The Edmonton Oilers were not strong against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night. I’ve expressed concern about the team’s ‘floor’ during the early part of the season, and we saw it in the first period of the Sunday game against the Detroit Red Wings.
Losing Connor McDavid for any length of time makes the new floor a truly scary thought.
Monday’s game was a mess from the start. McDavid was tripped (no call), hurt himself and was gone from the game early. The Blue Jackets scored on a nice tip (power-play goal, the Edmonton special teams are hellacious acres) and were off to the races.
I’ve rambled on about the floor quite a bit lately, but the CBJ game makes the point for me. Every NHL team has nights when nothing rhymes, but most have a checkdown to a style they can play and remain competitive.
You can work hard on suppressing opposition sorties even if your offensive game isn’t going. I’m not sure the Oilers have that checkdown game.
McDavid’s injury is distressing for Edmonton fans, but early word had the injury as possibly being less serious than the video suggested.
Edmonton had a tough night against the Blue Jackets, with the PK and PP being issues. Stuart Skinner did not have a good game, stopping just 19 of 26 and just two of six HDSC’s.
This blog’s author is a major defender of Skinner, but he needs to stop more than 75 percent of the pucks aimed at the net.
The Oilers are getting blown out in far too many games. Part of that is the goaltending. Part of that is special teams.
We await the McDavid news.
New for The Athletic: Tinkering with Oilers pairings: 5 righthanded defencemen who should be trade targets
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5877524/2024/10/28/oilers-defence-trade-targets-righthanders/
Testing…. awful quiet here today.
On a completely different subject. Randy Gregg gave a wonderful acceptance speech on Friday night. Does anyone know where I can view it again? thank you
Apparently, Seravelli is saying best case scenario is a couple weeks for McDavid.
Ugh. Groundhog Day.
We have the same needs as 2-3 seasons ago, with less assets available. It really is a perplexing organization.
I appreciate we made it to game 7 and enjoyed every minute of it. But we were fortunate and rode incredible special teams percentages. And we had puck transporters on every line.
Today’s team does not look anything like the group we saw last spring.
Nope, what we are seeing doesn’t resemble what we saw in the spring.
Of course, what he saw last October was even further away from what we saw last spring and that team didn’t have almost all of the top players underperforming (such as Hyman).
Not saying this team will get where they need to be, or this team with changes, will get there but just noting that a year ago the on ice product was even further away.
The biggest issue:
The team with the allegedly best forward group cannot score goals.
The question is why is that the case? It’s really easy to say “they’re not scoring goals” but what are you proposing they do about it?
Score more goals.
Riveting
Another issue: Nurse is 3-9 GF/GA. The second pair is not working.
Someone posted the last 82 games that Darnell Nurse has played, a full season’s worth of games. 45gf/67ga. Yikes.
He’s playing like a 3rd pairing defender making 1st pairing money and there’s literally nothing they can do about it. He’s untradeable, too well liked to bench, and you can’t buy him out. Unless he regains a semblance of what he was 3 seasons ago, the team is stuck and will be battling uphill the entire time. What a disaster…
Fresh off his first OHL shutout, Nathan Day has been named OHL Goaltender of the Week.
Extremely boring hockey game. That was my only take away. Team seemed rattled with the early loss of 97. I knew when nobody stood up to fight at 2-0 the team was already on the plane. Moving on.
McDavid being out for any number of games is suboptimal but really often teams when losing their superstar have an opportunity to refocus efforts and start doing the little things right consistently and the results come.
Meanwhile a couple games for McDavid away could help him reset.
There’s no sense overreacting the future is unwritten on this one.
I hope it’s just a couple of games.
I think it also gives the team time to reset as well. Team looks slow right now. Really slow.
August 13 was a very very bad day for the Oilers org.
August 9 was worse.
No kidding.
IMO, the team lost a huge part of their identity with that decision in the sense of speed and tenacity. Now, they’re a slow, plodding team who are old and not hungry.
This is likely true but, at the same time, every season, every team gets blown out a couple of times, and by bottom feeding teams. I don’t necessarily watch/see those games but I suspect the good team getting blown out probably looked like crap too, no?
It’s not so much the blow out, but rather the pattern over 10 games…again.
Just an awful night, particularly for some vets. Worst game #19 has played in Oiler silks. Stu needs to make some saves. Guys running into each other, bad passes all over the rink.
Obvs we’ve caught glimpses of what they can be, but not with any consistency.
Not sure what this team is waiting for.
You know it’s serious when there’s a post game Lowetide update.
Bang on LT on the floor.
Part of how I evaluate players is their floor – Can they avoid being a net negative when they don’t have their A or B game. Goalies especially. Too many key guys with a High standard deviation to their play thus far.
Nice to see the site is back up … where else are us traumatized Oilers fans supposed to vent … without bumping into dirty Flames fans that just want to kick us when we’re down?
The whole team was garbage tonight … ‘nuff said. Don’t tell me about PDO. Don’t tell me that so and so made a nice play, or that the defense was more culpable on the goal against than the goalie. Every single player needs to be better … and we all know they can be.
The team often rallies and bears down more when McDavid misses games, so I don’t see a minor injury being a harbinger of doom.
Hey folks,
Haven’t been in here enough to even win a participation trophy these days, but when I do, it becomes a refuge for Oilers fans tired of the lunacy in other places. Having gone back behind the bench again, I find myself consumed with player/parent check ins, practice planning, and trying to make this season the most fun season these young ladies will ever experience. I’m hoping, as always, that my greatest legacy to this game is seeing former players still playing this great game 20-30 years from now.
I can’t comment on much outside of the stats and the radio feed, but it does not sound good right now. I know team speed has been brought up, but the reality is a great passing team can compensate for that. However, a poor possession team will not get the puck enough to out pass the pressure.
I haven’t been able to afford my Sportsnet+ to this point as unexpected winter tires (thought I had one more winter out of them), and powerskating lessons kind of ate my Sportsnet+ budget for hockey. I’m hoping this next check will turn that around.
Well, time for bed here.
Here’s hoping the ship rights itself soon.
The passing has not been good – even in the Penguins game there were lots of errant/misplayed pucks – through all the games this year.
Without players who can play up tempo, being able to fling the puck around at will is going to be a high priority, and so far that is missing.
Agreed, and it’s concerning. What’s this team’s identity, ‘we try to outscore our many mistakes”?
And Skinner needs to get his game sorted quickly before the fans turn on him and he finds himself shipped away.
Great to see the site back up. As always, great job!
Team identity is a huge issue right now.