I have a feeling, based on the comments section last night, you’re not going to agree with many of my comments today. That’s fine, disagreements can lead to greater undersanding. Here’s my opinion on last night’s game.
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: Oilers’ top prospects impacted by struggles and injuries
- New DNB: Who is new Edmonton Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch? These 3 traits define his approach
- Lowetide: Oilers winger Connor Brown and the question of his optimal usage
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers forward Dylan Holloway’s injury highlights concern over offensive potential
- Lowetide: What Oilers management must reckon with in roster construction
- DNB: Edmonton Oilers’ transition of power happening in real-time and the stakes couldn’t be higher
- Lowetide: Are the Oilers suddenly able to develop their own goalies?
- Lowetide: Do the Edmonton Oilers have enough value contracts this season?
- DNB: Edmonton Oilers’ crisis shifts to embarrassment after loss to the Sharks
- Lowetide: What if the Edmonton Oilers end up in the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery?
- Lowetide: 6 ways the Edmonton Oilers can improve in November
- Lowetide: Oilers already leaning on a push from the AHL. Who could be next?
- Lowetide: Can Connor McDavid come from behind to win another Art Ross Trophy?
- Lowetide: Will Edmonton Oilers redeem themselves after baffling October?
THE NUMBERS
Stuart Skinner had a tough game but he was the right choice in net. I suspect he’ll start the next game too, but eventually Calvin Pickard is going to see a game and he’s getting rusty now. Not a good situation, we’ve seen this movie before. I see ‘trade Skinner’ chatter and that makes zero sense to me. The man played 50 games a year ago, had a .914 save percentage and saved the season. The play here is to get him help (another NHL goalie) and play Skinner less often. Let him find his way.
Evan Bouchard is taking major hits online, and this is an issue for Oilers fans going back to Paul Coffey, Tom Poti, Justin Schultz and others along the way. Bouchard is the best draft pick since McDavid and it isn’t close. He’s an impact player. Trading him would be a bad idea. What the Oilers need to do is what Ken Holland already did: Find a veteran two-way partner. It hasn’t worked out as well this year as it did last season, but the Mattias Ekholm-Bouchard combination is 9-11 goals at five-on-five, compared to 36-19 a year ago. So, it’s regression, not a disaster.
I see lots of upset comments about Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and I get it. If you look at five-on-five outscoring by the centers, the story unfolds in a most peculiar way:
- McDavid and Draisaitl together: 7-4 goals
- McDavid solo: 0-5
- Draisaitl solo: 6-7
- Nuge w/o 97 and 29: 10-11
- McLeod w/o 97, 29, 93: 1-6
- The rest: 3-4
The Oilers are built around McDavid, Draisaitl, three veteran blue (it was Klefbom, Larsson and Sekera in 2016-17, it’s Nurse, Ceci and Ekholm now and a goalie who can stop 91 percent of the pucks (Talbot, Smith, now Skinner) or more. That’s it, that’s all.
So, when you’re yelling at Stuart Skinner, remember he has a .922 five-on-five save percentage since 2021-22. When you’re angry at Evan Bouchard, remember he owns a 1.33 pts-60 at five-on-five, plus a 51.5 goal share in the discipline over the past three seasons. He has posted a 4.55 pts-60 on the power play.
I’m not saying you should be calm, I’m not saying the Oilers should keep their powder dry. I am saying that the Oilers can win enough hockey games to make the playoffs. Connor McDavid will regress and when he does the Oilers will take the league by storm. I don’t think it will be enough, the team is burning daylight and will use all of their energy to get to the second season. I will never bet against a McDavid team. Ever.
tough loss yesterday. On the bright side…3-1 last four games. 2-1 since Knobby took over. Somewhere in that ratio for the rest of the year should make the playoffs, correct?
I’d give Calvin a game against Florida.
Stamkos can still play.
Maybe slide Connor Brown on the first powerplay to get him going.
The best draft pick since McDavid is Stuart Skinner who was responsible for this team making the playoffs last season.
The choice isn’t a future one between Nurse and Bouchard.
The choice is a present one between Bouchard and Skinner, and by extension is also a choice one between Bouchard and Draisaitl & McDavid.
Day not only picks up the W, he also earns the OHL Save of the Night as he foils a one-timer.
Good news alert. With the Blackhawks loss tonight, Edmonton jumped from 31st place to 30th.
You’re welcome.
Gross
Evan Bouchard:
GF 11 / GA 15
He is pure comedy at times from his own red line in.
Offensive genius with the puck. Comical for long stretches without the puck.
Don’t know what to do. Too much talent to trade away.
ruthlessly gives up far too many easy, easy goals against.
There was a time when the Oilers had crazy talent and zero discipline
And then they did
He played the exact same way to start last season for a few months (without the offence) and then turned up his 2-way game markedly.
I would suggest we likely see a similar progression this year as he continues to get used to the higher leverage minutes.
If he is going to play like a D on an ELC for the first half of the season, why do the Oilers have to pay him $4 million.
He is 24. Played 200 NHL games already.
We are 16 games into the season now.
Love your positive optimism…but we and the league are very close to having him surrounded.
As an aside, the book ( scouting) on Evan is almost half a decade old. He is, what may thought he would be….
How do you keep this player and Draisaitl in 2025? The only answer is to lose a trade on this player. We survived without Coffey. We’ll be better in the short term without Bouchard. I had a longer comment but someone marked it as spam.
/
These are two completely dissociated ideas though.
There very well may be a Cap space issue in 2025, but that’s 1.8 seasons away.
A potential Cap issue in 2025 has no bearing on your opinion that the team would be better without Bouchard in the short term.
The present and future states of this player are tied together and were raised by Lowetide in this blog.
One rational proposal is to hold on to Bouchard and suffer through his defensive mistakes as those will go away in the future. Even if this is an accurate assessment, it’s not clear that EDM will be able to make the future cap state work.
If the objective is to pay both Draisaitl and Bouchard it could require buying-out Nurse (implied in LT’s post as Nurse’s trade list doesn’t kick in until 2017?).
In terms of the present, Bouchard has a negative impact on several important stats, including SV% and GA60. It’s hard on the goalies and makes them look bad. They don’t get credit for GF60 or xGF%. The argument that Bouchard’s GA60 is because of bad luck doesn’t hold water anymore. We’ve all seen the repeated mistakes: there’s no denying the downside of the player.
So I see that another rational proposal is to move the player: the Oilers can’t afford his defensive mistakes in the present and can’t afford to pay the “cured” version of the player in the future.
Lowetide himself has said in the past that “Bouchard will be great player, but on a different team…” so it would be interesting for him to expand on this. I see a disagreement between his statements and I’m not certain if he’s changed his mind or if he meant something different in the past.
Probably EDM keeps Bouchard regardless. Coffey and Jackson
(with Dave Ganger’s influence) will tend to make judgements in Bouchard’s favour.
if Bouchard continues another 20 games with the play we have witnessed this season, and he gets first pairing minutes, combined with goaltending it could cost the Oilers the playoffs and by extension a Draisaitl extension. That’s also not irrational.
The other argument that could be made is that Bouchard’s offensive production is helping Draisaitl and McDavid.
There are rational arguments here in favour and against Bouchard. Hence “Contrarian”.
The potential for a future cap crunch involving Bouchard really isn’t relevant to your opinion that the team would be better without Bouchard in the short term though.
Posted many times before about Pickard should have started already….
Forget Pickard for a second…..
Just going to keep whipping Skinner until the playoffs?
That is the plan?
how about Elvis Merzlikin out of CBJ?
haven’t looked at stats. CBJ is a tire fire. $5.4 mil for this year +3 more ….
I’d be on board but I’m not sure how it happens without Campbell going the other way.
It would cost a first, I’d guess along with Campbell and likely a prospect too. Maybe they retain a little on Merzlinkins contract.
Just seems too expensive for it to make sense for the Oilers, it’s another inconsistent goalie like Campbell.
At a high price, Id rather target someone like Hart, a younger goalie who has more potential to pop. it will be interesting to see how desperate they are though.
It should barely cost anything given Merzlikins isn’t materially better than Campbell and his contract is an extra $400K per.
merzlikin sv% each year
.923
.916
.907
.876
.897
When he has decent team he’s been good. CBJ has been tire fire last 2 years..
Hell, Edmonton might have 4 more wins with an .897% SV
Jack Campbell has six season at .900 or over including one over .921
I’m not seeing anything to show that this player is an upgrade on Campbell.
Too rich of a contract,
We need a top 5 league goaltender on a 3M contract for Codi Ceci a 5th a 3rd & a Lennart Petrell rookie card
Korpisalo was always the better tender of the tandem.
I don’t think that’s true.
Merzlikins SV% the 4 years he played with Korpisalo was:
19-20 .923
20-21 .916
21-22 .907
22-23 .876
Korpisalo’s SV% those 4 years:
19-20 .911
20-21 .894
21-22 .877
22-23 .911
Merzkilins was a lot better 3 of the 4 years.
Korpisalo has been better the last season and a bit, and their career numbers to this point are almost the same (.905 to .904, with both of them having their rookie season as their best so far).
He was worse than Campbell last year is under .900 again this year.
Sure, I’d trade Cambell for him straight up (and take the extra $400K).
5x, Oilers goalies save % goes down when Bouchard is on the ice
or in other words, Oilers save percentage goes up when Bouchard is not on the ice
This year Oilers goalies have the lowest save % when he’s on
Last year they were second worst with him (Broberg)
The year before – second worst (Lagesson 30 games played)
And thus obviously since he’s entered the league, consistently, Oiler goalies do worse when Bouchard is on the ice
The flip side is that SF% with Bouchard on the ice has been 1st, 2nd, 1st the three years.
So even with the low on ice SV%, Bouchard’s GF% has been middle of the road.
That means that in the big picture Bouchard has not actually been a liability for the team (witness his 3-year GF%Rel of +0.09).
Morgan Frost?
HS’ed by Tortorella. Had 19 last year. Seems quite talented. 2.1/yr.
I haven’t seen him enough to make a call but seems like an interesting player.
Would likely be a Mcleod plus type of swap.
Oilers D 5×5
Ceci +1
Broberg -1
Nurse -2
Ekholm -2
Bouchard -4
Desharnais -5
Kulak -7
Vinny with a 2.56% on ice shooting percentage at 5v5 right now…yikes. Kulak at 4.9 as well
Summarizing!
Day did indeed even his record, stopping 23 of 24 in a 5-1 win.
His GAA is now under 4 for the first time this season, currently 3.93 with an 86.7 SV%.
Prospecting takes a break until Wednesday.
Coach says “we do have a map” for the goalies but things often change.
Will announce tomorrow’s starter tomorrow morning.
I think its trending towards Pickard but I, personally would play him in Wed – solely because of the shorter turnaround to the early start on Friday (although I guess its only 4 hours earlier than a normal….).
Somehow Soupy outKoskinened Koskinen. You’d think this organization would have learned something along the way
Well it is the last vestiges of dark times
Hopefully this is the last of old time mentality in the org, and Jackson successfully drags it into the modern era
Which for me is using the best of analytics (find value players and pay signings properly, find best current systems play), sports science, and invest in the active development of drafted players and the farm workers. And invest heavily in the coaching and development of goalies, the most important position
Yes negs, that would suck, the team and org being better
Godot’s agenda against Bouchard belongs in a black plastic bag lined metallic cylinder, aka the trash.
Bouchard’s 42% GF is not good, however his underlying numbers are excellent. Fenwick of 61% for him and Ekholm. The actual EV goal differential is -4. That pairing was excellent last year and regression is imminent.
Let’s look at the third pair.
GF%, Fenwick, goal differential
Kulak 29, 52, -7
Desharnais 22, 52, -5
That third pairing is playing fewer minutes and likely seeing easier comp. All three of Bouchard, Kulak, and Desharnais have very low PDOs. Why is the guy on the top pairing getting disproportionately criticized?
Btw, Nurse has struggled this year and is at a -2 goal differential. How many more games of NHL experience does Nurse have? (rhetorical)
The only D with a PDO over 1000 is Ceci who happens to be, you guessed it, the only positive goal share D on the roster.
Ceci doesn’t have to play with Bouchard.
Why is Bouchard getting criticized?
Seen a lot of strange posts in my time…..
Semyon Varlamov might be available for the right deal. NYI needs scoring help and the pressure is on there for some success.
Semyon’s biggest drawbacks are his age and that he still has three years after this one to run on his contract. In his favor he has continued to post consistently solid numbers even in his dotage. He’s still getting a fair number of minutes too.
He’s a .942 SV percntage at evens and is stopping .94 goals above average per 60 for 6th in the league this season so far. He was .922 with 23 gp last year. He’s no saviour but is solid, consistent, dependable. Cap hit: $2.75M. I prefer him to Allen.
Ideally you’d like to do this for something like Brown–Varlamov and then find something to make the money work. That’s a cost I can likely live with depending on the kickers. Varlamov’s contract isn’t ridiculously big and can be covered by the fact there’s no need to hand Skinner $7M a year or anything like that. A future buyout wouldn’t be killer either, if necessary.
Another option would be Foegele for Varlamov straight across.
Unfortunately he has a NTC and I seem to recall he blocked a trade to Edm a couple deadlines ago
Time to play Pickard on Monday. If he looks bad you need to get a goalie with retention and package Kulak.
Thankfully Soupy buyout is very palatable for next two seasons. And after that, well we may not have to worry about after that
Byron Bader
@ByronMBader
We have a star to announce!
Evan Bouchard becomes the 6th star from the 2018 class (Dahlin, Svechnikov, B. Tkachuk, Q. Hughes and Dobson).
Bouchard has looked the part of a star every year since he was drafted. And 200 games in… here we are.
https://twitter.com/ByronMBader/status/1726328728408768667
You are right, LT, I don’t agree with everything you have posted today, though otherwise I often do.
Bouchard is a major problem. How do the Oilers continually end up with guys like this playing in a prominent role? I don’t think your argument for him based on his point production washes. A defender MUST first be able to defend. If they can’t do that in the NHL, it doesn’t matter how many points they get. Not to mention that his number are padded with second assists from a potent McDavid/Drai/RNH power play.
I disagree that an important and valuable defender needs to be sheltered. This is an oxymoron. If he was an impact player, he should not need a defensive specialist to paper over his mistakes.
Finally, I also don’t think he has as much value as you seem to imply. We would be lucky to get a second round pick for him and then could hope that a team deploys him with as many important minutes as we seem to want to so we can wax them every time we play with a litter of Bouchard errors feeding the frenzy. But in reality, his new team would quickly adjust and put him in a sheltered, low minute role with occasional healthy scratches when up against teams that require a stronger defensive-minded blueline. That’s what we should be doing with him.
If there was some way to trade him for an actual NHL defender who knows how to defend playing anywhere in the top 6 on any other team, I would do that in a heartbeat. Just Bouchard leaving the roster alone would be addition by subtraction, but a real defender coming back our way would be a bonus. I’m not sure the market would put that much value on Bouchard though.
Justin Schultz topped out as a sheltered offensively gifted 3rd pairing D. Unless Bouchard improves defensively, he is just another Justin Schultz, and will have to be deployed that way. And he is already full value at ~$4 million AAV for what he brings.
I was hoping for at least Larry Murphy lite.
Thankfully we didn’t open up the pocketbooks like many advocated
Which is OK as long as that’s how you pay him
If I hadn’t taped a pillow to the wall next to the tv I would have had to replace 17 remotes this week thanks to Bouchard. Buuuuuuut, there’s what maybe a 8 or 9 RHD in the league who can do what he does with the puck?
As maddening as he is, he just hit 200 games played. When he turns a puck over it’s: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi as we watch him flip through his mental Rolodex of what to do until he hits “haul ass back” and by then it’s too late. If Coffey can tape “haul ass back, or don’t do it” inside his visor, then he’ll have had a great year behind the bench. If you trade Bouch it might be 10 years before you have a RHD with his puck abilities.
As things have turned out the one guy who knows the life of an elite offensive defenceman is now in his ear every day. It will be exciting and infuriating while we watch him develop (or not!) in real time.
Seriously? You would trade Bouchard for a sixth D?
So you would go identify a Desharnais type and that’s your deal?
Bananas.
Oilers fans have a long history of overvaluing their young roster players and doubling all the way down. It may be hard to swallow, but yes, Bouchard is not worth more than a third pairing Dman. Just scratching him would be a huge boost for the team.
I believe his point totals have us looking at him through Oilers coloured glasses.
My goodness.
Bouchard has have various stretches of fine defensive hockey (with the odd “big mistake” of course) – 2nd half of last season, as an example.
He is a career plus player at 5 on 5.
He is now a PPG d-man (for a long enough stretch that its likely “real”).
Does anyone remember the first 2-months of last season? Looked alot like this for Bouch defensively.
Its highly frustrating when he has stretches like this (generally early in the season it seems) but history also tells us he will settle down.
Skinner is not the problem. He struggled
like the rest of the team the first 10 games. The last 4 he was the best goalie on the ice 3 of 4. No goalie is going to turn this ship around until this team learns to play consistent team D.
Play Pickard asap before he sits too long. Give him a couple of games and assess. Maybe the team will tighten up like most teams would do when #3 goes
in. Maybe give Rodrigue a couple of games too. Getting any middle of the road goalie right now is going to be a
major overpay and not solve the problem.
the keys have been taken from Kenny. Good start.
McD is clearly injured. If they weren’t so screwed with cap and lack of depth they could rest him. Hopefully soon he can get a couple of games off or LTIR.
if the new boss is so hip on analytics why are they playing Hyman with Drai???
5 years after Chia-phuck and it’s still death by a thousand cuts.
I would also add this team mostly played from the perimeter last night. Again
i would start giving PP2 first at bats. They have been more productive with less time and create more actual scoring chances than PP1 give or take a shift or two
Yes. They also need better tactics to get through certain defensive styles. Or if they have them start doing them
Based on year’s past, the question is valid but not so much this year:
Zack with Drai and w/o McDavid (53 min) has been much better than Zack with McDavid and w/o Drai (37 min) – both real and expected.
I’m sure much of that is related to McDavid’s current levels and, by current, I mean all damn season.
We didn’t win the Cup in the last two seasons, and really didn’t have a strong chance to
Because of the issues we discuss. One that is key to this, outside of how Kenny wants the team to look and who he likes in players, is he has one too many 5M forwards. So not enough depth
This is why failing to develop the drafted players quickly enough when they are NHL ready is a mistake. He slow played himself into a cap crunch. While his chosen vets played not well enough
Saying that the team lost to the Cup champs twice is weak. The team has players playing above their ability, and maybe they would have won if KH got or was able to see and procure better players. KH has slow played a lot of prime years of his elite talent away
Why I still like Kostin as a target. He wasn’t great for St Louis. He filled a needed role for Oilers. He’s not been good for Detroit. He’s probably available again. Oilers need that role filled again.
What would they take fir Kostin with a bunch of salary retained? Is that doable or helpful?
How else can we boost that depth?
$2M AAV x 2yrs.
They retain salary
Who scored the goals last night? We got 4 goals. Was it the bottom half of the roster? We had the lead at important points in the game. We outshot them, their goaler was not great.That should be plenty. I like Skinner and think he is a good goalie. We need a save, simple, we need a save. Skinner does not steal games and he is not dynamic enough to be that thief. We need a save. No its never all on the goalie or specifically him. Very flawed roster but that is a game that a goalie should close the door and some of the goals albeit tough should of been had.
Skinner stole Knoblach’s first 2 games. Oilers played their best game in the last 3 yesterday.
These guys better figure it out quick or else this road trip may be the end of the season
WIth EDM scouting MTL goalies, I had a quick look at Allen and wrote a thread on him: https://twitter.com/Woodguy55/status/1726300278851576006
Can we have the info posted here, for us non-social media types?
I believe you can click the link & read the thread without needing a Twitter account
I refuse to call it “X”
Interesting thing about Allen during the St.Louis Cup run, during which he was the backup to Billington throughout it … instead of pouting, he started watching film and copying the styles of the other goalies the Blues were going up against, so that his teammates could prepare better during practice.
He’s been a solid if unspectacular goalie throughout his career, but he really seems to have it together on the mental side of the game. Aside from giving Skinner a rest, he might be a big help in developing Skinner as an NHL starter.
Woodguy, thanks for this.
Am I missing something or would this be a completely disastrous move for us?
Next year is our best remaining chance to win a cup and we’d be stuck with Allen as a mediocre backup with a $3.85m cap hit.
Not only would be stuck with an Allen/Skinner tandem in net, but Allen would be 34 years old. 35 is typically when NHL goalies completely fall into the abyss.
We’d basically expend the equivalent of three firsts to have an old, overpriced, mediocre backup. 🤮
I’d rather we wait until the summer and buy him out ourselves.
Pair this with the Ekholm trade and that would be the equivalent of five first round picks in exchange for two 33-year-old players. There’s no way you can do that especially with Allen not actually being a very good goalie.
wow. that seems like an awful lot for an “average” goalie. I get the cost of the Campbell dump will be high, but not sure I do that.
You have to go with the assumption McDavid signs and that you have a 10 year window. Can’t keep burning 1st round picks for 2 – 3 year stop gaps.
If you are going to burn 1st rounders, then I would be aiming higher Even if that means a different position???
IE: package Ceci, Foegle and a 1st or more and bring in a legit Top 4 D man?
then address Campbell and the goaltending this summer ..
just an idea, but IMO – we can better utilize the Draft captial.
I agree. But KH loves those two average at best players, that the analytic teams didn’t
With McDavid and Drai are seeing seeing the effect of all the minutes they’ve played over the past few seasons?
Especially if McDavid is injured still……
Am I the only one who is scratching his head over Hymans deployment? All his numbers are way better when playing with McDavid over Dri but yet they continue to avoid this pairing and I don’t get it at all.
Not disagreeing with the uneven deployment but it feels like the house is on fire & we’re talking about the paint matching the flooring
Your data is correct for past years but, on a quick look, not so much this year:
Zack with Drai and w/o McDavid (53 min) has been much better than Zack with McDavid and w/o Drai (37 min) – both real and expected.
I’m sure much of that is related to McDavid’s current levels and, by current, I mean all damn season.
One thing about sitting guys is like the vet vs rookie thing
If the vets are screwing up why not play the young guys for at bats? If you’re going to lose anyways, maybe TOI for those playing properly is a better choice than the slumping offensive guys choosing poor puck management
I think the group would respond positively in the end
McDavid has exceeded his contract every year in this league and many times in the past, been the only reason to watch the Oilers. We are lucky to witness the magic of his career.
The oilers roster can’t be expected to contend when their star player performing at the current level though no matter what the root cause is. You can’t take the human element out of the game, but is putting him on LTIR at some point out of the question? Does that open the door to exploiting the salary cap rules post-deadline? Maybe that’s the best option even though not seeing McDavid out there would be sad circumstances. Also not sure of the emotional effect losing McD for most of the season would have on the team.
whatever is going on with him, this might be the worst year for it to happen. Combine that with cratering goaltending and bad puck luck and it’s no wonder why we are where we are in the standings.
Blah blah.
Sorry for wasting energy and thought.
Could only exploit salary cap rules if McDavid is out for the entire regular season.
I think there is only one man who has the ability to save this season.
Stuart Skinner
The season will go as he goes
Team defense, of which goaltending is a part, can save the season.
💯. Skinner only excels when the team allows him to.
Why in the name of the Gord would one give away abhorrent amounts of treasure for a goalie without first exhausting the free options in your system? Both Pickard and Rodrigue should get a shot before airmailing draft picks and former 1st rounders off to Timbuktu.
Which means Pickard needs a start and Rodrigue needs to play more so he can be a viable option. Even if it is just to find someone who can go on a five game heater.
Oilers management puts so much trust in Schwartz’s evaluation of these players when he was the same man that told them Campbell was better than Kuemper. How this man’s opinion continues to garner C-suite’s respect when it has failed them in the past is beyond me.
In 2006 we managed to solve the goalie problem at the last minute. But not till we tried and exhausted every in-house option. Things are even more urgent this time round. so can we give it a shot?
Jackson has brought in a coach who knows not the players or the organizational system (nor NHL playoff hockey), to replace a beloved coach who knew the organizational personnel like the back of his hand. This is such a risky move. It depends almost solely on psychology to work but in doing so management has actually amped the pressure on the situation rather than relieving it. Will that work out well?
I should have tied that last para back to goalies to remain thematic, and thatt was my intent. The point being more pressure does not make the goalie’s job easier. In fact the opposite.
Excellent
It is exactly the right thing to do
Your suggestion is to let the losses pile up for another 3-4 weeks while they test drive their AHL goalies in the NHL? At that point there would be no need to find a solution for this year.
Perhaps the organization knows that neither are viable solutions.
There is no guarantee that any trade target a team is willing to let go will do better. So your argument doesn’t hold. In both cases one is test-driving, but in my case the costs of the test drive are minimal and limited to wins and losses without also including the treasure sent out on top of that.
You aren’t comparing apples to apples. Trading for an established NHL goalie is not the same as test driving AHL goalies with your fingers crossed.
Now you’re relying on semantics to make your point. What does established mean in this case? What relevance does “established” have? No one is trading you their “established” starter. No one is trading you a blue chip with a stellar developmental record. theya re trading you their roster/cap problems, like you are to them. They are trading you maybes. In both cases “your fingers are crossed.”
This year is OVER. Dead men skating. DONE.
I definitely agree that all available options should be exhausted. The team has backed itself into such a corner now that there will be an unwillingness to waste a game but I prefer the option of trying all available personnel before blowing off first round picks and moving mountains to make salary cap work.
How long should the test drive be for each goalie?
Jeff Jackson will be fired next summer of Knoblauch crashes and burns.
Maybe sooner.
Yup
Vegas played everyone and their dog in net last season
Easier to do when you have the skaters under control
And your GM knows what he’s doing regarding players and deals. And coaches
I agree. Pickard’s numbers this year were the best he’s ever posted in the AHL. Give him a game at least.
I am a Ryan McLeod fan and booster.
I opined that he was “already a legit 3C” with upside.
Well, he is currently a 4C and that might even be a stretch.
Its time to impact that game offensively or else you are not living up to even your $2MM contract.
We have the wrong handed McLeod signed for 70% more money.
I know this is not fashionable, but I hate his game by eye test. He never engages. He’s always on the perimeter. I forget which goal it was, but he made this huge sweeping circle in the centre of the ice while Tampa is driving to the ozone. Take a man instead for heaven’s sakes.
He has McDavid as a role model. Does McDavid take a man?
When good players get to the NHL they sometimes come up short and cannot score or be as effective as they were in lower leagues.
At this point many will change their game from offensive minded to defensive minded. The reason is that defence is easier to play than offence.
This is frustrating with Bouchard. He is smart enough to do all kinds of things offensively yet he’s not smart enough defensively. Is this true?
I think he is plenty smart enough, he just won’t change his risk or his decisions.
These goal costing mistakes are deflating the whole team. They lose momentum. They nullify effort put in by everyone else. To continue to reward this play can cause resentment.
And the answer might be to pay the man plus pay another to cover for him?
It’s ridiculous problem. If Bouchard is an NHL defencman, he needs to learn, and to play like one. That’s the answer.
Today if I had to choose, I could not go down this path with Bouchard. I would choose Nurse and it would not be a hard decision.
What a good team would do is keep Bouchard because of the weapon he is, and work with him. He’s smart enough. Not overpay him for his offence if he’s just trading goals. Make this clear. Hold him to it.
Get a goalie, the games Evan looked better this year usually was due to better goaltending. Find some more depth. I think last years team was better for Bouch down the stretch was because the puck was in the offensive end much more often, simple as that.
In all strengths Bouchard is the only positive defensemen in Goals For. Nurse is the 2nd best at 43.5%.
You seem to think that benching Bouchard is going to be a net positive for the team but who replaces him? Who takes those minutes and who would give up less in the same amount of time?
Ceci is the only better dman at 5v5 in actual play, (Ekholm by a goal so call it a wash) and is already playing top pair so can’t give it to him. So if you bench Bouchard the coach is going to try and double shift two of Nurse, Ceci and Ekholm? Kulak on his offside and up a notch for a period? Ekholm on his offside with Kulak> You sure you want to watch Vinny and his 1-9 GF/GA get pummelled by Elite Comp? Broberg’s Rels were even worse than Vinny pre-send down, if you believe the maths.
I don’t expect perfection anywhere but the 0.931 PDO at EV makes me think Bouchard has been let down by his goaltending a tad this year. By accident, as NHL goalies, they should have saved about 4 goals against by this point. I know I know, his play is so uniquely bad that he’s creating his own poor PDO.
But let’s take a gander.
The 2nd goal last night was a 50-50 if there ever was one. Diving play worked out, if he misses its a 4-1 down low for the Oilers. Even there he gets back though, ties up his man at the far post. Too bad Stu left a hole the size of the Grand Canyon for Kucherov to half shoot between his pads. Yup the 2v1 happened on Bouch, Eklhom disrupted it, Bouch closed off the pass on the back check, alas Stu was hellbent on allowing a goal.
The 3-3 goal. Watch the zone entry again and tell me what Leon Draiaistl is up to. Tell me why he coasts so low instead of being Bouchard’s obvious outlet on the far half wall (I think you were mad at Ceci last week when he didn’t give this option for Nurse), on the far half wall. That’s where Bouchard placed it, but Draisaitl went very deep, below the hashmarks, along with all of his forward mates, and parked himself in no man’s land. Here too though Bouchard gets back, take his man with an outside shot wide. Nurse doesn’t cut off the pass and lordly was Stu broken on the push across.
Is using “all strength” the right metrics considering who Bouchard plays on the PP with? And that the PP has been similarly successful with Barrie or even Nurse.
When you watch Bouchard play from the red line in , what do you see?
If we create a 100 min TOI cutoff so we get guys who’ve played more than six games he’s 42nd in the entire league at EV and 9th for Dmen in xGF%.
If we use the same 100 min cutoff for All Strengths he is 11th in the entire NHL in xGF%.
Some Oiler fans starting to sound like the smartest folks in the room on this player. The eye test is otherworldly horrible right now. Everyone needs a scapegoat I guess.
This isn’t a math thing. You cannot convince anyone with math here, regardless of numbers.
This is big giant, glaring and costly mistakes occurring over and over.
Watch the bench after a Bouchard mistake. Go down and show them the math, see how much it helps.
Bouchard is contributing directly to losing games, that’s the big result and it needs to stop.
The solution may well lie in the math. It’s enough to support him and find a way forward. I mentioned goalie, that’s very real.
But Bouchard has to do his part here. He’s not a dummy. Be better, get better results, stop the repetitive eye burning mistakes.
I don’t care if McDavid has an injury that is hampering him.
Presuming that is the case, that would be a factor but not an excuse.
Players play through injury throughout every season and continue to be effective. Playing through injury, and continuing to be effective, if part of being an NHL hockey player.
McDavid may be playing through injury but he is not being effective – end stop.
He’s not producing at even 2nd line rates (his P/60 at 5 on 5 is almost replacement level) and he’s turning the puck over consistency – multiple times per period.
If injury is hampering McDavid to the point of decreasing his effectiveness to what we are seeing that McDavid should not be playing and that is also on him – even of the doctors/trainers/coaches allow him to play its incumbent on him to pull himself.
Either way, whether its injury that is creating the current version of McDavid or something else, he is not good enough right now.
Evan Bouchard is more value for cap hit right now and he is the talk of the town in a negative way.
I agree. Connor is trying to play the Connor game that is beyond him right now. If he is not healthy then he should adjust to playing a game where he can succeed at. Dial his expectations back a little. Safer plays, more patience. Of course he has a winning mindset and very difficult for him to accept any regression, even if injured
I totally agree. At this point, as scary as it sounds not to have him in our paper-thin lineup, he is flat out not contributing to winning hockey games, so we may as well rest him if it means he will eventually return to previous form.
It’s not an exaggeration to say he’s often been one of the worst players on the ice this season, and I can’t even believe I’m typing that. It’s got to the point where I assume he’s going to bobble or give away the puck when it comes to him. It’s got to be a hand injury IMO. His precision in passing, shooting or even stickhandling is simply absent. Furthermore, his decision making is flawed, making me think he’s compensating for something that hampers his confidence in making a high-end play. That, or his game has become so predictable that the entire league suddenly knows how to block his passes or poke check him. Either way, if something is this bad, and he’s actively contributing to losing, then it’s selfish to keep playing while the season slips away. I would at the very least take him off PP1 and replace him with Kane or Ekholm, reduce his minutes until he has his hands and head back. 97 is currently on the fast track to a Huberdesque regression season and it blows my mind.
Is 0-4 shot share and 4% expected goals for a line of three top 6 players (one, supposedly, the 2nd best player in the world) bad?
Not to mention, two of them main contributors on a PP that was a main factor in losing the game.
This is the problem with expected goals. That line missed the net on four Grade A opportunities last night.
In fact, I will state that yesterday, as a rule the best scoring opportunities by any line that didn’t actually result in goals, also didn’t result in shots on net.
Missing the net from prime scoring areas is part of playing poorly, no?
They should pay Slats to obtain a mostly goalie.
McDavid certainly has a nagging injury. I would guess ribs or shoulder problem. I have noticed him flexing his shoulder several times and his issue seems to be more with puck handling than skating. Perhaps Leon has a problem as well or some other reason for his shaky start. He has often been slow from the starting gates but it seems extra noticeable this season.
Tell me again, why doesn’t Pickard (.939 SV%) get a start? How bad does Stu have to be?
Pickard has NHL experience, has won a Calder Cup (2018) and Gold at an IIHF championship (2016). Give him a couple of games and lets see what we can do!
Indeed, what’s the point of a veteran 3rd-string goalie if not this situation? Would Vegas hesitate to start him? They were willing to run Hill over Quick and Brossoit when it was time to lay all of their cards on the table, and it won them a cup.
Goalies who aren’t good enough to get a single start here (Forsberg, Stalock, etc.) keep mysteriously having long careers elsewhere.
I agree with playing Pickard but Vegas had no choice but to play Hill when Brossoit got injured and Quick was crap earlier in playoffs. The legend is now that that was the turning point of the series / playoffs for them…
… but the Oilers can’t have nice things like that happen, right?
Tampa didn’t exactly have Bernie Parent between the pipes but they persevered. It’s hard to overcome leaky goaltending but the Oilers will need to adjust. Any goalie coming in a trade is not
going to be a saviour.
If he can rock a .915%,
He will absolutely be the savior
For sure. With this poor of team D a .915 is most definitely saviour territory.
This is the first year I’d bet against a McDavid team.
If he’s not hurt, someone tell me what’s going on as he scores at a replacement player level.
If he’s hurt, at some point Jackson I mean Holland is going to have to have a long think about shutting it down.
The team isn’t stupid, they are not going to needlessly risk the health of the best player on the planet.
My worry is that McDavid is saying “I’m fine” and they’re okay with that.
McDavid looked better in his rookie season than this year and that beggars belief.
I think they should overpay and add a goalie today. Make a similar trade to what TB did to get Jeannot. Draft capital, schmaft capital!
It’s basically the same roster that was picked to win a cup in September. And do it now so that by the time Knobby gets his systems fully in place, we can get some traction. There’s absolutely no reason to wait until the deadline.
The Minnesota Wildlings are another team off to a bad start (3 points more than Oil, with one more game played). Shaky D and leaking goals (-16 to our -14), big names appearing “off” and not producing (Boldy and Kaprizov, both presumed ‘dinged up’)…
We don’t see many of those “shake things up” trades anymore. But both teams need a jolt.
Watching last night and listening to Knoblauch it would seem that he wants the defensemen to be engaged in the play but to do so within a structure .Coffey on the other hand seems to like a wheel and deal kind of approach to his defence men .
They were all over the ice last night. Knoblauch is used to a coaching system with him being the “head ” coach and the other coaches supporting him and knowing their roles .
My question is this. Being that Coffey has never coached does he understand this system or does he think he is as a co-head coach running the defence core as a separate unit with only a lose connection to the rest of the team .
It sure looked like it at times last night especially when they should have been in shut down mode in the third yet Coffey had his D men still in full offence mode
Coffey spent most of his career playing for Sather, Johnson, Bowman, Maurice, Terry Muray and nearly a season under Keenan. He had a great career on and off the ice away from the OIlers.
Knoblauch said in the post game presser after the loss in TB that he doesn’t believe in changing in the third period when he has a lead, except for a little more conservative puck management.
Everyone hating on Bouchard but Rasmus Nurselainen needs to learn how to play a 2-1 or stop a zone entry
for a 2 way defenseman he’s pretty poor in the offensive and defensive zones
Evan Bouchard was comical on certain plays last night.
Comical.
Don’t get distracted by other things
Skinner might be .922 at 5 on 5 over last 3 years and had .914.
But Jay Woodcroft would attest to the fact that past numbers don’t mean much when someone says “what have you done for me lately”
Skinner is our number 1 goalie and this year he is rocking a .873.
we can blame Bouchard and team defence for some of that .873 number. Soup has the same number.
but if one were to look at some of worst defensive teams over the last decade, it would be scattered with some Sabre, Oiler, Avs, Florida teams. The Oilers D is better than those teams but those goalies put up better save % numbers.
Oilers continually have the second best goalie on the ice.
Last year a record PP and the career year of McDavid covered up the .888 Soup had to give him a 21-9-4 record. Our offence covered up the goalie issue.
This year the PP is back to earth and McDavid is a mere mortal.
I have no doubt McDavid and PP regress somewhat. But if Skinner doesn’t get close to the .914 he had last year, I do wonder what the trade is to salvage the season.
When KH pulls the trigger on a goaltender it’s going to cost what, a first + something of real value?
Too much treasure plus another lost trade.
But if he doesn’t the season is lost.
Shit spot we are in
What I’m hearing is we have left the one step forward two steps back portion of the season and entered the two steps forward one step back portion?
All we need to do is win 2 out of every 3 games.
One thing is for sure. The Oilers need another goalie. I think Skinner will be fine but he needs another guy to run with him. I think the Jack Campbell experiment is over and Holland is going to have to pry another goalie loose or the Oilers may miss the playoffs. I originally thought they could get a rental at the deadline but I’m not sure they can wait that long.
To me this comes down mostly to if Knobby can use his charms to bring the ducklings into a row in time. Yes the goalies have not been consistent or even good. But playing high risk hockey often will mitigate any goalie
If Connor is hurt he has to play a more safe game and be patient. Leon has to focus on the details because playing like a hero one game and getting crushed on the stats sheet the next and getting no points isn’t good enough. They need to dial into winning shifts, not games. One follows the other
Woody said it but couldn’t do it. For me Woody and Knobby are the only coaches that really had a chance to change things, recently at least. Maybe Kruger. Also, whoever is the deciderer has to upgrade Des and get a backup. If Hamblin/Peterson can survive at 4C that can be later. When they play well as a group and individually, other than Des, they probably have enough on the roster to get where they want to
No team is perfect. But teams that have their poop together sometimes look really good, better than the sum of their parts, as opposed to us
Knobby doubling-down on Kenny’s old guys….Gagner, Janmark, and Erne. Why is Jackson letting him do this? Plus ca change; plus c’est la meme chose. If the young guys had fail, one can always go back to the old guys. But the young guys have not even been tried. And the young guys won’t be ready to be a solutions once the old guys fail.
In a hard cap league, one has to give the opportunity to the young guys when they are ready. It is the only way to get enough players who contribute and stay within the salary cap. If they fail, then go to stop gap old guys.
Bouchard is not getting better defensively. Draft plus 6. He is not an NHL defensemen defensively. One has to try accountability. Hoping is no longer viable development strategy for him. It is time for tough love. Nobody is expecting him to be a plus defenseman defensively. All he has to be is not an effing tire fire.
For his career Bouchard is a +4
He’s also one of those young guys you really want played.
Nobody has advocated not playing him, other than for short periods of time to make him accountable.
Who replaces him? And what are the metrics of those defensemen in actual NHL games played?
So is Bouchard a young guy who still needs opportunity, or is he an old guy who needs to be replaced?
I get confused easily.
He has had two hundred games. He is not longer on an ELC, and he is earning a real NHL salary, not the minimum..
He received very little criticism for his defensive mistakes when he was on his ELC.
Nobody is arguing for him to be replaced. People are arguing for accountability measures.
Is Bouchard not a young guy who needs to play and be allowed to make mistakes so he’s better in the future? Which is it?
Morning LT
The reason I join you in your calmness, is that I really don’t see a way out this year. Sure we will regress to the mean (McDavid will not end the year 91st in points), but we will fight for a playoff spot, maybe get in, maybe not but surely won’t make a Cup run as planned.
The main reason why I am not pulling my hair out is that I realize it can’t really be fixed until the man at the top goes ie. Holland. He got us in this mess, is not creative/brave enough to get us out, and in fact, shouldn’t be allowed to even try. A new GM with new views and no attachment to the current players is the one that should be doing that. I have no doubt that JJ already has that person in mind, but was waiting until Holland’s contract expired to bring him in. No way he expected this tire fire, but he won’t fire Holland in the middle of the season, it’s not the Oiler way.
Ride out the year, hope for the best and scrub for major surgery in the offseason
This team is like politics. Things are bad but you know in your heart that the next people coming in will fix it. And the next. And the next.
And then you get old.
And then you don’t really care.
I am here.
I hope they run Pickard. Maybe having the minor league guy will force them to actually pay attention defensively and fight harder in their own zone. They juts don’t sustain energy levels top to bottom. When Derek Ryan is your best forward, and rhe 3rd line is your most dangerous that is not a good sign