way (and those teams maintain their current trajectory) the Oilers will finish ahead of all 3 of those teams.
You already did which is why I threw in the Tocchet record.
You are assuming that all the teams in competition will continue to play at their current pace while the Oilers are the only team that will from horrid to world beaters.
Extremely unlikely.
And just like that the Ducks knock off Vegas 4-2.
The Ducks now with 14 points so the Oilers are now 10 points out if the first wildcard.
6 straight wins for the Ducks.
See how that works?
Did the Jets win tonight?
If not, then the Oilers remain 6 points back of a wild card spot with a game in hand.
Your Ducks math is also wrong, as per usual.
No it isn’t.
You have to finish AHEAD of another team.
The Jets are third in the Central.
If they stay there it doesn’t matter how many games the Oilers have in hand, so why bring it up?
The Central team to watch is STL.
The Oilers need 7 points to pass them for the final wildcard which us likely their best path to make the post season if all of Minnesota, Nashville and Seattle flame out.
It’ s not insurmountable. But there are very serious reasons for concern. After yesterday, it’s not unreasonable to think they could miss the playoffs. They can go 0.648 in the next 10.
But the defense is all time bad, the big guns aren’t firing, McDavid’s injured, the goalies are fragile, the “new system” isn’t working, Broberg isn’t even third pairing, Brown isn’t the add we thought he was, and it’s doubtful they can add another Ekholm at deadline.
So yeah, it’s bad.
I certainly didn’t say there’s no reason for concern, or that they couldn’t miss the playoffs.
It’s the exact same defense as last year (aside from having Ekholm instead of Barrie all season).
Everything is shit now. And yes, it is bad.
But the same damn players and coaches accumulated 109 points last season and had the #2 goal differential in the NHL.
I’m honestly a bit amazed that near everyone seems to think that the 109 point/#2 goal differential team and coaches have actually turned into a pile of shit over the summer.
The “same players” have not “played the same” over the 10 game sample. Their performance over these 10 games – what McDavid is calling “death by a thousand cuts” is all time bad.
Stop making sense
this is one of the best days of quality comments I have read in my about 8 years of nearly daily reading!
odd how LT tee-d this one up !
Life During Wartime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVHNwBbkSj4
Gagner just has bumps and bruises. He’ll play tomorrow.
Both Brown and Janmark are going on the trip but it doesn’t sound like either play tomorrow.
Woody confirmed they will be calling up a forward on emergency recall.
At this point why not put Janmark on LTIR and use the space to bring another forward up to run 12/6?
That would mean he has to miss the next 7 games – he’s on the road trip so they are thinking he plays in the next three games.
That’s fair. There’s no way for us to know if he’s going to come back 100%, so I’m just speculating that if you put him on retro LTIR and give him more time to heal it might be better because too often, guys seem to be coming back before they should.
Jack Hughes out week to week with an upper body injury.
Too bad for the young man who was having a monster season,
Which model matters? The following shows R2 for November 5th, 2022 5v5 measures to 82 GP GF% for the 2022-2023 season.
When predicting end of season 5v5 GF%, measures taken November 5th have value. “Non-advanced” measures like SF%, GF%, G60 and HDGA60 are predictive. Defensive measures exhibit higher R2 to 82 game 5v5 GF% than offensive measures.
EDM’s poor rankings for GF% and HDGF% are significant and meaningful.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fwWGLVVkITrsG53UWSY4rWHG43xRWxAY/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x65nIPeEkn0MW4Q6C_wpkFbM9FMNvDO7/view
Interesting work.
Edmonton’s current poor GF% and HDGF% does appear to be meaningful.
I guess you’d conclude their current excellent SF%, FF%, SCF%, xGF% and CF% are even more meaningful though? (all better correlated to full season 5v5 GF%). Or were you taking away something different?
Also, you mentioned significant, how did you look at that?
No one can predict the future and strictly speaking none of these “models” are great.
It’s no longer in fashion to point towards a certain single measure or model for prediction. The better sites will use game simulations and will recalculate future states using the most recent results, like this one.
If you repeat my analysis, across the sixteen (or thirteen for 82 GP) seasons of Corsi data R2 will be different for each measure in each season, and the rank may change. When analytics used CF% as the best measure for predicting FGF% it was considered a strong predictor with an R2 value that was between 0.33 and 0.38.
The values in my little analysis here are surprisingly high in comparison but this is with a 9 to 11 game sample (November 5th cut-off) used to predict within-season FGF% at 82 games. I would say that a measure between 0.3 and 0.5 is waving at you, saying: “Pay attention to me!”
Where I’m going with this is that if an analyst or blogger is pointing towards EDM’s healthy xGF% and saying “nothing to see here” regarding their GF% or slot shots against, that’s clearly wrong. EDM is a team with talented offence and seriously flawed defence and goaltending. The defence is so flawed currently, it’s difficult to evaluate the goaltending from the spreadsheet.
EDM has a serious problem on their hands, and they have 5 to 10 games to sort it out.
My goodness.
The first 5 metrics you posted that correlate best with full season GF% show the Oilers as a top 10 team in the league (they’re top 5 in 4/5 of those).
You highlighted the #6 and #7 best correlated metrics (where the Oilers are bottom 5 in the league) as ‘significant and meaningful’.
Do you honestly not think that your analysis shows more positive than negative for the Oilers going forward?
And you didn’t reply – did you look at statistical significance in any way?
There’s no “significance” with this analysis. I’m not selecting a sample and then trying to determine it’s significance relative to a population. We have data for the complete population. That would be the case if looking at games in 10 unit blocks and then trying to determine which sample of 10 game blocks is more valuable. R2 with all of these measures is low. None are a “true picture of the future”.
You seem to want me to say that an elevated xGF% means that the Oilers are likely to make the playoffs. What I am saying is that their xGF% (likely to regress btw), is good. Great even. But there are other measures that indicate serious problems and those numbers also have value and are meaningful (relatively). I would say that the great results come from the play of elite forwards (who are having difficulty scoring).
Did you look at this? It’s probably the best projection we have access to through public analytics. It has EDM at 92.8 points with a range from 90 to 97 points (90 as cut-off for making the playoffs). I’m not contesting a projection like this, generated using thousands of simulations. If the “pink line” continues to decline in this projection, EDM will be shown as out of the playoffs.
EDM has elite forwards and elite aspects to its game. They are a very good team that’s in trouble. There is quantitative evidence that shows they are in trouble, and if this bad play continues for another 10 games, projections will show them as missing the playoffs.
There are no “good models” in hockey analytics (pick an R2 value 0.8 or 0.9 or more??) and there are no results that meet scientific criteria for significance (pick a p value, 0.05?) when trying to predict future states (usually held to be future seasons, not things like predict values for game 82 from game 79). Hockey is unlike baseball. It’s all “insignificant”.
You used ‘significant’ in a way that typically indicates statistical significance, so I thought it was fair to clarify.
I am certainly not suggesting the Oilers have no issues, but I do find it odd that you’ve picked some of the less correlated predictors out from your larger set and are using those to argue the Oilers have a ‘serious problem’ and are ‘in trouble’.
Even that projection you link has the Oilers making the playoffs by 5 points (ie – very comfortably). We have folks here who believe the season lost already, but I’m not aware of any projections that expect the Oilers to miss. Even with their poor performance through 10 games.
Summarizing!
On a day where his team put up eight goals, Stonehouse somehow avoided the scoresheet. Soup shall not be his.
Akey did not play, reason unknown to this correspondent.
Prospecting takes a break until Wednesday.
This might be a waste of time and I’m certainly not here to defend Campbell and Skinner, but I’m trying to recall a real howler of a goal against this year. Last year’s version of Campbell would have pucks sift through him so the argument was always that we needed him to make the “easy” saves and that would be enough. Sure, there have been some goals the guys would “like to have back” but do any really count as 5/5 howlers?
I’m not sure what this proves. Maybe that things could be worse? Maybe that the team has given up an astonishing number of 5-alarms?
Stinkiness rating; 5 is just an absolute howler down to a 1 where prime Hasek doesn’t make the save.
I count only 3 goals against (of 40!) as either 4/5 or 5/5. That leaves 37 as either no chance, little chance or really tough save.
Vs Preds
Vs Stars
Vs Calgary
Vs Rangers
Vs Wild
Vs Winnipeg
Vs Philly
Vs Preds
Vs Canucks
Vs Canucks
Great work here. Thanks for doing this.
That’s alot of mentions of Bouchard and weak coveage!
Looks like a combined team effort of putrid defending and average to below average goalies struggling to make the difficult saves.
Not a good combo!
I agree with a lot of this….can we use some extra saves, sure.
But the uncontested goals and High, high danger chances given up are too large to overcome…
This is a dedicated and excellent post.
thank you
for what it is worth, I agree with you.
they should and must be playing better but they are not the primary factor for the the poor team performance. Their statistics correlate strongly with the overall capacity of teams defense against their peers.
I’m a Penguins fan, but I started to watch the Oilers after the 2022 Battle of Alberta. McDavid and Draisaitl reminded me of the Lemieux-and-Jagr Penguins of my youth (no, not Crosby-Malkin, someday I’ll get around to explaining why). I like hockey to be entertaining. I’m partial to teams that can score goals in bunches. The Oilers were fun to watch.
But because the Oilers are not my primary team – and because I’ve watched the 66-68 and 87-71 Penguins religiously—here are 3 outside observations, FWIW.
1. The goalies need to make more saves.
Ten-bell chances, chances off the rush, blah, blah, blah. I don’t care. The goalies need to stop the puck. And frankly, if this doesn’t change, the next 2 things are immaterial.
2. The GM needs to figure out how to give the coach 12 forwards and 6 defensemen.
The forwards are regularly playing down a man. October-November hockey is generally a slopfest, but all those too many men penalties might be greatly helped by regular forward lines.
But 11-7 worked last year!
But McDavid’s clearly not 100% this year. You have years of data telling you running Draisaitl 25 minutes a game early in the season causes serious issues by December. 11-7 occasionally, with a purpose? Sure. Selectively.
But regularly playing down a man, this early in a season, is wearying physically and mentally. And the Oilers have regularly been playing without a full lineup.
3. Once the GM gives the coach 12 forwards and 6 defensemen, the coach actually needs to roll 4 lines, and he needs to stop pairing McDavid and Draisaitl together as a regular deployment strategy.
I don’t like McDavid and Draisaitl together regularly for a bunch of reasons. (Yes, the Battle of Alberta with them on a line was awesome, but Draisaitl had a severely sprained ankle.) Tiny Exhibit A: Second period yesterday, Drai/Nuge/Gagner shift, where Draisaitl looks like Draisaitl in the offensive zone. Other benefit: Against a team like Nashville, if you split McDavid and Draisaitl from the start, one of them doesn’t have to play against Ryan O’Reilly. (Believe it or not, deployment matters even for elite players!)
I’m an outsider who lacks emotional attachment to Nuge, so perhaps that’s why I see him as a good secondary/complementary player at even strength, but not a line driver, so constantly trying to make Nuge a high-end center rather than deploying him regularly with McDavid or Draisaitl centering baffles and confounds me. McD needs help now – give him Nuge, maybe, or give Draisaitl Nuge? But every time one of McD or Draisaitl “struggle” shouldn’t automatically mean they get to be reunited.
But what I see right now – especially when the Oilers get behind from some awful combination of terrible goaltending/mental mistakes – is that a team that’s not icing a full complement of forwards doesn’t have the energy to outscore. I do not think this is “effort” or “focus” or “attitude”; I think it is the literal reality of what happens when too many players are regularly playing too many minutes—the top-end players can’t physically or mentally do what’s needed when they’re gassed, and the “bottom six” players who most need to get in a consistent rhythm with linemates have no chance to establish any rhythm. (No, this isn’t about it being early in the season or the top players not being in shape; it’s that, in general, high-end forwards shouldn’t be playing number 1 defenseman minutes except in extraordinary circumstances, not as par for the course in October.)
I feel like everyone sees this but the coach.
Just roll the lines was a refrain all through the playoffs last year.
Great comment
Great post! Couldn’t agree more with what you laid out.
Very insightful post. I survived the decades of darkness by jumping on the Penguins bandwagon during their cup runs.
The 11-7 issue is a complex one. It’s an attempt to cover up for the problem of not having enough bottom six players. I had just looked at the Pens the other day and posted here. Generally, the Pens didn’t lose the goal share when the Malkin and Crosby were on the bench during the cup winning seasons. They were generally around 50% goal share or higher.
The Oilers bleed out when McDavid and Draisaitl are on the bench generally except last year or the season we lost to the Ducks.
Years of poor professional scouting, losing trades, inefficient cap management, suboptimal goaltending, and recently poor drafting have all contributed.
You raise a really important/interesting point. In the years the Pens didn’t win – their bottom six was generally not “good enough.” That matters, even if for players headed to the HHOF. Matt Cullen, Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin – hugely important bottom-six players to Pens’ Cup winning teams. (The Penguins have been struggling to replace Cullen since he retired/aged out, and darn it if a younger Matt Cullen wouldn’t be tremendously helpful to the Oilers right now.)
For Oilers fans who feel hopeless, the Penguins looked pathetic in the first round of the 2012 playoffs (emotional meltdowns, totally undisciplined, goalie who couldn’t stop a beachball, record-setting bad PK) and in getting swept by the Bruins in 2013. Lots of things came together for the championships they eventually won in ’16 and ’17, but if you had told anyone in 2012-2013 that the Pens’ core was going to get its crap together a few years later, they would have had a bunch of doubts about all the same sort of “mental” things that get thrown around about the Oilers’ core today. (2016 also had lessons Edmonton could learn from: a demanding but supportive coach who respected but still firmly managed star players and who built a system around those stars’ strengths, a willingness to make tough calls in benching a beloved franchise goalie, and calling up/playing rookies (Sheary/Rust) with Crosby and Malkin; I don’t know the Oilers’ system has any potential Shearys or Rusts in the minors “ready and waiting” but you’ll never know if they never get a shot.)
Yet it also raises something else that continually boggles my mind when watching the Oilers. Has McDavid had a tough injury-riddled start to the year? Has Draisaitl’s finishing been way off (even if his defense has been better than usual, despite emotions of a poor start possibly making that hard to see)? Yep, definitely.
BUT BUT BUT. When anything is wrong with the Oilers, it is on McDavid and/or Draisaitl to fix it. From the outside: it is insane deployment and insane responsibility, and pragmatically, it will eventually wear out those players.
Exhibit A: Rather than fix a penalty kill structure that doesn’t work, the team figures they will just deploy McDavid as a PK regular, and presto, McDavid immediately makes the PK better because yes, he is that good! But the team doesn’t actually have the depth players and/or the system they need to PK so McDavid could spend his energy on other things. (Usually McDavid has crazy reservoirs of energy and this is not an issue, but still…wouldn’t it be nice to avoid the injury risk and have other players who could actually PK, and use McDavid strategically there vs regularly?)
Exhibit B: Too often when there is a defensive zone draw of consequence, it seems Draisaitl must be on the ice to take it (hint: if your top offensive players are expected to expend energy doing this, at some point they are going to fail on offense or fail on defense because they are going to be too tired physically or mentally).
At no point in HHOF careers has Pittsburgh ever expected Malkin to win defensive zone draws regularly, or assumed regular deployment of 87 and 71 would be the ideal approach to fix a floundering PK. Meanwhile, in Edmonton, anytime there is an issue, it’s expected McDavid and Draisaitl should fix it, even when the issue is just that the goalies need to make a save.
If you’re regularly playing insane amounts of minutes – you can’t be 100% perfect at offense and defense, you’re going to be physically or mentally gassed and make mistakes, even if you have the unreal genetics of Connor McDavid or the innate hockey sense of Leon Draisaitl. If the Oilers don’t believe me – perhaps they should listen to Martin St. Louis when he says it’s an 80% league. The Oilers are doing no one—especially their superstars—any favors with this current shorthanded roster (and yes, it annoys me a lot even as an outside observer because it shouldn’t be THAT hard to be able to ice a full line-up, even if an imperfect full lineup).
Absolutely. not a word out of place.
‘Shorten the bench’ has been the motto to solving problems through Mclellan, Tippett, and now Woodcroft.
We had a brief reprieve when Woodcroft took over with him instantly finding more minutes for McLeod and other youth.
Very bright analytics folks like Dom at the Athletic often criticize Draisaitl for his poor defensive metrics while refusing to acknowledge the impact of him often playing more minutes per game than a number one defenseman. He is also often relied on for high leverage defensive zone draws as you’ve mentioned.
Still, personnel has been a major issue. You would think if anyone could have taken six plugs for the bottom six and make them play Yotes style hockey, it would have been Dave Tippett.
So the answer is certainly both roster construction as the root cause, but also agree on the deployment issue.
I’ve mentioned before how having Draisaitl taking PK draws is a great drain on that resource.
If he loses the faceoff, he is often forced to stay on the ice for an extended period in a very taxing situation.
Vancouver had a similar issues with Pettersson or JT Miller so went out and specifically acquired PK players including centre Pius Suter who is winning almost 58%.
The Oilers could and should have prioritized adding a 4C with penalty killing ability instead if gilding the lily by signing Connor Brown,
I’d wholeheartedly agree that roster construction and cap allocation are less than ideal in a variety of ways (as I think many (most?) would).
I’m intrigued that Draisaitl actually has really good public defensive analytics for the first part of the Oilers’ terrible start, but due to lack of finishing/polish on PP and lack of actual finishing at even-strength, the start is perceived as weaker than past starts where the public defensive analytics would have been bad despite outscoring. (I think public analytics have value, but so does “eye test” and so do the private analytics/tracking with pre-shot movement the public analytics don’t do yet.)
Leads me back to wondering if, given the sheer amount of ice time these guys play, if it’s just not physically possible, at that amount of ice time, to be that “on” both defensively and offensively (though I think there’s some bad luck/pressing too hard with some of the shots that haven’t gone into the net). Other thing about Eichel last spring and on Vegas — he played less than he did in previous roles, but was probably able to be more effective on both sides of the puck (perhaps due to playing less, not only a systems thing)? Would be fascinated by someone looking into diminishing returns analytically on ice time over time and when it’s just too much (someone probably has). McDavid’s genes might make him a rare exception to the general rule, but with him clearly not 100%, I just don’t get overplaying any player in that state…but when roster construction and injuries you’re playing with 10 forwards at times, well, I get why the coach overplays those two (but I dislike watching it).
Excellent
I think the Duo should play less simply so they have more jump when they do
I think their production might in the end be better, and the bad guys on their heels more
Mostly on 2 lines
And Woody needs to create steady lines. Win or lose let them play and work their way out of this. They will make the playoffs, one way or another. Preparing for the playoffs is all that matters now, as everything else is toasted
Brilliant
thanks for the eloquent and objective summary.
i agree!
So if Woodcroft gets fired isn’t that an indictment of the players? How many coaches does this core gotta go through? Maybe it’s time to think the unthinkable and change some of the core and not the Coach.
I do not think so. When Woodie first got the job he coached differently than he is now. He split up McDrai and he played young players. He no longer does that and the team sucks. Plus he has shown numerous times that he cannot adjust in game and gets out-coached often.
Agreed. It feels like the wider hockey community is finally taking notice to what majority of the hardcore Oil fanbase already knew, McD/Drai have outplayed every coaching mistake for years; carrying a level of responsibility unprecedented and in doing so successfully, elevated the perception of everyone around them.
Aside from McLeod, he has never played really played the young players in the NHL. It even took him a LONG time to move on from Campbell as the main goalie last season.
am I upset about this team? yeah.is it on my front burner? nope. Katz has mismanaged this asset for 15 years or so but he makes money. at this point 97,29, 93, 91, and 18 -despite playing hurt- are reliable. 2nd tier, 37, 27, 14, 25 and 2. not of calibre 55, 10, 73, 71, 36, 74,and a couple others Gagner can play IMO
Katz can be criticized for hiring Bob Nicholson who was tasked with hiring the men who were at the top of hockey ops.
As far as being an owners, the man has been hands off hockey ops since acquisition (give or take Yakupov) and has done nothing but spend, spend, spend on coaches, management and players.
He as allowed for multiple managers and coaches to be fired so that he pays for multiple managers and coaches at the same time.
He has spend over the cap on player personnel year after year.
He has buried large one way contract in the minors.
He has agreed to sign players to the AHL team with very large AHL salaries.
He has signed players to help the AHL on 2-way contract with very large AHL salaries and guaranteed min compensation.
Shit, even on the Lucic – Neal trade, that cost Katz apx $12MM in real dollars.
ok but hiring detroits used laundry was bad
Katz’s biggest flaw as owner is his inability to choose the right people to manage this team. Nicholson, Chiarelli, Holland, all poor choices. These were all “famous” choices who were respected for past accomplishments, and not for what they are capable of now and in the future.
And hiring Jackson may be showing that he’s learned from these past mistakes. I would expect that if Jackson lets Holland go he will hire someone with a good resume but a non-traditional hockey hire.
Pretty sure that McDavid was instrumental in hiring Jackson and acquiring Conner Brown.
Things may not be what they appear.
Brown was doing things right. Points will come
I think all the talking everyone did psyched them out, too much pressure, self applied
Holland should limit pressers to players that played well and let them re focus for a while. Or talk himself, or Jackson, coaches
Mental break needed for players
What about the recently departed Kim Ng, the former GM of the Florida Marlins? She is known in sports circles as a smart executive with an incredible mind and got the Marlins back to the playoffs.
I know this is thinking way outside the box, but you have a brilliant mind with a chip on their shoulder.
Lowe & MacT we’re also “famous” in their own way and drove the team straight into the ditch.
Lets not forget who hired Eakins and that soccer coach,
Woody has fallen into the Tippett trap of undervaluing the depth players on his team. I can’t stress enough how much I believe that a team must utilize and see all of its members as integral to TEAM success.
How much better do you think a person will perform when they feel like they are needed and are a valuable contributor to a team? It’s the coaches job to ensure each member of the team understands that he brings value to the team and is given the opportunity to demonstrate that value through trust and ice time.
If the bottom sixers see themselves as merely a bunch of interchangeable bodies that Jay throws out only when Connor and Drai need a rest, they never get a chance to get into the game and will rely more and more on the “real stars” to win the game. This team MUST be more than McDrai, the team has to view itself as an entity that wins together. The eighties dynasty had the HOFers, but they also relied on the Lowes, the Huddys, the Fogolins, etc. to push them together to the top.
Right now, this team feels like McDrai plus a bunch of independent contractors who plug in the remaining minutes. I feel that must change.
This is not to let the players themselves off the hook, after all, one could say they could do more to earn more ice time as well. But I think the coach must instill that trust and team spirit first and foremost.
Remember what D. Ryan said right before Tippett got canned?
It’s deja vu all over again.
I do remember well
It is also likely that the bottom 6 just are not very good hockey players.
Nobody has a smokin bottom 6 because cap, at least for long
Its team building that has them play well enough
The Oilers are trying to take the 2019 St. Louis Blues cup route. Last place in the standings in January until turning it around and winning the cup. Bold strategy.
BLUES fired the coach halfway thru the season. So they still took action.
so you’re saying there’s hope 😉 ?
If Connor is not 100% he should not be playing north of 20 Min every game. It’s time Woody trusts the other lines. By not playing them they will never gain traction and don’t ever feel like part of the team. Time to distribute the playing time more equally like the Knights.
This is a tough team to follow right now.
Had a buddy who invited me over to watch the game, but I had to be behind the bench for my daughter’s U-13 game, so off to the rink I go. My team is in tough this year as we are playing boys teams all season in our division, and my team is roughly a team of beginners 5 have never played, and 4 others are in their second year, but they are all enjoying their time and gaving fun.
We had a practice this morning and the focus has been very basic skills. My top end players have been instructed that whenever we do basic stuff, that they need to do it at high speed and high tempo. We had an excellent practice this morning and I only had to ask for more enthusiasm a few times. I’m a big believer in being enthusiastic. If you know the story of Jim Valvano, you know he was a very enthusiastic person and her spread that on to everyone eround him. I often think of his saying (You + Motivation = Success) and model my coaching after that. I also ask my team what day it is and they always have to respond (enthusiastically) “It’s a great day for hockey” (Thanks Badger Bob).
Anyway, practice this morning went very well and you can really start to see the progress happening all around in terms of not only hockey development, but in the development of personalities and team cohesion. It is days like today where you reaffirm why you got into coaching. The mind flows and so do the drills. You start simple with high repitition high success, into low repititon low success, whole parl whole. The players are enjoying it and so are you.
However, the flip side of that, and this is where Jay Woodcroft (and his team by extension) is right now. An area where this is no joy, no creativity, no flow, and no way out, or so it seems. When you coach kids, this is where the parents show no patience and have all sorts of doubt. They wonder how you ever got the job in the first place, and why you aren’t trying. The more vocal ones will certainly let you know, but it’s often the silent majority that are the worst, as they badmouth you in front of others and sometimes their kids, who just happen to be your players. It makes the most joyous of places, the rink, the last place you want to be. When that happens in minor hockey, you stick to your duties, play out the season, then pack it all away. That is the luxury of coaching kids. No one and I mean no one will fire you, unless of course, you step over the line, then of course, you should be removed and never be allowed to coach again, but really, which on of those parents could do wht you do? Not too many.
The tough part with pro coaches, is that you are not allowed to simply play out the string and you will be fired. Plain and simple.
I always say that it’s not that the coach is a bad coach, but is not the right coach at that time.
I have a feeling that is where Woodcroift is right now.
Hopefully he can turn it around.
Wow. This was a fascinating post. Thanks
“It’s getting late, early” – YOGI BERRA
Thinking of you LT. I’d imagine a positive distraction would have been extremely helpful during this tough year. Remember how appreciated you are. I’ve been waking up to read your words since I can’t remember. I’ve moved to Australia and my partner knows who lowetide is.
I find it baffling that in an era where even a 10 year old with a middling interest in sports has heard of “load management,” that the Oilers ran McDrai into the ground over years.
Look at how careful MLB teams manage their mid to bottom rotation starters, never mind the top end guys. Look at how the Raps/Clippers managed Leonard’s minutes.
The Oilers went against the grain, against evidence, against logic, and both guys look hurt/fatigued 10 games in.
A combined 20 plus million per year in salary and a 10 cent plan to manage their longevity. Thanks Ken!
Kwai Leonard gamed really silly fans into thinking it was smart to pay him $20 million a year for half a seasons work. The NBA changed the rules this year cause fans were getting pissed that stars were only playing 3/4 of their games. Only one team can win at the end of the year yet all of these very very well paid players were intentionally sitting out 5,6,10 games a season.
Basketball isn’t a real sport because of stuff like this. It’s why they have to have an inter-league tournament in the middle of the year to up the gimmick factor. It’s more like reality tv than a serious game in 2023.
Michael Jordan never wanted to sit like a priss and would have told Jackson to mess himself for suggesting something so bizarre.
I’ve thought about this for over 30 years. Players play way too many games, considering what they put their bodies through, I think the top leagues and their players are better served playing a 60 game season. Despite the fortunes several make, what price do they end up paying when they reach their 50’s and 60’s?
As for basketball, these are not only some of the best athletes on the planet, with tremendous speed, quickness and power, they are also giant humans. That comes with a whole lot of other issues.
I should have said today’s NBA isn’t a serious league, not basketball as a whole. Bad choice of words and I retract, because this is an NBA player problem, not basketball.
Basketball is unique in how much stars play and impact the game. But if you start poking across time and space, all of a sudden you see a very noticeable drop among Star NBA players, who far and away make the most money, and pretty much everyone else. Games played drops from say 78-82, down in to the 50s or 60s. It lines right up with the Raptors getting lucky and grifted in the same season. The richest guys un the league decided “yup brilliant, why play all the time if I don’t have to?”
Kahwi Leonard has never played a full season, since leaving the Spurs (where Popovich got tired of his crap), he’s never played more than 60 regular season games. In L.A. where he is making a MAXIMUM contract he’s never played more than 57 games. The Clippers haven’t won a championship and they’ve paid maximum dollar to have him sit out for 25-30 games a year. Sometimes legit injuries yes. But… maybe also one of the greatest grifts ever seen in sports.
Luka Doncic, brilliant player, too bad he’s only on the court for 2/3 of Mavs games.
The NBA seems to have come to the same conclusion and it’s what’s underlying the change in how load management is used. No surprise that Leonard wasn’t happy about the change. Bummer, now he has to work for that $36.9 million contract…
https://www.nba.com/news/adam-silver-load-management-bog-news-conference-2023
They have ‘2’ defenseman that are good NHL passers. They have 2 that are minus skaters, in the league as it is now
They overplay guys and allow shifts so long forwards can’t back check properly. Is Leon still lollygagging off the ice? I haven’t watched for it this year. Can’t figure out line changes, haven’t been good at it since MacT probably
Even with lots of skill the Oilers make NHL hockey look amazingly hard to execute at a basic level
Foot meet gun
29 is still lolly-gagging on changes yes.
Anaheim is doing it with 18 year old Leo Carlsson. They pre planned in the summer that he would play 52 games, never on B2B nights. The schedule was set up:
1 – To have Carlsson play a similiar number of games he would have played in Europe
2- To allow him to Rest properly
3 – To allow him to strength train and add muscle throughout the year
4 – To hopefully limit injury (which is common for 18 yr olds)
This LONG TERM plan and measured approach to one of their prized organizational assets is AWESOME imo.
LT, this is oddly one of your more evocative posts.
Thanks for doing what you do. You have a real talent with the written word.
You’ve earned every right to feel this way after decades of fandom, combined with the very real possibility that a window is closing before our eyes.
Swayman .954 S% 3rd in nhl, 1.38 gaa. RFA $3.5M cap. Bruins
Debrusk 5 points +4 in 10 games. $4M cap hit UFA.Bruins still have Ullmark .926 S% UFA in 2025.
Their cup window is still open.
Draisaitl $8M cap hit, UFA in 2 years.
Id make this trade, would the Bruins?
I bet they wouldn’t.
Would you take Ulmark instead with Debrusk and a pick? We would have to throw in a million dollar player to make the money work, maybe Holloway and the pick we received would be a first?
Swayman would immediately go sub .900 on the Oilers and DeBrusk would be 2 points and -10
We need some better players in certain spots, but the Bruins thrive through their team play more than the players. We need a coach with a broader skill set to get these guys in line, and a GM that can make upgrades and find better fits
Not some burnt out old fart tough guy coach either. But somebody with more gravitas and better ideas. Tocchet made a team out of a sad sack Canucks group in a big hurry, with some GM support
I wouldn’t do this trade if I were the Oilers. I’d argue the Oilers could finally get their #1 defenceman they’ve looked for since Pronger left. Teams would be falling all over themselves if Draisatl was on the market. But knowing the Oilers, they’d let no one know and trade him for a #3 that they’ve fancied all along.
Which teams do you think would trade an elite #1D?
I don’t make this trade as it’s not enough or not the right players in exchange for Drai.
In the spirit of the post, anyone with some good music recommendations? Pretty sick of my usual suspects.
Preferably some ambient/minimal lyrics so I can listen while I read/work.
I would also take some reading recommendations!
When you say Nothing at All – Alison Krauss and Union Station
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SCOimBo5tg
In keeping with today’s theme…
https://youtu.be/MPZ575AC3wQ?si=zPlRcf7bfLOMG9tr
”It’s Over…But I Can’t Let Go”
(Alison with Robert Plant)
If you enjoy EDM/electronic at all check out DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. It’s like a mashup of a bunch of stuff but it’s mostly vibey stuff that is great background music.
https://youtu.be/Q6Wyur1ecyo?si=cB6f-EJ6r_0w-bbO
The kid kills this session IMO
For last year or two find myself listening to this guy quite a bit:
https://youtu.be/Hrmdx62s-Rs?si=JQeYaeWQ9Bn2DqA_
Jaime Branch new record (posthumous) is quite good.
Lo-fi girl on YouTube
Put it on, ignore it, enjoy it.
You want the Avalanches album Since I Left You.
What kind of novels do you enjoy reading?
Echo the DJ Sabrina and Jaimie Branch recommendations. Two of my top albums of the year. With the DJ Sabrina album, I’m not even a “vibes” guy or much of a passive listener, but the details of the al un are really worthy of a deeper listen, even if it is four hours.
Another great chill record is Gia Margaret’s Romantic Piano.
Prospectotum!
It’s Stonehouse vs. Akey in today’s feature about at noon Enilda time.
So I’m guessing Jeff Jackson never envisioned anything like this would be possible this year. I guess we find out if he can prove his worth.
they are 1/2 step behind and I think the other teams have figured out how to defend macd and drei
Can McLeod finish?
Gleason up
This reminds me of Connor’s first season. He wouldn’t shoot, and that made it easier on the bad guys
But being Connor year 2 he came back with a shot. I think that they are very predictable, especially Leon. That makes it easier to defend them. They need more ways of doing things and/or better help. Coaching and GM
Vegas showed the way in the playoffs and other teams have learned how to limit the damage.
Really any team that clogs the net front causes them 5v5 problems, has been like that for years
Which is why they try to cycle. But they need some wrinkles to loosen things up and be less predictable. Woody is not showing he can get that going in any meaningful way
where did you find this ??
As per Kevin Wooley on twitter:
Oilers giving up more of most dangerous scoring chances off rush at 5-on-5 than any other NHL team: 2.86 expected goals against per game off high-danger shots is 32nd and TWICE as many as the top-6 teams … also 27th on PK, all per @csahockey … this isn’t all about goaltending
They’re being PDOd for sure, but it looks like they’re earning some of it too.
CSA is Clear Sight Analytics: https://www.csahockey.com/
Bad line changes
Bad pinches by our D
No defensive conscience by some of our forwards.
not getting a save that maybe other goalies would save. The team is then forced to chase the game. Bad pinches, 3 forwards deep etc follow.
The biggest reason to not play Draisaitl and McDavid together is never brought up. Which is who on the line will be the 3rd forward high in the Ozone.
I also wonder if the 11/7 setup is line blenderi g the forwards too much. Forwards are not used to each other and each of them looking at the other 2 to be the defensive conscience on that line.
Still time to turn this around
It needs to be repeated – TWICE – as many dangerous scoring chances as the top 6 teams.
They’re earning SOME of it???
Make no mistake – this is not a chance blip – the Oilers are in real trouble.
EDM is 100 percent earning their lowered SV% that’s what the real analytics are telling us.
On the SH% side, we see McDavid producing at a career low for iGF60, iSF60, iCF60, and SH%. His shot rate declined immediately after colliding with Kane in the Philly game, and by eye he was having issues before that injury. When your best player, who scored 64 goals for you last season, can’t shoot your SH% is going to decline. The guy looks like he’s delaying surgery to me. Draisaitl’s general shot rate is ok, but his high-danger attempts are down, as is his SV%. Neither player is able to deal with double-coverage right now. The big guns are broken and it’s not “chance”.
Regression happens to all measures (attempts, goals and percentages) and variance in smaller samples of SH% and SV% are not due only to luck – not as a hockey analyst or fan would understand luck.
If you want to talk about regression you need to look also look at EDM’s UNSUSTAINABLE xGF60 rate 5v5 of 3.39. Because that too will regress as the Oilers encounter teams and system that surrender fewer xGF60 – especially towards the end of the season when teams clamp down.
Lest we forget that none of these measures are predictive and mean anything without intelligent discussion and analysis, I put this together the other day.
————————————-
All sits measures & rank of Cup Winners
VGK 2022-2023 (League rank)
CF% 43% (22nd)
FF% 45% (17th)
xGF% 49% (20th)
HDCF% 46% (16th)
GF% 50% (20th)
HDGF% 47% (20th)
SH% 11% (19th)
SV% 91% (15TH)
SH% + SV% 102 (19th)
COL 2021-2022 (League rank)
CF% 49% (5th)
FF% 50% (8th)
xGF% 53% (9th)
HDCF% 45% (21ST)
GF% 56% (11th)
HDGF% 52% (13th)
SH% 12% (12TH)
SV% 91% (14TH)
SH% + SV% 103 (14th)
TBL 2020-2021 (League rank)
CF% 49% (5th)
FF% 50% (4th)
xGF% 56% (4th)
HDCF% 50% (11TH)
GF% 62% (1ST)
HDGF% 64% (4th)
SH% 12% (9TH)
SV% 93% (4TH)
SH% + SV% 105 (3RD)
TBL 2019-2020 (League rank)
CF% 44% (4th)
FF% 49% (3rd)
xGF% 54% (3rd)
HDCF% 49% (9TH)
GF% 54% (8th)
HDGF% 48% (19th)
SH% 11% (16TH)
SV% 91% (13TH)
SH% + SV% 103 (12th)
STL 2018-2019 (League rank)
CF% 47% (7th)
FF% 48% (6th)
xGF% 52% (6th)
HDCF% 52% (2nd)
GF% 57% (6th)
HDGF% 60% (2nd)
SH% 12% (7TH)
SV% 92% (17TH)
SH% + SV% 103 (13th)
A lot of the numbers above are wrong for some reason, may have had a score condition set in the sort. Here’s what I found when double-checking Vegas.
VGK 2022-2023 (League rank)
CF% 49% (22nd)
FF% 50% (20th)
xGF% 52% (16th)
HDCF% 53% (12th)
GF% 54% (9th)
HDGF% 57% (4th)
SH% 10% (12th)
SV% 91% (7th)
SH% + SV% 101 (6th)
Coaching plays a big role in this, not using the talents you have to their strengths. The team should not have fallen off a cliff this fast.
It’s time to have that discussion about separating the glitter twins, and I don’t mean desperate lines but separate teams. Draisaitl is the obvious move as he is the second most loved Oiler. I don’t think he is going to resign here anyways. Top heavy teams don’t win cup, hello Toronto, balanced teams do, I’m looking at you Vegas. We don’t have to tear it down to the studs, but we need to drastically change the complexion of the team. It’s not the coaches, we’ve been through 4 of them and a couple of gm’s and I don’t think we can pin this on the owner. What can we reasonably expect to receive for 29 this summer, or even mid season?
I don’t trust Holland to make a trade of this magnitude.
He should be out of any final decision making
He has shown he’s a weak deal maker, poor assessor of pro players, and we don’t need another Chiarelli swan song to live through
Draisaitl has a 10 team trade list which significantly reduces the number of potential destinations.
Where do you think he might want to play that can/would clear the cap space?
How about 29 for Boston goalie Swayman, the numbers would be close.
If they throw in Debrusk the money works.
Not sure Boston would want to move an elite, cost controlled 24 years old goaltender for a player verging on a massive retirement contract.
I wouldn’t do it.
Many GMs could easily bring a haul in for Leon. Or Nurse. Not these guys though
I would accept this most horrible of options were there only someone with the savvy to pull it off. It would hurt. It’s hardly thinkable. But nothing is worse than wasting this window, wasting McD, and ultimately losing both stars.
Drai might be his ride or die, but I expect nothing is more determinate to McDavid staying on this team than winning.
Put another way: This season and next have been dressed as the Stanley window; This season might be it for the Drai window. Unless happy days are here and they go all the way.
Oilers top three cost $30.25
Vegas’ top three cost $28.3
Oilers next top six cost (3F and 3D) $28.9
Vegas next top six cost (3F and 3D) $29.25
Oilers Gs Cost $7.6
Vegas Gs Cost $5.6 (Lehner LTIR $5×2)
The Oilers top core is younger than Vegas’ top core owing to Stone but pretty much the same otherwise. Vegas and the Oilers pretty much have the same allocations to their players in the same sort of spots. Vegas has a boat anchor deal in Lehner that was a very dangerous contact the second it was signed and is being bailed out by LTIR. Campbell is. goalie in the NHL. I’m not sure how bad the cap gymnastics will have to be for Vegas to get Whitecloud back into the lineup later this year with their LTIR status.
The difference is that Vegas is getting contributions from their whole lineup and 1/3 of the Oilers lineup has zeros while the tops aren’t producing at 1.75ppg pace they are capable of while giving up worse defensively. You know its bad when I haven’t had to complain about Hyman’s d yet. The goaltending has not been good enough when it needed to be but keeps getting hung out to dry on odd mans when defense river boat gamble or fall asleep. We’ve seen perfectly fine NHL play from bottom six players but also an allergy to posting crooked numbers on the scoresheet.
This is a funky funk but a funk all the same. Patience.
It’s baffling in the NHL how stuck teams are with the players they sign. It should be performance based- next man up. The Oilers need to make a move at goal, now!
from reddit-
Despite a 0-10-1 record and allowing 20 goals in their last two games, the Sharks Tandem both have better save % than the Oilers tandem of Campbell and Skinner.
Stuart Skinner – 6 GP, 0.861 sv% and 3.62 GAA
Jack Campbell – 5 GP, 0.873 sv% and 4.50 GAA
Kaapo Khakonen – 5 GP, 0.876 sv% and 4.30 GAA
Mackenzie Blackwood – 8GP, 0.879 sv% and 4.78 GAA
The Oilers way is to cross their fingers and hope their goaltending magically improves on its own. Look how well that worked for Mikko Koskinen, Mike Smith, Jack Campbell, Stuart Skinner.
Skinner with the worst sv% of all of them….good thing he still has time to develop. But he should be a backup at best right now.
I totally agree. It very negatively impacts the game
I’m not saying go back to the old days when players were treated like livestock, but the way these guaranteed contracts work teams are forced to ice worse teams than they could if the managers are good
Can’t play up to the deal signed, there should be an out. Two way street
As in there is no way Campbell should collect another 20M when he can’t play at an NHL level. He shouldn’t have been signed yes, but his play is on him. He has no future development potential. The team plays terribly in front of the goalies, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a save
I know many will be watching the waiver wire to see if Campbell is exposed and, while I guess there is a non-zero chance of that, I think the chances are low.
What we could see over the next 30 hours is an emergency call-up if both Brown and Janmark remain out for tomorrow night’s game.
Pederson is still hurt and Bourgault isn’t an option. Hamblin and Malone don’t move an needles at the NHL level.
I would expect maybe we see a d-man. Of course, Broberg could come up on emergency but I query if they want to give him a real re-set in the AHL.
Niemo is now healthy and starting to play like he normally does but I query Gleason, Noel. H or Kemp – all having very good starts to the season.
I vote for Gleason.
I’d like to see if Kemp is better than Des. Especially in puck skills
Presumably there will be an emergency recall.
I’ll guess it’s Hamblin. He’s the leading scorer (after Lavoie) and was Lavoie’s center, was he not?
Not too sexy, but Holloway-Hamblin-Lavoie could be a decent line.
Tough to think that a line of three tweeners being a decent line but, hey, you never know.
Of course, the chances that that trio getting any more than 3-4 shifts in a game (unless its a blowout one way or the other) seem all but zero.
I don’t think Holloway is a tweener. And I’m pretty surprised you’d call Lavoie a tweener. Weren’t you calling for him play top 9 immediately? And lamenting that he likely wouldn’t play much?
Holloway has 3 goals and 9 points in sixty or so games now and played about six minutes last night. If the organization had any options, he could be in line for another NHL assignment.
Lavoie is the definition of a tweener right now. He just passed through waivers and has one NHL game on his resume.
Yes, absolutely, I called for him to be in the top 9 – that is his skill-set, scoring goals, etc. and I posited he should be put in a position to succeed, and not seen 4-7 minutes with Ryan.
That doesn’t mean he’s not a tweener.
That line is made up of zero established NHL players – Holloway could/should be one but, at this point, he’s barely holding on to a roster spot.
I haven’t watched any Bakersfield games this year. If the Oilers call up a goalie who is it? Pickard or Rodrigue?
They have both been great in every single one of their starts and are both top 10 goalies in the AHL (and were last year).
Rodrigue is really coming along but I would think that it would be Pickard, who has some NHL experience and is just, well, older.
Rodrigue is still 1B in Bako as much as I would like him to get at least half the starts.
The problem with coaches when you have a team with the quality of players the Oilers have at the top, is it’s easy to credit successes and growth to coaches when it can be all about the career arc of those very talented players
To me the coach’s assessment should be at least as much about team development and people management as anything else. Evidence of in game decisions done well and adjustments
Really we have seen little of that in a long time. When you have McDavid success should be measured in Cup drives. Yakking about anything else is weak sauce by the org. It’s ass covering
The playoff record over the last 4 years isn’t up to snuff. Connor is 9 years in right? Maybe except getting to the conference finals. But that was an ass kicking in the wrong direction
The amount of people attempting to measure performance of this squad without adding the caveat of “whoever is here is working with the two best players in the world as a starting point” is a real assessment mistake. Their low bar should be SUPER high.
One key contextual factor – in the hard cap world, with salaries having risen faster than the cap in recent times, its not about having the best players, its about having the players that provide the most value for cap hit.
The problem with GMs is they get a lot of rope
A bigger problem is the vision and ability of the people who hire them
Holland is playing checkers and his best competitors are playing Spock 3D chess
A big mistake hiring a guy who had his success and legacy in the history bag already and hadn’t been good for over a decade , and was at a career stage well past having any sort of need to push have drive or be innovative
He also to me didn’t need to try very hard to take over the Wings and have some success. And it fizzled out as he went along
When you have a player in the GOAT category that isn’t past it, this isn’t that hard to course correct. If some good decisions are finally taken. Some hard decisions that at the end of the day won’t actually alienate fans current or potential players, winning is all that anybody really cares about in sports if an organization has decency
Hopefully Jackson is working hard behind the scenes. And has the right head for the job. The players a better than before, but that is expected isn’t it if you’re competent – it’s not a feather in your cap – but the mix is way off. Way off. And the coaching isn’t nearly good enough
You could see this coming 3 games in when combined with last year’s early playoff exit.
This organization decides too slowly. On everything. Full stop.
Decisiveness is rewarded in professional sports if practiced with consistency. You will make mistakes. Accept and keep going.
Fear of mistakes is the biggest mistake. And they are heavily guilty.
Doing nothing is Ken Holland’s favorite activity.
I want to push back a bit, if I’m understanding you correctly.
Woodcroft instituted a zone defense because he was tired of seeing a very good regular season team losing in the playoffs. He surely knew there would be some growing pains. That took cojones – enough to probably cost him his job.
I think it was a risk worth taking. Life is unpredictable, and some risks just don’t work out. Sometimes the market stays irrational longer than you can remain solvent. And sometimes Oiler defensemen/goalies can keep on breaking your heart longer than the Oilers fanbase can hold its nerve.
And sometimes the season isn’t over after 10 games.
My opinion is that the zone D was added as a tool and was never intended to be the Oilers main alignment all season.
Damn sure would be nice if they could lock things down once they had the lead though. (remember when the Oilers used to have leads?)
This is very very demoralizing, very very bad, I don’t think anyone can, or will, argue that.
At the same time, I am not close to giving up on the playoffs or even a Stanley Cup run.
Sure, its a positive narrative at a time where catastrophic narratives seem apt but the fact is this team had an early season stretch of 3-7 last season and I would reckon that if we went back and looked at the posts during that stretch, it was just as dark as it is now.
There is tons of time left in this season but time is going to run short to flip that switch if it doesn’t happen soon.
There is little doubt this team can have a stretch of 2-7-1, maybe even a couple of them, and still finish near the top of the division/conference and make a run – we saw it last year.
Now, there seem to be absolutely no signs this team can flip that switch but, well, we know they can – the question is if they will?
Come on Oilers – flip it starting now, with this road trip.
There are three straight games starting at 8 or 8:30 and, if I have to stay up to the middle of the night to watch something similar to what I watched yesterday….
Your post has that undertone of hope and I feel the same way. Unfortunately, it actually is getting late enough that even an epic run may not save this team from missing the playoffs. If they were banking OT points etc then I’d feel a little better.
About the late games, who are you kidding? You are going to watch it, you are going to lose sleep and you will do it again!
At this point it’s about accountability.
Campbell goes to the minors and up comes Pickard. Identical situation to the Pederson – Copley swap that turned around LA’s season 12 months ago.
You play consistently like an AHL’er you get sent to the AHL, contract be damned.
Campbell cost the Oilers the division last year, and he hasn’t played at an NHL level with the Oilers other than very short stints. It’s time to punt him until he proves he can still play.
These streaks generally turn around when all hope is lost and most fans have thrown in the towel. Considering the way Vancouver has stormed out of the starting gate, a win there Monday would be an unexpected surprise.
What a change from the days when the Oilers were being lauded as Stanley Cup favourites to being excited about a November win in Vancouver.
The goalies are in a funk obviously so why not try Pickard out to see if he can supply a spark? We are going through the first significant slump of Connor Mcdavids career and he needs some help. It’s all well and good to say he is getting paid an enormous amount of money and he needs to lead the way, but he is struggling and whether it comes from the GM, the coach, or the players, the captain can use a hand.
Ok boys, it’s time. We just need a 10 game win streak and we will be back on track.
The truly scary part is, that won’t actually put them back on track.
They need to do that once, then again, and probably again in order to get “on track”.
Naw, that would put them at 12-7-1. 25 points in 20 games.
A .625 points%, which would be tied for 4th in the league right now.
A 10 game streak would put them back on track.
That would get them to a bit better than the place they were after 20 last season – they were 10-10 after going 3-7.
12-7-1, .625 would definitely be back on track.
I like your thinking.
Van w
SJS w
SEA w
NYI w
SEA w
TBL w
FLA w
CAR w
WSH w
ANA w
Just in case you were wondering what that would look like. Then they would be so pumped they would probably beat VGK just for fun to make it an 11 game win streak. Then they would be 13-7-1. Something to shoot for.
There’s a 3 game Valley of Death series in the middle of all that.
TBL, FLA and CAR are a combined 10-1-2 at home this season,
No problem for this team. LOL.
That wouldn’t be enough based on how deep a hole they’ve dug. Think about that. That’s how bad the Oilers have been.
This team needs to go out and get shitfaced so to speak. Sc*ew it. Blow off some steam. Laugh out loud. Bond a little. Tomorrow is a new day.
Yah, I’ve mentioned it a few times over the last year or so, I don’t think this team goes out for beers. My guess is it is opposite to the boys on the bus.
I saw somewhere they hit Joey’s last night, players only.
Rishaug suggested that on his pod last night!
As we all know, there are three unwritten rules for fixing a floundering hockey team:
1.
2.
3.
Then BAM! Stanley Cup!!
Now that made my morning! Such a Dad-jokeesque post!
Oh Ben Massey, where are you? Nobody else could rag on a disappointing Oiler team like you could.
I was worried about Nashville.
Im not worried about Vancouver. Oilers will beat Vancouver just cause.
Which will confound everyone even more!
Vancouver is firing on all cylinders. They are a confident bunch, unlike the Edmonton team . Whoever they are ???
I worry they lose to the Sharkies .
Canucks PDO is 1087, Oilers is 956. Amazing what goaltending will do for a team. Campbell needs a stint in the AHL to see if he can turn his game around.
Pedersen & Quinn also lead the league in points with 20 apiece.
The Canucks goal for % is 72%. Their expected goal for % is 44%. They are a mirage.
The only mirage is the expected goals “stat”.
Think of it as an indicator, not a stat.
Nope.
Petey has 20, tied with Quinn’s brother Jack.
Quinn does have 16 points and leads the D scoring race by a wide margin.
He also leads the entire league with a +14
There’s too many Quinn’s around. And they all seem to be mighty.
I wouldn’t bet on it .
If McDavid is anything but 100% healthy it borders on criminal negligence to play him. I’d personally prefer him to have as long a career as possible.
What time do the fanboys arrive telling us how we had a random stretch of 3-7 games last year and if we just keep playing Eakins new system will be better of for it come Playoff time.
They are sleeping in because of the time change!
They have arrived after Winkin’ Blinkin’ and Nod promised them a 12 game win streak after Woody steps up his game and triple shifts a injured McDavid.
Holy hell, Dolphins. Gregor has likely had to pour himself a scotch and its only 9am. Chiefs look great jammin together… like Genesis back in 1974.
Do the oilers owe some type of draft compensation to Calgary if they use LTIR?
Janmark is still out, the brown injury looked bad and several players have been playing at less than 100% all year. But they’re still running with 17 skaters some nights.
Any other team would have fudged LTIR numbers to get some cap assistance.
There’s nobody left to call up Holland pissed it all away.
This is also valid, but at least they wouldn’t have to play a man short.
Woody won’t play them anyhow. It won’t be long before we see grossly overused players go down with injuries. This is all on Holland allowing this to happen.
This is a result of Holland wasting so many second and third round picks on marginal deadline ‘improvements’
Jackson has to be overseeing any trades made by Holland.
Was Skippy French? La Bouch Kangaroo??
There is a jingle stuck in my head…
Main non, Skippy was filmed in Australia. Here’s the jingle to bring back memories of your youth, times were much simpler then. No Oilers hockey team to drive you absolutely nuts…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7serkwcCklE
BTW, Skippy was a hell of an actor.
Hahaha. That’s it. Maybe I watched reruns dubbed into French??
nice handle
Skippy,Skippy, Skippy the Bush kangaroo, Skippy , Skippy , Skippy the Bush kangaroo.
Brown took the pre-game skate yesterday so I suspect he’ll be back soon.
Not putting Janmark on LTIR seems a bit weird though given how long its been.
Then again, bringing up Malone, Hamblin or Erne isn’t going to help the team.
So the Sharks gave up another 10 spot last night. Thursday can’t come soon enough for them.
10 goals. That is embarrassing. When a team goes to run up the score like that it’s time to go after Peterson. Send a message. Keep running up the score at your own risk. There some unofficial rules here.
It was Pittsburgh last night.
Hoseshit. SJ is tanking. Tank at your own risk. There are some unofficial rules here.
Trust me, there are zero NHL players who want to tank. The organization might. The players want to keep playing in the nhl. They have ambition, pride ect.
Horseshit is thinking NHL players would throw games like that and purposely embarrass themselves.
This team was riding the best PP in history along with a younger Leon and Connor who you could get away with double shifting 82 games plus playoffs. Woody had lost the plot 5 games into the year Woody is not changing, adapting its Holland job to try and save the season by firing Woody tomorrow before Vancouver humiliates us.
This team hasn’t been right and ready to play since game 1. That is on the coaches. Unfortunately I don’t see an option to fix this. It has to come from the group. If they can’t get something positive going in the next 2, woody will take one for the team and be fired.
Emergency measures time. Coaching change, goalie change, call ups and how about we hear from upper management???? Has a last years playoff team with essentially same roster ever fallen so far so fast to start the next season???? Yikes!
All started with the systems change. Oilers were never built to play such a defensive-heavy system, and they don’t have the right mix of players to pull it off without stellar goaltending. I’ve mentioned this since game 2. GAME 2!
but what do I know, I’m just a tier 3 fan who has refused to watch an Oilers game this year since half way through game one. Had a bad feeling after the third goal against, and tuned out since then. Have only been checking in and watching highlights once in a while to see how much worse the team has gotten. I have better things to do then watch the Oilers implode for 3 hours and go to bed pissed off.
Apathy is all I feel for the Oilers at this point.