2023-24 Game 25: Devils at Oilers

Throughout the winning streak (yay – way more fun than the start of the season!), I have found myself continually exasperated when I watch the Oilers current second line. (It’s not quite as bad as what I have to endure when my Penguins are on the power play this year, but it’s getting closer, in terms of continuing the absurdity and insanity of what obviously doesn’t work – only difference being that the second line’s inadequacy has yet to cost the Oilers games, so no coach cares to change the rest that is working, as—long sigh— is always the way of every (even great!) NHL coach I have ever known.)

To make sure my eyes were not deceiving me, I decided to fiddle about with Natural Stat Trick this evening.  Nothing is at the 60-minute mark yet, but there are some interesting takeaways:

Lo and behold:
Kane-Draisaitl-Brown have played 45 minutes with Nurse and Ceci, while Nuge-McDavid-Hyman have played a mere 10.5 minutes with them.

-Unsurprisingly, the Draisaitl 5-man unit with Nurse and Ceci is underwater with 0% GF and 18%XGF. While their PDO is a low 92%, none of the underlying numbers are promising in terms of saying “There’s hope this can improve.” Even if the PDO regresses in the positive direction, this 5-man unit will, unsurprisingly, remain below average.  I say unsurprisingly because from an eye-test POV, Draisaitl would be the only above-average passer on the ice. Breakouts will be challenging. It’s not a 5-man unit that can effectively match up against opponents’ top players or outscore them; it is one that is regularly outshot and out-chanced. The players’ skillsets are not effectively complementary.  There is also the insanity that only 35% of this 5-man unit’s zone starts are in the offensive zone: likely because these players can’t maintain possession, but if a coach is regularly deploying Draisaitl defensively to, oh, win a d-zone faceoff – it might be worthwhile to experiment with that defensive unit not by default being Nurse-Ceci.  

-In the 10 minutes McDavid’s supernova line has been on the ice with Nurse and Ceci, 97’s line – where both Nuge and McDavid can help get the puck out of their end, too— maintains an otherworldly 83.64% XGF and 100% GF, with the caveat this 5-man unit’s PDO is an unsustainable—even for a McDavid 5-man-unit— 122%.

Nuge-McDavid-Hyman have just over 48 minutes with Ekholm and Bouchard; Kane-Draisaitl-Brown have played just under 18 minutes with them.
-McDavid’s unit is otherworldly, of course: an actual GF of 80%, an 88% XGF, but a normal 100% PDO; the 5-man unit starts in the o-zone 46% of the time.
-Draisaitl’s line—even with Brown – still has a 100% GF% and 77% XGF rate (with an unsustainable 114% PDO) and actual GF of 3.3/60, but you’d like to see higher than an XGF per 60 of 2.2 from a Draisaitl line. But the underlying numbers are all actually good when the second line is playing with Ekholm and Boucard and not Nurse-Ceci.  (Note: Draisaitl’s line with this pairing starts in the o-zone 70% of the time.)

Given the second line’s issues, a simple fix might be – when match-ups permit—to give the second line  at least a little more time with Ekholm and Bouchard (it’s not close right now). Certainly it would help Draisaitl to have another player in Bouchard who can sustain a play in the offensive zone and think the game at his level. Small sample size warning: Given that McDavid’s line seems not to have suffered offensively or defensively in their 10.5 minutes with Nurse-Ceci, it may be easier to see if Draisaitl’s line can get a little more Ekholm and Bouchard time, because—as one can see above—it’s not even close in terms of which line is getting the support of the defense pairing with the most skill in breaking the puck out of their end.

Like Lowetide, I agree Connor Brown needs to be removed from the second line because he doesn’t seem able to sustain offensive zone plays and that line ends up defending way more than they should –that’s a line that should “defend” by being in the opponent’s zone, and can’t, when the “defensive” winger on the line can’t sustain plays in the offensive zone (and it’s where a player on one of the bottom lines like Gagner who’s better able to sustain o-zone plays might better to flip short-term). But if the coach isn’t going to change the other lines because they are “working,” (as most coaches are wont to do), then maybe, just maybe, give that second line that sent me down a NST spiral tonight a little more time with a different defense pairing?
**

Side note: There’s an unfortunate old-school mode of thought with elite players where it can be “The player should just push through/make it work.” But McDavid’s turnaround this year hinged first on getting healthy, along with positive regression, but—also, look at the above—actual strong support in the form of Nuge, Hyman, Ekholm, and Bouchard. Before anyone screams Leon should just “make it work,” I’d caution McDavid couldn’t “make it work” with Brown and Kane at the start of the year, either, and the Brown/Kane winger combo just might not work with 97 or 29, no matter how much management might wish it would or think it “should” on paper.

I think it’s insane not to figure out how to get Draisaitl’s line functional (the Oilers have now flipped their old script to have a different, marvelous and amazing-to-watch super-stacked line right now, which will likely win a playoff series or two but not a Cup), especially given Draisaitl prior to the coaching change was the only player above water in actual GF and XGF. This “struggle” looks new, and when stats and the eye test both say something isn’t working for an elite player, well, it would be nice to attempt fixes before an obvious-to-eyes-and-stats issue ends up costing the team games.