Punch Imlach wrote about Gilbert Perreault as a young player in his book ‘Heaven and Hell in the NHL’ decades ago. Note: It was actually Scott Young, Neil’s Dad, who wrote the book. It’s fantastic.
Imlach discussed his dilemma with Perreault: let him run free offensively or teach him to backcheck and be responsible. Imlach’s solution? He cobbled together a brilliant checking line featuring Don Luce at center, Craig Ramsay on left wing and (often) Danny Gare on right wing. That line often played the best opponents and routinely outscored them.
If you go back and look at Perreault during those years, he was not a plus-minus demon, but the Luce line was in fact a monster positive. In 1974-75, the year Buffalo made it to the final, Perreault delivered a +1, while Luce was +61. Seriously, I’m not lying.
Connor McDavid is not like Perreault in his day. McDavid’s ability to outscore opponents five-on-five is legend. He has been over 50 percent every season of his career in five-on-five goal share, and missed expected goal share of 50+ only when his wingers were threadbare. He has also been quality in the metric during his playoff runs, although last season was only 50 percent.
One of the things we could discuss today, and I’m interested in your opinion, comes from the 2025 playoffs and outscoring numbers at five-on-five.
McDavid with Leon: 13-12, 52 percent; McDavid solo: 8-9, 47 percent; Draisaitl solo: 6-7, 46 percent. Oilers with 97 and 29 off the ice: 25-14, 64 percent. In an age when power plays are less prevalent, the Oilers have to make those five-on-five numbers hum across the roster. Thoughts?
On the Lowdown today, Steve Lansky and Tyler Yaremchuk will pop in for their weekly visits, and we’ll have Declan Krueger’s top-five list at 12:40. We’re on noon to 2pm, lots of Oilers and Jays talk. Hope you can tune in!
New for The Athletic: How will Edmonton Oilers deploy new-look winger depth charts in 2025-26?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6527594/2025/08/01/oilers-depth-charts-wingers-2025/
I wonder if the play is Dipietro he’s 26 and ready to pop. It would be risky and nasty at the same time to Pickard who saved our season last year. I refuse to believe Bowmsn is going roll with the same tandem.
26 and ready to pop? Imagine our own #1 goalie ‘prospect’, forced into number one NHL duty at a young age, also pops at 26?
I understand your sympathies for Pickard but this team need to what’s best for it. Professional athletes know they are at the mercy of the club.
Summer McIntosh vs. Katie Ledecky in the 800m freestyle at the World Championships tomorrow morning at 6AM MDT, streaming on CBC Gem.
Arguably the biggest non-Olympic swim race ever.
The “next one” stepping on the “g.o.a.t.’s” lawn.
Ledecky broke her world record in this event just last year, and is undefeated in it in well over a decade. McIntosh is contesting this event in a major meet for the first time, and was just over 1 sec off the world record at the Canadian trials last month.
Both are in form. Ledecky won the gold in the 1500m a couple of days ago with one of her best ever times in the event. McIntosh will be going for her 4th gold medal at this World Championship. (She is trying to match Michael Phelps winning 5 goal medals in individual events in one World Championship, only done once).
Provide a conclusion tomorrow if you watch it at 6am? I’d much rather hear your take on LTs board then googling the outcome, if I can remember to do so.
Spoilers starting about a third of the way through.
That Australian Lani Pallister was also in form. She is also a regular distance swimmer 800m and 1500m.
Tedecky and Pallister swam the first half of the 1500m under world record pace, before Tedecky pulled away.
Previous best times. Ledecky 8m4s McInTosh 8m5s, Pallister 8m10s or so.
So Ledecky was in lane 4, with McIntosh in lane 3, Pallister in lane 5.
So Ledecky swam this final with her classic strategy, go out as fast as possible for as long as possible and burn out any of the sprinting speed of her younger challengers.
And Pallister and McIntosh with the classic challenger strategy, stay on Ledecky’s shoulder and then time a move late in the race.
And that is how it unfolded. Ledecky out at under world record pace for the first 500m with McIntosh and Pallister on her shoulders 0.5-1.0m behind.
McIntosh made her move first at 600m and inched ahead into first at the 700m turn, but that was all she had. Ledecky had burned out her Summer’s sprint speed, and regained the lead in over the next 50m.
Then it was Pallister’s turn to make her move which she did at 700m and she swam the fastest over the last 100m but came up short in catching Ledecky.
So Ledecky first at 8m5s, Pallister 2nd 8m5.5s, McIntosh 3rd 8m7s. The three fastest women at this distance ever. The first time three women, and the only three women under 8m10s ever.
McIntosh’s lack of experience swimming this race vs the other two was the difference. Not enough experience feeling the max pain the Ledecky inflicts pushing the pace all the way.
It will be interesting if McIntosh sticks with the 800m as her fifth event or tries something like the 200m backstroke or 200m freestyle instead.
Since McIntosh is the best multistroke swimmer in the world, training for the 800m might take too much time and focus away from her training for the 200 IM and the 400 IM. The 200 backstoke to go along with her 200 butterfly might be an easier option.
Ledecky and Pallister only swim freestyle.
The teams with the best goaltending outcomes are almost always the teams that protect their goalies weaknesses and play predictably in front of them
I don’t think Stu is a top goalie at this point, but I do think that the Oilers have made a lot of goalies look worse than they are. Still do. While their team play has progressed a lot, it still comes and goes, and there are big time breakdowns
A top goalie might bail them out more, but his numbers would be worse than before I’m sure. The way they defend is hard on goalies. They don’t box out well as a group, don’t get in lanes well, screen their own goalie, deflect pucks on net a lot, leave guys open close to the net and often get beat to rebounds
It’s partly a coaching thing, blocking shots having become such a big thing. I think skaters should get in lanes which stops a shot attempt, but if they aren’t there let the goalie see the puck and don’t tip it and change the puck angle
They should be looking to take a man after letting the goalie do his job. When they are backing into the net area they should know what to take away from the shooter, either the short or far side, whatever the goalie prefers, so he has to worry about less shooter options
So often they are in the way and still in no man’s land, not taking a shot or pass away. Sometimes it happens, hockey is fast, but it seems to often to me
To my eye, as the team goes, so does Stu/Picks. The narrative of the team playing differently in front of each tender is a symptom of the bigger picture.
If the team is playing a structured, supportive and shot blocking game, any goalie would put up decent numbers. Hence keeping Stu on his salary. What’s the point of going big name fishing when the team doesn’t play a consistent game?
The Oilers worst enemy will always be themselves. There is an ability to play an offensive, yet defensively responsible game. They just don’t always execute.
When my kids were finally faster than me on the ice I still could not let them win. Not going to beat Dad.
So I just stayed between them and the net. I irritated them, hooked them, grabbed their sweaters so they had to pull me along. I was still much bigger so any board play I could manipulate them and they could not do anything except complain a little (or a lot).
I wasn’t as fast anymore so i intercepted them, cut them off, I just kept poking the puck away. Eventually I got a few looks myself.
This is how Connor and Leon get a 50% or lower goal share. And why that goal share drops significantly in the playoffs.
We tried the Brown-Perry-Kane-Skinner-Arvidsson way up front let’s see what the Savoie-Howard-Tomasek-Frederic-manhiapane are capable of as a group. We are amazingly almost 9 years younger per man. We surprisingly now have a farm system with some actual hopefuls in Jarventie-Leppanen-Hutson-Samanski-Clattenburg. Once McDavid signs for 8 years and they re-up Walman-Podkolzin. This team will be set for another decade at legit runs at the Cup. Bowman is being patient but he will find a above average goalie in the same vein as Moog-Fuhr-Ranford-Cujo
I really hope Clattenburg turns into the player you think he will be. Call me jaded. I’ve seen too many of this type of player drafted by the Oilers turn into nothing.
He has the wheels if he can stay healthy he’ll be a fan favourite by Christmas.
Max Jones can fly too, and he was a 1st round pick….
I sincerely hope you are right, but this is an extremely raw player. I have little doubt that he will play most of his games this season in the ECHL. This is the kind of player who, if he even gets a cup of coffee in the NHL, will do so 4 or 5 years post-draft. He’s coming from a looong way back, but make no mistake, I am cheering like hell for this lad.
I also fear that he is injury prone, hopefully the support he gets as a pro will help him prevent injuries and he can develop in a straight line. Health will be extremely important for his career, since he will make his money with his physicality, not his skills.
I’m surprised they still talk to you.That sounds positively toxic.
Congrats, I guess?
Hello Taylsie Haller, wanted to mention I liked your post yesterday. Awesome. Maybe just because it added some validation to my point but also referencing two old timey excellent players.
Hi Winchester, Thanks. I have long been fascinated by the subject that you raised.
My favourite linguistic gripe with the math heads came up on the radio show today. That was amusing.
There’s a reason we don’t pay numbers people to write or talk. And jargon is almost always a negative, rather than positive contribution to discussion or a case for something.
Regression should remain a descriptor of negative activity. Not positive activity.
It makes sense when the phrase isn’t shortened to one word, regression to the mean (returning to, over or under it), but generally I concur
I think Leon and McD’s goal shares outlined above can be explained by:
1) Poor goaltending (look at their ONSV% splits — in the playoffs McDrai had a 83.33% ONSV)
2) Bad luck
I am not worried about McDrai at all.
I am very worried about running back Skinner, who has one of the worst Sv% in the playoffs during the cap era.
The Oilers created a ton of chances, but were very poor at finishing them
I still think the dominoes will start falling this month and we grab a good dependable steady chair when the music stops. I thought no way Bowman goes with the same tandem judging from his Blackhawk days. Maybe Bowman is banking on a Skinner improvement with a new coach and the added inspiration of a contract year. Bowman may also have enough faith in Pickard to clean up after Skinner on a regular basis. Anyhow I had a vision that Skinner along with one of our D will be traded together sometime this month. Biooook it……
I think the difference in this year’s SCF was the banged up DCorps, missing Hyman, an injured Nuge, an injured (or age-impacted) Henrique and an injured/ineffective Frederic.
The defenders where not what they had been in earlier rounds, so they leaked chances and the goaltenders were pummelled/could make the important stops.
The offense sputtered because of an overwhelmed D-group that could not effectively defend or outlet and there were not enough effective forwards to help 97 & 29 push in the O-Zone and these 2 very important players were double and triple-teamed.
This was really only the last 2 games. If they had won the double OT they mightve squeaked it out. Game 5 they were schooled but by game 6 they were cooked.
Agree attrition hit them even though the big 2 had got through relatively healthy.
For sure Walman, Ekholm and even Klingberg were not their best selves. You could say the same for the forwards I mentioned.
The differences between NHL teams is often paper-thin, so any advantage the other team can get can make the gap massive. The mental toll this takes on a team can be significant.
I think a combination of the physical ailments, the incessant Pather pressure & dink tactics and mental toll all conspired and it resulted in the beat-down of our E-town Oilboys.
— McDrai missed a fair amount of games last year
— Their scoring was also down.
– I dont buy “they were resting for playoffs”
— More pucks in net for McDrai this year.
— Hopefully we haven’t seen “peak” McDrai, but it’s coming …
97 & 29 goal shares (together and alone) above are only a 1 goal difference, meaning all shares are within the margins of 50 percent. The differences there aren’t significant.
SV% swings from 83% when both 97 & 29 are together to 94% without either player. The numbers with and without 97 & 29 show QoC, with Leon and Connor getting most of the elites, and the team and goaltenders allowing more goals against the best players in the league.
Yes this is exactly it.
I should have read this before posting.
The goaltending is a big concern.
It would help if the dynamic duo wanted to prevent goals as badly as they want to score them. I’m so tired of seeing them blow the zone prematurely.
i think it was a smart move for Mangiapane at 29 to sign with Edmonton and possibly find his scoring touch again and furthering his career into his 30’s. I assume Mangiapane will play up and down the top 9 as he is defensively conscious enough not to be put in coach K.K doghouse. What is a reasonable expectation for him?
I wrote about exactly that in the article linked above.
I’m by no means an expert, but those numbers tell me to play 97 and 29 together. I suspect all these numbers are inflated because the team really only ran into some difficulty in the finals. I’d be curious to see those stats round by round.
The finals are wild. McDavid with Leon, 1-5 goals; McDavid solo 2-3; Leon solo 3-4; Without both Glimmer Twins: 4-4.
If we’re being honest, Florida was on a different level. They have so many things going for them right now.
Were they on another level trough game 4? Or did they find an extra gear, “somehow”?
In the name of honesty, I think it might have been the most lopsided 6 gm series I’ve ever seen. I think Maurice just made adjustments tactically better than Knobby did. It’s easier to do with Florida’s personnel though. And of course Bobrovsky was once again unbeatable. They are the standard bearer for organization building right now.
I agree for sure. My heart was cheering like a child but my head knew better. It’s better now than when we got eliminated by the Blackhawks in what 2020 or 2021. Isn’t it ??
Definitely! I’m not complaining, but we just didn’t have an answer for the Panthers. But the Oil are probably the best bet to dethrone them IMO. We need to give Bowman a bit of time to execute his plan to get them there. I can’t see McDavid seeing any other team as a better bet to win outside Miami, which is why I’m not concerned about his extension.
Better team in game 5 and 6 to close out for sure but attrition hit.
Lets not forget after 4 games the Oil were full value for 2-2, and could’ve made a case for 3-1 without double OT.
Going into 5 the Panthers had just blown a 3 goal lead and lost in OT at home to give home ice back.
Lopsided at the end and that’s the most recent feeling for Oil fans.
What adjustments? They just go out and play the same way night in and night out. Oilers ran out of gas and Goalie Bob was better than Goalie Stu.
I see what you’re referencing. Like Ekblad’s in season top up.
The constant turnover of wingers during their careers must have impacted overall results – on offence and defence.
It really is incredible to consider how many players have rotated through. Hopefully, this year (I say it to myself every year!) at least one winger pops and is a permanent fixture with each of the twins.