This is the Vollman Sledgehammer, final edition, for the 2014-15 season. It’s both priceless and worthless. Priceless because it is searing in its rage toward specific players, worthless because there wasn’t much good going on in this season. What about now?
Apologies if this is difficult to read, these graphs are available at the brilliant Puck IQ, free of charge. The graph uses Dangerous Fenwick and Qual Comp is now time on ice versus elites. What can we learn from these two graphs? A few things.
First, Luke Gazdic was the last pure enforcer on the Oilers, kind of the last great western (which is ‘Outlaw Josey Wales’) ever made. I always marveled at his popularity among teammates, but one can never underestimate having an enforcer on the ice to make things right. If you ever saw Dave Semenko as an Oilers player, you know. The rules changed, then ended, the role, but Gazdic has shown in the last decade he wasn’t just muscle and hair. He is an excellent evaluator of the game and a quality broadcaster.
The Oilers as an organization are now much smarter in their approach. The Gazdic spot on last year’s graph belonged to Corey Perry, who did much good with it. Moving up and down the depth chart, Perry delivered 19 goals. I imagine that role could go to Ike Howard, but we’ll have to see. Based on Andrew Mangiapane’s usage a year ago, he may also be a candidate for the Perry role:
Five Guys
The five forwards who faced elites most often were Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Vasily Podkolzin. I think Podkolzin is getting underrated by many observers, for me he’s tip of the spear for a young group that will hopefully house Howard and Matt Savoie this coming season. Young players who are playing against tough competition.
This group is my “endangered species” population. Skinner and Perry are gone, Janmark is rumoured to be dealt and Henrique is a player we’ll likely see play a lesser role in the season to come. Finally, for kicks, I’ll throw in the Boston Bruins so you can see Trent Frederic from 2024-25:
Gazdic is the best broadcaster covering the Oilers by far!
Hrudey-Button are die-hard Flames followers that never throw shade on Calgary they are always trying to stir the pot in Edmonton. Gazdic is very observant and there’s nothing wrong with being a fan-boy of the exciting Oilers.
Puck IQ is interesting. I think it’s a better tool to evaluate coaches than players.
IIRC, who you play with influences results significantly more than who you play against.
Puck IQ does not really consider a players linemates and how that influences their results.
I believe it also only assesses the forwards you play against and not the defensemen. The calculations looks at the math for the quality of forwards (as defined by their criteria) that all players compete against but it does not define the quality of defenseman by Elite, Middle or Gritensity.
So whether you are a player competing against Ekholm and Bouchard vs Stecher and Kulak, makes no difference, only if you are opposing McDavid and Leon count as Elite.
Yes, also this.
If I had to guess, I bet the players in the bottom left quadrant played significantly fewer minutes with Bouchard than the players in the top right.
Again, I like Puck IQ but I am not entirely sure what it shows/what conclusions can be reliably drawn from the numbers.
Of course, this might really be an issue of my cognitive abilities and not anything to do with Puck IQ.
Hi Lowetide, sledgehammer is from my favorite peter gabriel record “so”.(i know you know this!).i actually got to hear him and see him live at the grammy’s in ’92..they started the show off with “steam” but it was all the guys , manu and tony levin
Nice! I’m a drum guy…so Manu ranks in my top 25. As for bass, I’ve been following Lee Sklar around since he started his YouTube vlog at the beginning of covid…currently touring with Lyle Lovett. Does a daily backstage vid of all the venues they’ve played.
this works…https://youtu.be/Tqm7-zN5s8k?si=B8O6dYImAaN8BFDf
hey this is such a killer version from harry!..(hi Frankie!)
Good cover, but you cannot match the original for PG’s energy, mania and stage prescence. One of a kind, that man.
I remember in an interview with Duncan Keith when he first arrived in Edmonton. He was asked what he thought when he played with the Blackhawks and he was coming to play against Edmonton.
” they didn’t have too much to worry about, they had McDavid, nurse and maybe Draisaitl” “ oh yeah, and Kassian, you always gotta watch out for Kassian”
I don’t know that Zach was our last enforcer, but this is how other players and other teams think. Without that guy at least being around all attention can go into stopping McDavid Draisaitl without any worries.
The Flames players were also glowing about having a guy like Lucic on the team.
Guys who glower don’t contribute to wins like they used to.
Kassian was a force until he hurt his back. Bennett owes a great deal of his success to Maurice as he values players willing to be slimeballs in order to win. If Coach K.K releases Kane-Frederic on Bennett I believe the series ends up differently. I think Coach K.K is too nice of a guy. The Oilers could basically coach themselves in the regular season come playoffs sometimes nasty gets you over the hump.
You do realize that Bennett was one of the better forwards for Canada in the Four Nations. You do realize that Bennett stood up to fight a guy in a higher weight class in Brady Tkachuk.
Didn’t he win the Conn Smythe too. He sure would be a good guy on the Oilers.
Bennett is good. In the regular season Bennett sits at about 4th or 5th most valuable player on the Panthers.
In the playoffs he wins Conn Smyth.
He is allowed to excel at a different kind of game. If we can get one like him, that would be planning for playoffs.
Florida, with some already top pests, go out and get Marchant. What a handful.
They can be beat, but Iilers will need a better game plan. After all their adjustments during the series, it seems they had nothing for the Panthers.
Maurice rewards it, it’s what he wants. He is a strategist.
Knoblatch penalizes it, sits his plays for the penalty. Knoblatch is also a strategist but he got beat with the same game plan two years in a row.
When the Oilers were last good they were the Panthers with elite skill. The coaches were as tough as the players
Let’s be fair and also state that’s Maurice has won the 3rd most games ever as coach, been a head coach for 27 seasons, coached the second most games all time and took 26 years to win the cup 1 time and 27 to win it 2 times while going to the finals 2 other times in those 27 years.
Anything short of “KK has coached pretty phenomenally for his first 2 years in the league and he still has lots to learn.” is either a complete inability to understand the complexity of coaching at the NHL level or just being disingenuous as a critic.
Does he have lots to improve on? I’d hope so and is he 25 years of experience behind Maurice, yes.
As it’s always been. The one thing that mitigates it is if your hard players are also your best players. The Panthers don’t ‘need’ thugs because Slasha is a giant and dirty, and Tkachuk and Bennet are mal-adjusted. But they still like having some more
People don’t get Frederic, even though his contract has been shown to be a non-issue when the cliff arrives. What I get is that he chirped Tom Wilson through a game to get him to go, when he didn’t want to. It takes a certain kind of person to want to drop with Wilson
Frederic also chirps the opponent constantly. He can also play hockey and is huge. Kane did as well, but Frederic is less ‘street’ than Kane. And also isn’t targeted by the establishment, he drew a lot of penalties in the playoffs relatively
I really thought Frederic and Kane would step up physically against the Panthers they did a good job against Vegas. That high stick Frederic took from Roy was brutal Frederic is one tough hombre. I also believe he’s a team leader. Both players must of ran out of gas the Panthers looked a lot fresher as Toronto and Canes barely laid a hand on them. I do believe if K.K lets the kids lose we see collectively 50 more goals as I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these forwards scored 20 Frederic-Magpie-Howard-Savoie- with these 4 hitting possibly notching 15 Podilzin-Tomasek-Kapanen-Henrique.
The SCF is pretty high stakes hockey for a couple guys like Frederic, coming off a serious injury & Kane after missing the regular season after rehabbing multiple surgeries. They weren’t the only Oilers that ran out of gas after the fourth game.
Lowe said their last Cup he didn’t practice. I got the impression he thought they were practicing too much. Given they were the oldest team… Knobby should have learned that the previous playoffs
Good point I think he went to the well too deep as he had fresh troops but he kept pounding the minutes to the same group up Front and on D.
When I was younger, as many road hockey players wanted to be Dave Semenko as Wayne Gretzky.
The enforcer and the physicality was so well respected. This is what lingers today in me and others.
Standing beside Semenko one day he was an absolute giant. Physically and in sheer presence.
When you have this guy on your side you play just a little bit bigger, you play a little more physical. You push a little harder. Chirp a little more. If things get a little out of hand, you know this guy’s coming.
On the “last great western” piece I have to respectfully throw the Coen Bros. True Grit into the ring, and suspect some may consider No Country for Old Men in that genre as well.
Random aside, while both of the above are just fantastic, for me nothing beats Inside Llewyn Davis in the Coen’s discography.
Now back to hockey!
I would say Hell or High Water
Unforgiven, another Clint Eastwood western, for which he won Best Director, was an excellent film as well. Great acting performances from him, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Frances Fisher and Saul Rubinek too.
Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s take on a western, is always worthy of consideration. Quentin’s style may not appeal to everyone, but his films are compelling for those that are into it.
Unforgiven or the Good, the Bad and the Ugly for me.
I dropped by to ask LT what Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven did to deserve getting overlooked, and was informed deserves got nothing to do with it.
Also, this Tombstone erasure will not stand!
Very positive that the Oilers largely removed from the bottom left. The replacements were both sheltered though :think
1) Mangiapagne has a history of winning possession in hard min, last year was an outlier
2) Frederik – I dont get any of it with him
3) Ike and Savoie – we’ll see .. on the positive side they arent being asked to replace hard min players
Now fix the goaltending! 🙂 (yes take your time, actually just spend all your time extending 97, the goaltending will be improved on eventually)
I can’t see Frederic succeeding in the 3C role. Just isn’t good enough to win the goal share without quality linemates.
He may succeed as a top-6 LW in the Maroon role. As the LW flanking Savoie on the right, or just a punisher next to McDavid. Or he may be best suited for the 4th line.
There’s a way for KK to play to Frederic’s strengths, but also to his weaknesses.
Surely it’s not their plan considering the $3.85 million (aav) contract they just gifted him, so if he does end up on the 4th line do they trade him? That’s high pay for a 4th liner. Personally, I think their plan for him is top 6 winger, but able to centre a 3rd line, if needed.
I suspect Nuge & Frederic will be items on the third line along with Howard & Tomasek.