Oilers v Kings, Game FIVE Round ONE

The Edmonton Oilers chose the right player in 2015, but followed it up by selecting the wrong path forward immediately. Just over one hour after the McDavid pick, general manager Peter Chiarelli dealt picks that could have been (and reportedly were) meant for Joel Eriksson-Ek and Brandon Carlo. These years later, Jack Eichel has the Stanley Cup ring and Connor McDavid is starring in a script that frames him as “Steve Yzerman waiting for Sergei Fedorov” and that’s a terribly unfair script.

Every Oilers general manager since 2015 who held the job for more than five minutes (Chiarelli, Ken Holland) burned down the mission that housed a draft/development model and sent away picks and prospects on the double.

Stan Bowman continued the trend at the deadline, and at this point in McDavid’s career it makes sense. Realistically, by the time Sam O’Reilly is ready to help the Oilers, McDavid will be over 30. So, drafting someone in this year’s first round would mean an even later date when said player could help with the heavy lifting.

I think Stan Bowman did well in the spring signing window, gathering some useful pieces. Two of those acquisitions (David Tomasek and Atro Leppänen) should be viewed as legit options for deployment in 2025-26. I hope he can sign a couple of Group 6 NHL free agents (Phil Kemp and Matej Blumel would be nice) and we’ll see how the team addresses speed and youth for next year’s roster. Edmonton needs an infusion of youth due to cap concerns as well. Important summer, pleased to see Bowman has already joined the battle.

LINE MATCHING

Kris Knoblauch isn’t a big line match coach. Craig MacTavish taught all of us how important line matching can be, but you can make the case that a coach with McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can just bull rush opponents whenever he damn well pleases.

As the Glimmer Twins age, finding clean air for their briliance will become more important.

During the road games this series, McDavid saw a steady diet of Mikey Anderson (21:40), Drew Doughty (20:25) and Phillip Danault (18:34) at five-on-five. He went 1-1 goals and 9-6 shots versus Anderson.

At home, McDavid’s most common five-on-five opponents were Mikey Anderson (24:26), Drew Doughty (24:19) and Philip Danault (17:04). McDavid went 19-8 shots and 3-1 goals against Anderson.

The biggest tweak I see in the home/road (and I’m no expert in this area) is that the two coaching staffs disagree about the McDavid-Anze Kopitar minutes. Here are the splits, all numbers five-on-five:

• 97 v/Kopitar at home: 13:42, 14-2 shots, 2-0 goals
• 97 v/Kopitar in LA: 5:55, 3-3 shots, 2-1 goals

Now, these are extremely small sample sizes and luck could be the biggest factor. People sometimes take these minute numbers and trumpet them like the second coming. You can parse too deeply looking for answers when none are there. You end up saying things out loud that you later regret, like “McDavid is more efficient when up against defensemen who use wire clothes hangers than he is against those who use wooden clothes hangers” and then other people stop listening to you.

Also, I didn’t break out the defensemen who played with Kopitar against McDavid, and I don’t know what zone they started in or if it was on the fly. It’s the beginning of an argument suggesting Knoblauch is matching a little. I don’t know what I don’t know.

It’s an interesting ‘inside the game’ item for us to watch this evening.

The Lowdown hits at noon today on Sports 1440. Daniel Nugent-Bowman at The Athletic will be our feature guest, and of course this is ‘chaos Tuesday’ as Donovan Paulson joins us and creates a fascinating back and forth happen immediately. I don’t know how he does it, but tune in and have a listen. Declan Krueger will have “Hi my name is….” and we’ll discuss MLB, NFL and NBA. 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, it’s available post-show on apple and spotify, and we tweet it out on X.