There are two main stories I contemplated writing about today. One is Evan Bouchard, who is 6-5-11 in four games this season and can’t buy a thrill among Norris voters. That’s an easy one, though. Bouchard’s performance in Norris voting says more about the voters than it does Bouchard. Simple. Not a story, barely a paragraph, really.
The other story is Devon Levi, the man who was airlifted into the city where goalie careers go to die, and is thriving. His first-period performance last night was a regular Battle of Kapyong and a key to victory. Levi, now the owner of an .882 save percentage at five-on-five, is emerging as a major acquisition for this team. If he can get some help from the “Monty Python’s race for people with no sense of direction” penalty kill, this train is headed for glory!
WHAT TO EXPECT IN OCTOBER
- At home to: Vancouver (Expected 1-0) Actual 0-0-1
- On the road: Vancouver (Expected 1-0) Actual 1-0-0
- At home to: Seattle (Expected 1-0) Actual 1-0-0
- On the road to: Anaheim, San Jose, Los Angeles (1-1-1) Actual 1-0-0
- At home to: Mammoth (1-0)
- On the road to: Mammoth (0-1)
- At home to: Minnesota, Carolina, Toronto, Detroit, Calgary (3-2)
- On the road to: New York Islanders (1-0)
- Expected Record: 9-4-1, 19 points in 14 games
- Actual Record: 3-0-1, seven points in four games
The Oilers scoresheet last night featured three future Hall of Famers and a few who could receive some consideration if they hang around long enough with the unicorns who skated in Orange County last night. The early season points totals remind me of the 1970-71 Boston Bruins, who had a few players in the top-10 early:
- 1 Phil Esposito 4, 5-5-10
- 2 Ken Hodge, 4, 3-5-8
- 2 Johnny McKenzie 3, 2-6-8
- 8 Wayne Cashman 4, 3-4-7
Johnny Bucyk and Bobby Orr were just outside the top-10, would get there by the end of the season. Fred Stanfield. too. Currently, Connor McDavid is No. 1 in the NHL (4, 3-9-12), Bouchard (4, 6-5-11) is second in points and leads in goals. Leon Draisaitl (4, 3-6-9) is fourth in league scoring, and Vasily Podkolzin (4, 4-2-6) is tied for No. 10 in the NHL.
The only difference really is that the Bruins featured players from two separate lines (Cashman-Espo-Hodge all made it, plus Johnny McKenzie from the Bucyk-Stanfield-McKenzie line) and this edition of the Oilers doesn’t have a second line. We wait the arrival of the Savoie-Nuge-Hyman unit in the days to come.
THE NUMBERS
- Draisaitl-McDavid-Podkolzin 10:36, 7-4 shots, 3-0 goals, 79X
- Formenton-Michaels-Joseph 7:18, 1-4 shots, 15X
- Howard-Samanski-Jones 5:31, 0-2 shots, 0X
- Frederic-Dickinson-Kapanen 5:28, 1-2 shots, 38X
The top line rushes and crushes and then hushes the crowd in road games. Simply ridiculous. The young upstart Ducks looked diculous for the final 40 minutes after dominating the first period. I remember thinking after 20 minutes I was going to have to write another of those damnable “if they decide they want to play” items, but the Oilers straightened up and flew right in California last night.
The bottom three lines were toothless but didn’t give up goals and worked hard to suppress progress. Kasperi Kapanen scored a power-play goal, Kapanen and Trent Frederic delivered one HDSC each at five-on-five and that was about it. Quiet tmes.
Leo Carlsson was out most often versus the McDavid line (4:45) and the Michaels unit (4:12) with the rookie giving up the shot share 2-0 but surrendering no goals or high-danger chances. Dickinson’s trio faced Carlsson for one minute; nothing happened.
- Shea-Murphy 12:10, 1-5 shots, 25X
- Walman-Emberson 9:16, 2-5 shots, 13X
- Ekholm-Bouchard 9:10, 6-7 shots, 3-0 goals, 64X
- Shea-Bouchard 2:55. 1-1 shots, 29X
- Ekholm-Murphy 2:52, 0-0 shots, 22X
- Devon Levi 29 of 31 shots, .935SP
A quick second mention of Levi’s excellent performance. He stopped 10 of 12 HDSC’s according to Natural Stat Trick, that’s the reason you see terrible expected goal shares for the second and third pairings, but zero goals against. Music! On the other hand, Babcock is burning daylight on finding a second line and that will have its own regression.
If we want to know the reasons why Ekholm-Bouchard shine above the others, one of the factors is minutes with the top line (all numbers five-on-five). Bouchard 10 minutes, Ekholm nine minutes, Shea just over two minutes and the rest under two minutes.
Max Jones played seven minutes last night, Josh Samanski 10 minutes and Ike Howard 10 as well. One of those men is headed for the pressbox. Edmonton picked up an interesting winger yesterday. Filip Hållander has size, speed, aggressiveness and can penalty kill, plus (and this is important) has an offensive gear. He has scored 1.77 points-60 at five-on-five in limited action over the past two seasons with the Penguins and was delivering plenty in the SweHL a couple of years ago.
On the Lowdown today, we’ll be joined by Bagged Milk from Daily Faceoff Edmonton to discuss last night’s game and the trade yesterday. MLB playoffs, CFL weekend and NFL Thursday night all coming up. Noon to 2pm, Sports 1440 and You Tube.
Is it time for a trip down memory lane?
Is it time to discuss Evan Bouchard yet?
The Filip Hallander trade looks interesting. Not much chatter here about it. He wasn’t on my radar. What do you folks think?
Don’t you mean Biggous Diculous?
My hope for Evan’s stat line this year: 84, 32-77-109 +57
Among defensemen this century:
Most goals – Mike Green (31 in 08-09)
Most assists – Erik Karlsson (76 in 22-23)
Most points – Erik Karlsson (101 in 22-23)*
Most +/- – Gustav Forsling (+56 in 23-24)
*No defenseman in the history of the league not named Coffey or Orr has scored more than 103 in a season.
That would be the ultimate STFU season of all time. But he’ll only be the runner-up in Norris voting because “McDrai”.
There is concern about being a one line team and the bottom 9 pissing no drops. It’s valid for sure.
At the same time, that bottom 9 has had no drops pissed on them either. No 5 on 5 goals against for this entire team two games in a row.
If the bottom 9 saws off, this team will win both nights.
Of course, an entire 2nd line of players is out so add that in and then everyone below gets to move a ring down making everyone more effective.
The arrows on this team are indeed up. Best record in the NHL though 4 – with legit impactful adversity and poor tending in 50% of the games.
The bottom -9 is sawing off in gf/ga. Which is great. The obvious concerns are (1) they can’t score and (2) shot metrics / eye test indicate they are playing quite poor and that current results will revert.
Getting Hyman, Nuge, and Savoie back will obviously help, although temper expectations because returning from injury usually impacts performance for an extended period (see: Frederic).
Edmnton has an expected GA-60 of 2.57, ranking No. 17. Actual GA-60 is 2.96. The offense is fire, 4.16 GF-60, second in the league. Expected GF-60 is 2.6. Regression is coming. The goals against SHOULD go down based on results, and the GF should go down, too. Need a second line. This is untenable.
Take away the points, Bouchard is 11-1 goals at 5 on 5 (12-1 at even strength) and the one against was a terrible o-zone turnover by McDavid with Bouchard up on the rush.
Like, holy hell!
Spec on Gazzola’s show says Hyman is on the road trip and will practice with the team tomorrow in SJ. He’s not sure if he plays against SJ but when they start practicing with the team they are close. So could play on Saturday or Tuesday against LA.
What about Nuge?
Both Hyman and Nuge cant get here soon enough.
They DESPERATLEY need a second line that is at least a threat to score!!!! Not sure just Hyman accomplishes that but it’s a start.
It is funny how results color perception of the team.
Oilers are a one line team riding god-like performances of McDraiBouch. They are playing very heavy minutes. Which has been very fun to watch.
Bottom- 9 is a black hole.
Hopefully they can keep winning until RNH and Hyman return and the team can ice an NHL calibre second line.
McDraiBouch were not joking about being better. Unreal to start the year.
You’ve just described the Oilers 2006-present day. People aren’t deceived, but rather unmoved by situation normal.
Ha, that is fair.
For me, ATOI is a concern wrt McDraiBouch.
Up by 3 with 2 minutes left and 97 is on the ice to kill a penalty (or 2)? 97 leads all forwards so far in ATOI (23:55) – Babcock needs to get this number down (way down in my opinion). Note: Leon is 13th at 21:15.
Bouchard is 12th at 25:03 with 4:34 of PP time. This does not appear to be egregious, but his 1:32 of PK time could, and should, be reduced.
Happy learned how to get league average goaltending. Uh ohhhhh.
I’ve never in my near 50 years seen a player they can struggle so hard and play so poorly and just rack up points like Leon Draisaitl can and does.
To his credit, last night he turned his game around and got his points while playing much better (sometimes he continues to struggle and ends up with 3-4 points) but he struggled hard in the first period.
What a talent.
I also see Leon’s game as one that will remain highly productive in to his late 30s.
Helps when he can flub passes to Bouch and he rips it anyway.
Ekholm/Murphy
Shea/Bouchard
To me, this makes zero sense to do on the PK. Keep the 5×5 pairings, maybe find room for Emberson.
Oilers leading the league in offense while missing half their top 6 is good stuff.
Also dare I say Levi has reminded me of one Dwayne Roloson the last couple of games.
3 Future Hall of Famers, LT? McDavid, Drai…and Kapanen?
BOUCHARD or FREDERIC
That’ll be a tough decision for the voters.
Bouchard? Please, he could cure cancer and it wouldn’t matter 😀
Most Oiler fans moved Stuart Skinner the person – seemed like a great dude.
Take away all the on-ice play and they seem to have just another gem of a guy in Devon Levi. Just so happy and confident and encouraging and humble in all his media – one of those guys where it’s impossible not to cheer for him. What a great kid.
He certainly didn’t steal the game last night but his play in the first 30 minutes was massive. Kept his team in it early when they were getting throttled, allowed them to adjust, get back in the game and take over. Splendid.
Three game win streak so early in the season, shocking. It has been awhile since the Oilers have been banking points to start the season instead of digging a hole.
— for sure full value
— that’s one of those games that statistically pretty even probability outcome
— goalie shined and a few exceptional individual performances: thats how we’re are going to win and see what it looks like when more roster back more healthy
— a whole bunch of jones Micheal’s formenton Howard samanski: they are not NhLers but saved by goalie and stuff. The numbers I use cast them very poorly
— that was essentially a 50/50 chance win and we were right side of coin flip. Well done.
— onto next one and McD over 24 mins again would be only not so great long term. Maybe with full roster his ice time reduces ideally
McD was only 13 minutes 5v5. Weird game with lots of special teams. No idea why he is playing 2+ mins on the PK when half the forwards on this roster can PK.
Only took them until January 30th to do that last season.
Did anyone else notice the Ducks’ goal song is “Dancing Queen”?
Puke
Seriously?? OMG that’s so bad.
So is it safe to say you aren’t “Digging the dancing queen?