ORIENTATION CAMP ROSTER AND NOTES from July 2, 2015
- C Connor McDavid. Beatlemania—Oilers edition begins now. He honestly seems too good to be true, on and off the ice. It’s incredible, he’s as obsessed with hockey as we are! Fantastic luck, pure adrenalin.
- C Leon Draisaitl. One of the players (along with Yakupov) I worried over being traded this spring, Leon’s combination of size and skill remains unique on the roster. I think they’re going to have a helluva time keeping him down on the farm.
- D Darnell Nurse. Big, strong, mobile defenseman is a big part of the future. Even AFTER the additions I’m not certain they can keep him off the opening night roster if they decide things on merit.
I wrote those words in a post entitled “The Mother of all Orientation Camps” almost 10 years ago. Both Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse spent time with the Bakersfield Condors in 2015-16, but it was brief and the ‘heart of the order’ was revealed at that orientation camp. I went to the open practice with my daughter, we sat right down at the front at about center ice. As we sat down, someone skated past us in a blur. “Who’s that?” she said. My reply: “Must be McDavid.”
The Athletic article today sings the praises of Mattias Ekholm. He has been an impact player for the Oilers. It is here.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN NOVEMBER
- At home to: NJD, VEG (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-2-0)
- On the road to: VAN (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- At home to: NYI, NAS (Expected 2-0-0) (Actual 2-0-0)
- On the road to: TOR, MTL, OTT (Expected 1-2-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: MIN, NYR (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: UTA, COL (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 8-5-0, 16 points in 13 games
- November results: 3-2-0, 6 points in 5 games
- Oilers in 2024-25: 9-7-1, 19 points in 17 games
Oilers have got it now, they are on a winning streak and the pistons are firing. I think this road trip could be coming at a good time, if Edmonton can post four points on the road trip November should be a success. Extrapolating the current results over a full season, we come up with 82 games, 43-33-6, 92 points. That isn’t a lock for the postseason, but there should be no panic trades this winter.
THE NUMBERS
The Oilers ran with 11 forward and basically three lines for the evening. The McDavid line rolled well, with good metrics and the captain is flying currently. I remain concerned about RNH. Some folks on twitter were implying he wasn’t going all out to make the required play on the first goal against, but for me the fact Nuge can’t do what we knows to do is a tell. He’s hurt or still recovering from last year. If I’m the coaching staff, some games off in the next while could help. There’s something amiss here. I’m not wrong.
Leon Draisaitl is playing out of this world hockey currently, winning battles with that big frame and then delivering gorgeous touch passes in the same moment. Power and the glory. Vasily Podkolzin had a couple of good looks, eventually he’ll need to cash or the Oilers will move on. Jeff Skinner had some moments too, I’m cheering like hell for him. Maybe a road trip hat trick will help him impress the coaching staff. Right now all Adam Henrique is doing is make Oilers fans miss Ryan McLeod. He should get on that.
Darnell Nurse had a wonderful game and I’m here for it. The target of all manner of verbal over these last months, he played a strong defensive game plus delivered one of the best offensive outings of his career. I’m so happy he did it in front of the home fans.
Calvin Pickard played well, even as some fans want him kicked to the curb. I don’t really understand that line of thinking, he could backstop this team to victories for years to come. We all get that, right? He’s 32, he could easily play at a high level for several years.
A quick final note on McDavid. One of the great things in life comes from the ability (and the opportunity) to enjoy things that are exceptional and unique. I can’t tell you about great art or opera, I love the symphony but have no great expertise in that area. I can say that the Rolling Stones are the greatest rock and roll band ever, that Crazy Horse touches your soul and your bones with those electric Neil Young guitar runs, that John Prine cornered melancholy and sadness in every line and that Connor McDavid is beyond the blue horizon as a hockey player. The great thing in life is knowing it as it happens. Being able to watch this player on home ice is a wonderful experience. I hope you get to see him live. It’s beautiful.
At noon today, we’ll kickstart the weekend with Oilers talk and more. Steve Lanksy from Inside the Truck podcast will break down the broadcast of McDavid’s 1,000th point and give his opinion on how well the broadcasters and producers did on the play. Tyler Yaremchuk will put the moment in historical perspective from a young person’s point of view. Declan Krueger’s Declanations hits at 12:40 and we’ll talk Grey Cup, NFL weekend and more. 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.
Summarizing!
Nicholl continued his fine play with a shortie for his 7th goal of the season.
Akey’s seeing-eye shot found its way home for his 4th tally of the year.
Wakely, Lachance, Copponi and Fischer each had an apple.
O’Reilly, Berry, Määttä, Münzenberger, Mazura, Clattenburg and Stonehouse did not get to enjoy tasty, nourishing soup.
Day got a night off.
Stamkos played in Edmonton last night?
Hmmmm didn’t even notice.
Hey LT,
I personally think some fans have this distorted view with Pickard and Skinner that people expect Hellebucyk or Shesterkin level of play coming back if we are trading for a goalie.
Thats just not going to happen. For any goalie the Oilers could trade for, it’s basically the devil you know, versus the devil you don’t.
We’ve seen it time and time again.
Trading for Garon.
Signing Khabibulin.
Trading for Fasth.
Trading for Scrivens.
Signing Bryzgalov. (Personally my favourite one because of his personality)
Trading away Dubnyk.
Trading for Talbot. (The most successful trade and it still didn’t workout long term, yet he’s still playing as a starter.)
Trading for Nilsson.
Trading for Brossoit.
Signing Gustavsson.
Trading for Montoya.
Signing Koskinem.
Trading Talbot for Stolarz.
Signing Mike Smith. (2nd closest to successful even though a lot of fans ragged on him.
Signing Jack Campbell.
Buying out Jack Campbell. (Fans upset they didn’t sign Kuemper, who was traded because he was playing poorly in Washington or trade for Georgiev, who is playing poorly in Colorado.)
Signing Pickard.
Teams that have great goalies 99% of the time have drafted and developed them. The 2 goalies that I can think of in recent memory that were traded and stayed good were Varlamov and Markstrom (also had a bad year or 2 with Calgary and the Oilers attempted to sign).
It is unrealistic to expect to trade for a guaranteed game changer goalie. It’s not going to happen.
There is an article out that goes through all the statistical numbers for the Oil this year. The numbers are quite phenomenal in ranking such as expected penalty kill rank #1, actual #32. Similar numbers for all other stats including much better expected goals for and against. Statically our goal tending is at the bottom of the league this year in actual numbers and fancy stats such as saves below/above expected. These stats clearly show the team is outperforming there actual results both sides of the rink and on both sides of special teams. The way I read it the team has not had the puck luck this year yet and the goal tending has performed below average on an average team. As always this will go back to the mean. Stu will have a number of games in the .960 range to get his % back to his normal. He is a young goalie that is better than average throughout the whole year. Hellabuck is do for some stinkers in his future and Winnipeg will go on a losing streak. Oil will be in 1st or 2nd place in the division by end of year. Statistical the team is doing everything right (do not make changes), the wins will pile up shortly.
A lot of us are simply saying if they can upgrade Pick – which is completely attainable – they should at the deadline
There is no league top goalie to get and they don’t have the cap and assets anyways to keep one
Pick is playing pretty well, but up until the Oilers couldn’t stay in the league. It’s a risky bet staying with these two with no further known options available in house if something happens. Could be fine, could be disaster. I wouldn’t take chances in goal at this point given the aspirations unless nothing can be done
An upgrade is attainable but almost certainly comes with an increase in cap hit, decreasing the cap hit to use elsewhere – for a player the hope sees no ice time in the playoffs.
Who is guaranteed to be better? You have to be sure that it’s actually an upgrade.
Who is guaranteed to be better? You have to be sure that it’s actually an upgrade.
What a glorious night! With Drai and Nurse part of it, just so fitting. Wonderful his dad was there to celebrate it with him, too.
Am outraged at the sheer level of vindictive levelled at me recently for daring to suggest that, with proper care and attention from Coffey that Nurse won’t finally blossom into a cap hit friendly Oiler.
You’re not new here are you?
Isn’t that one of those new fangled double negatives?
More than a handful have deranged OBC syndrome.
As a former oilers death march winner, ocd goes a long way.
I really enjoyed the 5th Cup but we all knew we were in for years of torment from the hockey gods, If Bowman can find a Crawford I think we have 3-4 Cups in us over the next 8 years.
Crawford had been in the Chicago system for 6 years, and had just completed his 4th AHL season, when Bowman was named GM in 2009.
Bowman sent him back to the AHL for a 5th season. The next year Crawford became a full time NHLer (and starter). That was a few months before his 26th birthday.
Skinner turned 26 a couple of weeks ago.
Very good retort to a player that wants to flush Rodrigue if he doesn’t play in the NHL this year (which he likely does via injury).
Here are Crawford and Skinner’s age 22 through 29 seasons with their save percentage points above or below league average for each year.
Crawford
Age 22/23 AHL
Age 23/24 AHL
Age 24/25 AHL
Age 25/26 57GP +4
Age 26/27 57GP -11
Age 27/28 30GP +12 Cup
Age 28/29 59GP +3
Age 29/30 57GP +9 Cup
Skinner
Age 22/23 13GP +6
Age 23/24 50GP +10
Age 24/25 59GP +2
Age 25/26 11GP -19
Age 26/27 ?
Age 27/28 ?
Age 28/29 ?
Age 29/30 ?
Who feels confident the secondary scoring is going to come alive in the next 60 games?
I feel confident they will. Older guys seem to need some time to get going. Newer additions are still gelling and finding their spots and getting used to the flow of the team. Oilers seem to have made it part of their identity to start slow these last few years.
a little bit of let daddy do it lol u dont wanna upstage Connor or leon 😉
I recall, after the Dallas series, auggesting that Nurse-Kulak should be a thing. Apparently Kulak was quite uncomfortable playing his offside, so they put him back on 3LW. I wonder if he is more comfortable with the arrangement now, or if he would still rather be playing a smaller role on his preferred side?
All to say, even if this becomes a regular thing in the season, I imagine the goal for the team is still to find a good 2RD at the deadline to push Kulak down. Rhe guy is dedinitely found money for being able to play pretty much anywhere in the lineup on a very reasonable contract.
Im sure they’d love to. Dont think there will be much available though. Sellers market
Nice to see Nurse get the gorilla of his back and it won’t surprise if he scores a few more on this upcoming road trip especially against the Sens. I’ve said it from day 1 that Nurse needs to run wild like he did in Junior. Nurse bringing chaos is what he does best. Nurse is a driver and if Coffey can unleash it with the right system or partner could very well be a main ingredient too winning the Cup.
That might turn out to be a very good idea – particularly since Nurse so far has turned out to be no more than a virtual damp squib.
Was thinking this morning that we’re 1000 points into McDavid’s NHL career now and have yet to see him suit up as a pro in a meaningful international competition. That’s an utter travesty Mr. Bettman.
Really looking forward to the 4 Nations Face-Off and the Olympics to follow.
When we finally see Connor again in a Team Canada sweater, that’s when he officially transcends being Richmond Hill’s and Edmonton’s pride and joy and officially becomes all of Canada’s.
A golden goal from Connor. Sounds about right.
Watching Team Canada in 2010 and probably 2014 has left me stunned as to how incredible a perfect hockey team can be.
Am in no hurry to see McDavid play for anyone other than the Edmonton Oilers until he finally wins something.
Lets not forget that Pickard comes with some pedigree. A 2nd round pick that was a legit starter for a bit and an “up and comer” – perhaps being on the worst team of the generation really hurt him?
At the same time, although he gets the job done, he “looks smaller” than 6’1 200+ he’s listed at and so many saves look awkward or lucky. Of course, “getting the job done” is really all that matters in the end.
Oilers need elite goaltending. But can’t afford it. So, they make do with what they’ve got.
and I’m posting about the goaltending that they have.
I also don’t agree that they “need elite goaltending”.
Yup, “Just get the job done”. That’s all that matters.
There’s lots of 20 something goalies ready to pop they just need the opportunity. When we are comfortable in the standing it’s either play Rodrique a handful of games or set him free and bring in 2 goalies they can groom. After the Campbell debacle we don’t have the luxury of paying a known we have to create our own Andy Moog.,
He does play smaller than his size but I do think he’s more athletic than Skinner. I do think they should give the ball to Pickard maybe he goes on a Binnington run. I also think the playoff run took a lot out of Skinner mentally. Why not go 50/50 and then go with the hotter goaltender.
He’s definitely very calm in his net.
These are also my concerns. He’s done well enough as an Oiler so far, but any opportunity to shore up the most important position should be taken IMO. As Lansky described it today with LT about Stu, I see both goalies as ‘fragile’
Just so risky to not have enough depth in this position given the only happy outcome at this point is the ultimate one
I mentioned last night that I thought Podz was awesome last night.
I hope he starts to piss a few drops as I do think he really helps drive play in the right direction – his offensive zone battle and puck retrieval is AWESOME – add that being a smart 2-way player – I’d like him to stay on that line but eventually he’ll get moved if he continues at 15-20 point pace.
Skinner was all around it last night – keep working Jeff and they’ll come. I believe, like most 2nd tier goal scorers, he’s a streaky scorer.
It’ll be interesting to see what the coaches do with Podzi – I thought he was fantastic last night as well, and really has been strong for the most part with 29. Dude digs his butt off in the corners, plays hard and keeps many plays/possession alive. Horrible for the opponents to try and get the puck out, AND Drai is humming right now. The issue in Van was also no finish/offence and that got him bouncing all over and he lost confidence.
He’s likely more suited to the 3rd line, but as long as the team is winning, letting him stay where he is for a continued stretch might be a benefit to him and the team long term.
If Skinner contributed as much as Podkolzin, they’d probably cut him some slack. And he might be finding the back of the net more often. Skinner is also 9 years older. I can speak from experience; it gets tougher with age.
Skinner will go on a heater and score his 20 something goals.
Written by a wise man on November 10th! He could have written it again this morning.
Wonderful game from Nurse. And yes, watching Henrique is cringeworthy and does make us miss Ryan McLeod. Hopefully Arvi isn’t out much longer.
Is it possible that he had exceeded draft day expectations – I mean, his production is the best of all time, with a bullet, outside the 80s.
No cups yet and maybe one of those will be required to fully state he’s exceeded expectations as expectations included leading the team to a cup.
Talk about exceeding draft day expectations…..
I don’t recall those off-season trade talks – that would have been a pretty bad thing.
A part of the core.
I mentioned this off-season that one of the most important needs for this team to win the cup is a bounce-back from Nurse to historical norms and, well, he’s has very good season and the Nurse/Kulak pairing has been high end 2nd pairing in their apx 100 minutes.
Last night was 2021 Nurse.
Talking about Nuge going through something, how about the RW on that line.
Hyman has had a few moments other then that he’s invisible, he’s not playing near the same amount of special teams Nuge is. He’s stapled to the best player in the league, he has the same amount of points that folks favorite punching bag Janmark has who is 6 months younger playing 7 minutes less per night.
He’s on pace for 14 goals, 14 goals! Playing right wing to McDavid, and sometimes Draisaitl and McDavid together. And 14 goals is your pace!?
Pathetic.
I’d still rather Hyman playing with McDavid than Janmark. Both Nuge & Hyman must be playing through something. And both will push through it.
For crying out loud. Every day you need a punching bag.
After Nurse scored on his terrific shot, I was sort of hoping for a Gordie Howe hat trick. But an overtime goal was also satisfying!
McDavid hitting 1000 is incredible. Without trying to be a jerk about it, I’m glad it’s over with because the team has obviously been thinking about it the last few games.
That being said, the overall energy has been much, much better, but this remains a team of 2 lines (if that) and 3 defencemen, 4 I guess we’ll include Kulak, though I have my doubts about Nurse-Kulak as a long-term pairing given the handedness.
Not sold on Emberson yet though he’s not terrible. No offence to Stetcher and Dermott but they aren’t the answer.
And sorry LT, I’m super happy for Pickard having a bit of a renaissance here, but the defence did very well to limit chances last night and he should have had at least one of the goals.
I don’t have a problem with employing tandem goaltending, but it’s a lot more palatable when it’s Ullmark/Swayman or Sorokin/Varlamov than Skinner/Pickard.
I really think Knoblauch came in and hit the perfect storm in terms of the team being ready to go on a long run, got buy-in from everybody from the top to the bottom of the roster, and in the playoffs, probably got maximum performance from most of the roster.
Now we’re seeing the comedown.
“I guess we’ll include Kulak”
Nah some of us having been including Kulak the entire time, welcome to the bus.
“now we’re seeing the comedown”
3 game win streak, 3 points out of 1st in the division. What?
I am thinking long term. I have lots of time for Kulak, he’s done everything right. I’m just not convinced he is the long-term answer on the 2nd pair.
Kulak’s contract will be up after next season. He’ll be UFA. Do you think they will be able to afford his services?
I wish we could hire whoever we are going to play as our starting goalie. Those guys keep standing on their heads.
I imagine if you don’t get hyped up to play McDavid as a goalie you’re in the wrong business.
The switcheroo.
I haven’t felt that overall. With such a low SH% it makes them all look like Tretiak. Nurse had no issue beating Wedgie from a pretty sharp angle with a high quick hard shot. They just usually don’t do that
RE Nurse
In defence of the fanbase, players know the expectations they’ll be facing when they choose to sign a massive contract.
Nurse wanted the big money so he gets the big pressure. You can’t have one without the other.
Nurse played the hands dealt him. Twice Edmonton general managers chose not to buy unrestricted seasons while have restricted seasons to ease the AAV. Peter Chiarelli and Ken Holland authored this contract through their own actions. Nurse bet on himself, and won. I think that’s worthy of respect.
Fully agree. You absolutely can’t fault the player for how he and his team managed his negotiations. He’s maximized the money he’ll earn from his career. That’s the objective of any pro athlete. Any one of us would sign that deal in a heartbeat and live with the consequences. All I’m saying is there are consequences that come with heightening expectations.
Exactly. If you ask for $9M you are going to held to $9M standards, at rightfully so. How he and the team got their is irrelevant to that.
So is Stu held to $2.6M standards? Asking for a friend
Top 10 in pay.
Bottom 100 in play.
Respect.
*fist bump
He was exceptional last game. But you can’t even give him one game. Give it a rest.
Going to be a tough one on Saturday. Flying out east and losing the two hours after playing two extra time games (should have won both in regulation).
I think they like to go into OT for the fun of it.
Skinner will be well rested.
Memorable night in Oilerville. Meaningful EV goal on a beauty feed from Leon. Couldn’t ask for a better scenario for 1000.
At this age, I have much more in common with Connor’s Dad than Connor so I really enjoyed his reactions and interview with Gene. Always comes across as a smart and fundamentally decent man. He’s living the Hockey Dad dream.
I’m happy for the kids of Edmonton. Their hockey hero does not have feet of clay. He’s a good honest Canadian kid who loves the game and loves his family. You can’t ask for more than that. Well, a set of rocket skates under the Christmas tree would be nice, but we reserve those for the all time greats.
#Legend
No you don’t. Connor’s dad does not criticize his teammates at every opportunity.
Since there are a lot of era comparisons happening, I wanted to look at the “McDavid Era” of 2014 – present.
The next closest player in the time McDavid has racked up his 1001 points is Kucherov with 879. Players ranked #2-16 in points have all played more games than McDavid. Kucherov at 1.28 and Kirill Kaprisov at 1.22 (360 in 294 games) are the only players in the last decade to crack 1.2 points per game. McDavid is at 1.52.
It’s not quite Gretzky level of separation from the pack, but it’s pretty damn significant.
You forgot about Drai…
872pts, 1.18ppg. 4 less games than Kuch and two years younger. But I’m splitting hairs here. they are all fantastic players.
Connor will have some crazy T-shirt for the boys when Leon scores his 1000th.
It will be fascinating to see how Nate MacKinnon finishes up his career.
Currently at 1.15 PPG despite having a relatively slow start to his career.
Barring injury, he should break 1000 points this season (932 right now) while on a 157 point pace which is rather remarkable considering Colorado has had 4 top 6 forwards out of the lineup.
Lehkonen returned a few games ago while Nichushkin, Drouin and Miles Wood all expected to be back in the lineup tonight against Washington.
Still no timeline on Landeskog.
That’s nice
What a maroon.
What a nin-cow-poop.
Percentage of readers who care about how Avs players are doing?…
zero point zero.
Hey man, pick a screen name to use already. What gives.
Harpers Hair is a lot less sacrilegious than “The Great One”
And to think that “The Grate One” was there for the taking…
I’m sure there are Avs blogs out there that will be more than happy to discuss this with you
Still no timeline on Klefbom either
I wonder if Demko will be playing soon? I read daily for months that he would be ready to go for the regular season annnyyy dayy nowwww.
I’d speculate Landeskog is done. If he is able to come back it will be a shell of his former self, and Colorado can’t do that given his salary cap hit. So, long-term injury until his contract runs out.
The experimentation on the d-pairings should be at an end. 1st pairing is set.
The Kulak – Nurse numbers are good (or better) each time they are out together. Kulak’s speed should allow Nurse to push for offense, which we saw last night.
Emberson looks better each game though still some positioning issues to work on. Run Stecher – Emberson as the 3rd pair.
No, they need a better partner for Emberson. Dermott & Stecher need to be #7 & #8. Simply so they can play Nurse & Kulak regularly.
And a LHD should be easier to get than a right handed D. Need to clone Kukak
Or a reasonable facsimile.
Agree 100% He’s getting more and more confident. He is raw but has the tools to be a 4 for this team eventually. If they could pluck a Marcus Petterson from Pittsburg and play him with Emberson. Then leave Kulak with Nurse full-time and my golly we got some balance on the back end. Solved without selling too much future assets!? Wow, would that be nice.
LT was all over the Kulak-Nurse being the answer and now I’m a believer.
Emberson needs a steady partner to play with regularly.
Nurse had a great game. Sometimes he pulls one of these out of the hat and makes you hope for more.
Kulak is a really good defenseman. Maybe the goal should be to get another Kulak and let nurse Kukak do their thing. Not ideal but I don’t see any RHD that is available that I would be happy with
Skinner had a lot of chances but he’s just so bad defensively. Hope he starts scoring soon because he’s running away with the green jacket.
I know we got Henrique for less than market value but his value is plummeting quickly because of his skating.
Love Podkolzins game but I don’t think he scores all season. Which is a problem
its early but looking like keeping the existing roster and not signing Skinner Arvidsson Henrique was the right play
Podz may be the new 2018-2019 Tobias Rieder. Hope not but arrows are pointing that way.
I agree on Skinner and Henrique but think Arvidsson has shown some flashs of a useful player. Concerned about Nuge’s play and hope he is playing through some type of injury or playoff malaise as suggested by LT. Also think Ryan is almost done and almost time for Philp to return and stay. Podz is snakebit or just has stone hands but we need his physicality at least until Kane returns. The D is what it is and probably tweaked at trade deadline. Thankfully we have two lead horses who are capable of driving the wagon even if a few aren’t pulling their load!
I like Arvidsson. That’s the one person I like signing. But I was trying to avoid OP pointing out every time Arvidsson makes a mistake
Everyone makes mistakes….even OP.
Arvidsson made MANY of them in the fist 4-5 games of the season – it was notable.
Skinner is not running away with the Green Jacket – he only has the lead by one and there are many within striking distance.
A thrill to watch that on tv last night. I could tell the barn was buzzing right from the opening horn. McDavid had the bit in his teeth right off too. What a thrilling player to get to see do his thing in real time.
Prospectulent!
Another Full House Friday beckons.
After Day’s impressive October, the gales of November have come for him, especially in the past three games where he’s put up a 7.78 GAA and 74.6 SV%. His season GAA is now over 3 and SV% under 90.
On the flip side, Nicholl’s 4-point outburst last time out has him at 6-13-19 in 17 GP. Looking like a smart pick early on.
Everyone plays at 5 p.m. Rocky Mountain House time ‘cept for Berry at 6.
What a game for these guys. Couldn’t think of two guys more deserving of the assist than Drai and nurse
As Oiler fans, we are one of two teams since the merger to not only have the great fortune to have one generational player, but two
I am glad younger Oiler fans get to experience it as well, and older fans again. Hopefully with some Cups as well
What an awesome time to be a fan. Watching Connor and Leon right now is worth it. And Nurse looking good is a big positive. But not sure what more people expect of Pickard, as far as backups go he has consistently done his job. Lay off yah jackasses.
Watching history made in real time is a drug. There are few absolutes in this world. My grandfather told me there was only two. But I know there’s three; Death, Taxes and McDavid.
“His only goal is to win a Stanley Cup HERE IN EDMONTON.” – McDavid’s dad, last night
You know what? I’m going to plan to do that, this year or next. I said I was going to get to Foxboro before Brady was no longer a Patriot, and sadly I never did. Can’t make the same mistake twice.
You have to. He is so much better in person, if that is possible. You get to see all the amazing plays off the puck he makes. He IS good at defense. What people forget is that the other team are also trying hard and they’re not rolling their 4th lines against him. This is still the best league in the world and every team’s top line can be difference makers against any other team.
But go. You will never regret it.
It is a very good thing that Leon doesn’t seem to give a damn about getting credit.
He’s been the one driving the bus this year and continues to do so, but doesn’t get rattled with barely anyone seeming to notice and acknowledge.
Very glad #29 is who he is.
He’s leveled up his defence, his only area of weakness, and nobody is talking about it.
If Nurse can maintain his level of play over the last 6-8 games people will stop talking about his contract.
He has been quite good for the last while. Happy for the player and team. Nurse playing like at a high level solves a lot of problems in this team.
I am glad Nurse is playing better and looks happy. Confidence and feeling good are key to performance
He had a great offensive game. Still, according to LT’s numbers his shot share was 8-11. Given how the Oilers dominated play, there is still a ways to go, but at least it seems in the right direction
Relative to his deployment, his numbers were great.
Since October 31, he is 6-1 in GF/GA, 50.54% CF, and 55.45% xGF. Pretty good IMO. Especially since he barely plays with McD and he has a rotating cast of misfits as his partner.
That was all about his time with Stecher – they got killed. He did very well with Kulak.