The Edmonton Oilers played well enough to win last night, but (say it with me) single events can have enormous importance while also being single events. Last night, I’d say the process was solid, the team had a couple of wobbly bits, but the general feel of the evening was a net positive. Then again, I can understand someone feeling like 2000 miles is very far through the snow.
The Athletic article today is about value deals. Edmonton has four, but two of them are unique compared to team history. The article is here.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN OCTOBER
- At home to: WPG, CHI, CAL, PHI (Expected 3-1-0) (Actual 1-3-0)
- On the road to: NAS, DAL (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 1-1-0)
- At home to: CAR, PIT (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-1)
- On the road to: DET, CBJ, NAS (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 7-4-0, 14 points in 11 games
- Actual October results: 2-4-1, five points in seven games
- Oilers in 2024-25: 2-4-1, five points in seven games
I had last night as a loss, so the Oilers claw back a little toward expectations. If Edmonton can go 3-1-0 at the end of this month (my projection), the October record will be 5-5-1, 11 points in 11 games. That would smell like victory.
THE NUMBERS
Stuart Skinner had an outstanding game, I think a couple of players owe him an apology. He made one save that was so damn good the crowd went wild. It was followed immediately by a stunningly bad puck play by Mattias Janmark and a GA. The Oilers had some veterans who played like rookies last night, the coach might bench Janmark if he had a, well, bench.
The most encouraging news was the second line, I thought the trio started to show some chem. King Leon was doing some brazen things with the puck (and without) but I file those things under ‘live with the mistakes’ because he’s well into his career and hasn’t shown an ability to iron out the reckless. He and Mr. Nurse have that in common.
Speaking of Darnell Nurse, I was impressed with his move to the opposite side, in fact I’ll suggest it gave him better passing angles. I don’t really know what the staff is doing on defense, but it’s early days and they have to decide on who to go to war with through the long season ahead.
Evan Bouchard made some good passes, made some unusual plays and was slow to recognize danger. One of the things I find hilarious though is people saying “he looks disinterested” and I will remind you that a person can’t help how he looks. Evan Bouchard’s resting mistake face is the same as Evan Bouchard’s face when he’s about to make a play. I think he should wear a balaclava, or put on some face paint. Or grow a beard. It would take 10 minutes.
Adam Henrique and his line should have paid for tickets last night. They were watching the game just like the rest of us.
A busy day on the Lowdown, noon to 2pm on Sports 1440. My friend Bruce McCurdy will join me to discuss an interesting game and the week to come. We’ll no doubt talk about Fernando Valenzuela, who passed away yesterday. The World Series will be a topic and Declanations will be ‘Dunkin’ with Declan’ today. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly. We can be heard at sports1440.ca; iHeartRadio; Radioplayer Canada, we tweet out the show after it’s done and you can catch us on Apple and Spotify.
The Athletic article today is about value deals. Edmonton has four, but two of them are unique compared to team history. The article is below:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5862290/2024/10/23/edmonton-oilers-contracts-value-2024/
Summarizing!
Day-man stopped all but one of the 23 shots he faced but took the hard-luck loss in a 2-1 shootout affair.
If you combine Henrique, Brown, Arvidsson, and Hymans point total you get the same amount of contribution as Janmark.
Team has was bigger issues then a bottom 6 forward that is apparently not allowed to have a bad game like everyone is dishing out every single time out so far this season.
It’s all your fault Janmark!
I was surprised to see the numbers as I though Nurse played well.
I was NOT surprised to continue to read absolute vitriol towards him online despite, in my opinion, looking like he had a decent game – I mean, he did ice the puck one and did allow a pass across to an attacker that a forward gave a free lane to the net to…..
Up and till this point, I don’t think there was a reasonable argument for any of the 12 forwards to get sat. Most of those struggling are guys that are not coming out and the likes of Henrique, Brown and Janmark, who had, as a group, been “OK”, get some rope. Perry and Ryan had been good.
The three listed are all struggling now and Janmark was indeed the main reason for the loss last night and a case can be made to give him a night off.
The Oilers don’t play until Friday, lots of time to get a Philp up if they wanted to. I don’t think they will as they don’t want to yo yo him. Savoie isn’t ready. Grubbe isn’t ready. Drake really isn’t an NHL player but could get a single game to send a message.
Don’t see it happening.
The coach scratching the 5th highest scoring forward on the squad would be something.
Yea he made a mistake on the first goal, was it any worse then McDavid breaking off in overtime to no man’s land? I think not.
The second goal against, he’s probably wondering why Brown didn’t get lumber on his goal mouth pass he set him up with in the 1st. If Brown gets lumber on that beautiful pass, another goal in the bank.
But yes it’s all Janmarks fault because you’ve decided lol
Imagine telling everyone that 1 player is the main reason for the loss, get real.
Hyman 0 goals 0 assists 0 points, I’ve now determined every loss is his fault as he’s the teams 1RW with zero contribution so far. Sounds dumb doesn’t it.
I agree with this but from what I’ve heard on the various post-game pods (and on certain blog, although those that tend to bring vitriol after every negative event) that seems to be the minority position.
It seems I (we) saw the team better than most.
Absolutely, there were mistakes and there was a number of stretches of pure chaos in the defensive zone, however, at the same time, a fan of the Canes would likely say the same as the Oilers had a number of similar stretches in the Canes’ defensive zone.
There were a couple of players that had poor games – the “3rd liners”, Janmark, Henrique and Brown were all ineffective and Janmark was directly culpable on both regulation goals against.
Those single mistakes, along with McDavid (and Bouch and Drai) in OT overshadow a positive game from the team, in my opinion.
one change I would like is take the top pp off if they don’t score in the first 70 seconds. Much rather have some fresh guys on at that point. Same as shift changes in overtime.
You can’t complain about lack of secondary scoring when you give all the scoring opportunities to the same few guys
Definitely agree, get these new days feeling like a part of the team, instead of second rate tier behind the “core”. I did notice last night pp2 got about 40 seconds on 2 of the penalties.
I can’t believe how poor that play by Janmark was. Can you imagine Dylan Holloway or Nail Yakupov made that play? But right back out there to NOT a fill the centre lane on Necas’ goal.
I haven’t been to CoH for game grades but that’s damned close to a score of 1 me.
There was much joy when Janmark, Henrique and Brown were resigned in the off season. Wasn’t much joy involved for that line last night!
the brain trust probably figured that it will be much easier to acquire another defenseman if that defenseman is a lefty hence the switch to the right side for nurse. Unfortunately I wish they would have had that kind of thinking to give Broberg a roster spot last year
Ivan Provorov would be a damn near ideal candidate if they’re adding to the leftorium.
I hope that I recover from this G7 loss to the Hurricanes faster than the one in 2006.
— Thread!
— Respect!
Although some vets made inexcusable mistakes last night I think it also needs to be mentioned last nights line up has 7 players and a Head Coach who weren’t in the lineup on opening night last year. Thats a big number for a Stanley Cup contender. Maybe patience is needed until they gel.
If they were picking players for the 4 Nations face-off now a couple of the Canadian Oiler players have probably have fallen off the radar. Having said that, Hyman can be on the team anytime even if he hasn’t score yet.
How much did his dad pay to put him on the team?
Much better quality player than the Kevin Feterik situation.
The bottom 6 did not impact the game positively last night. It was very discouraging seeing a strength of the team last year become the liability in the game. I am all for the “demote Janmark for a ____ reason and bring Philp up for ____ reason.” I just don’t think the current personnel deserve much rope when they put up stinkers like that.
I also thought the 4th line looked even slower than usual, although I will give Perry credit for being around the goal at the right times.
It’s starting to look like if the Oilers go to the trade deadline on this defense they will be sellers when it arrives. Time for Bowman to show us all why he’s worth it.
I’m fairly certain they never looked as good as they did in the Dallas and Carolina games during the end of the Woody regime. Do people disagree with this? Nobody fears another San Jose, right? Right?!
Right. Once they shut down main street the season turned quick. Dallas and Carolina are quality opponents. Stu playing a great game and 97 shooting the pill is the biggest positive from last night.
It’ll come.
I can handle mistakes in a game. High risk, high reward. Fatigue. Bad karma. It is the beauty of any sport.
But self-inflicted misery hits differently. And it has no place on a championship-level team. We can’t keep saying ‘individual moments’ when there is a track record.
Culture and accountability matter and the big boys continue to swing from one pole to the next.
It is game 7 my dude
Hockey has a high chaos quotient compared with other sports. I used to think 82 games (or 80) were too many, but I am starting to really value the sample size required in this sport which allows the better teams float to the top. Then apply a hard cap and the discrepancy is razor thin between “championship-level” and well, not.
(Now explain to me why Baseball plays 162 games when it is low chaos. Really take that “pass time” thing to heart don’t they.)
Baseball is high chaos. A game could be 1-0, 15-0, or 15-14. A good pitching performance on a bad team is a great equalizer.
consider this 2008 home & home doubleheader between the Yankees & Mets, where the Mets won 15-6 at Yankee Stadium, then the Bronx Bombers returned the favour 9-0 at Shea.
As the great Casey Stengel said, paraphrased, there’s 50 games you’re going to win & 50 you’re going to lose, it’s what you do in the other 50 that matters.
Not sure I follow you but points in Oct count just as much as in April.
Wouldn’t it be nice for us to be picking up easy points while other teams sort themselves out versus the opposite?
Sure, that’s not what you said.
“Culture and accountability matter and the big boys continue to swing from one pole to the next.”
“We can’t keep saying ‘individual moments’ when there is a track record.”
They hit game 7 of the SCF and calling out accountability of the core in regular season game 7 seems a bit dramatic to me. The track record is 100+ points a season for the last 3, covid ruining another. That’s consistent excellence.
Fan how you want to fan, figured some perspective and a deep breath might help the day go by smoother.
The two most magical words in sports: Game Seven. Oh wait…
The Russians weren’t friendly to me last night so couldn’t get the game up. A shame, they could have used that one after getting a lead
I agree with the single events idea. To me though, there are players that pay the price when a bad or unlucky play happens, and as you say there are players that you can rely on for single events
Every player makes mistakes and bad plays, but what differentiates them is when and how often – the truly best players that drive winning when it counts most – when the chips are down – and those that can have a load of ability but can’t quite dial it in all of the way. No blame, the top pro league in any sport is a big mountain
Players like Connor and probably Bouch can outplay the tendency overall, Leon at times, but it can still lose games in the now. Not ideal for playoffs especially. I agree with LT that 10 years in or more it’s a feature, not a bug. So the ball is on Knoblauch’s and Bowman’s side of the pickle ball court
What do you do, who do you get to maximize your top two forwards? Holland found the fix for Bouch. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. Sather worked all of the time to augment Messier Anderson, and only settled with Gretz when he found Kurri then Tikkanen. He looked for the right specific traits, not every player is the right fit just because they have skill
I don’t have a suggestion. Just wish McD, Drais and Bouch would mind their own yard before seeking greener pastures (the o-zone).
Team defense needs to be the ‘culture’. I don’t currently see that.
I’m finding nhl66 dot ir is working well again these days.
Agree with this post, thought they played well, structured, and also Stewie looked rock solid. They aren’t finishing now, and combined with a couple brain farts, you’ll have to take the point against a very good team while looking for trends.
Edmonton played quite well now against Dallas and Carolina, but are coming out of it with a single point. No fear, if you’re angry at that, you’re angry at last month. This team can’t pull off a training camp for some reason, and thats a big problem. But Pittsburgh is not a must win game; they remain in the “must start looking like themselves consistently and the points will come” phase. Would have liked that to kick in game 1 but this is a franchise that has been to the SCF 5 times since they last finished atop the division. Maybe the Oilers just aren’t built like that. Rocket Ship hockey gonna have some wobble. I like it.
Passes are looking better, pace is up. Now take it to Pitt.
Connor McDavid not taking complete responsibility for the OT goal in the post-game was not the best.
I assume at this point that McDavid and Drai call the shots in OT over the coach, because time after time after time they go out there and lose OT games for us because they’re gassed.
They did win the last OT game…..
To your point, McCurdy’s take last night seems bang on – why didn’t Knob use his TO to rest those guys before their last OT shift – they had a rest shift of 14 seconds of game time.
Not many NHL teams would clear Millions of $$$ in Cap space… then downgrade. Oil did.
The players from the Cup run are hung over. The new players are playing well mostly. The defence has been tight, giving up few high dangers. The best players that were here are the problem, and a shaky start by Stu. I think they have more ability overall, more jam, and will be a better playoff team if everyone can play
Prospectotron!
Flint is already underway in a school day match. Day is in goal, but Clattenburg is still out of the lineup.
Puck dropped about ten minutes ago Throne time.
Any news on Clattenburg?
From the one source I could find, it said he had an upper-body injury but was close to returning. That was almost a week ago.