Oilers at Wild, G29 2024-25

This is the Vollman sledgehammer from mid-season 2016-17. I well remember the thrill of seeing this puppy the first time, it wasn’t like the first time I saw Ziggy (her brother had just been chosen moments before and the two had been separated, she was so anxious, poor little one). I digress.

The Vollman Sledgehammer (in this case) shows us Connor McDavid was Connor McDavid the moment he Connor McDavided into the NHL. Ridiculous graph. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

The Athletic article today is about progress over the last 14 games for men like Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark and Connor Brown. The article is here.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN DECEMBER

• On the road to: VEG (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-1-0)
• At home to: CBJ, STL, TBAY (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 3-0-0)
• On the road to: MIN (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• At home to: VEG, FLA, BOS, SJS, OTT (Expected 4-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• On the road to: LAK, ANA (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• At home to: UTA (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• Overall expected result: 9-4-0, 18 points in 13 games
• December results: 3-1-0Oilers in 2024-25: 16-10-2, 34 points in 28 games

The Oilers 3-1-0 record matches my prediction for the month so far, and I have tonight as a loss. Minnesota has been a difficult visit at times over the years, because Mike Modano or Jacques Lemaire. Former Oilers winger Bill Guerin is the Minnesota Wild GM now, and he appears to be wicked smaht (he is from Wilbraham, Massachusetts) in roster construction. I’d like to see the Wild win Stanley, the fans in that state saw their beloved North Stars win after moving to Dallas. Most unkind.

THE PUCKIQ SLEDGEHAMMER!! (THUNDER SFX, DEEP MALE VOICE YELLING “FEAR ME!)

This is the defensive Sledgehammer for 2024-25, five-on-five numbers and all blue listed have played 200+ minutes. I did not parse this into elites, mid-level and gritensity bins, because we want the entire view. For the record, the ‘elite’ PuckIQ sledgehammer is basically Ekholm-Bouchard at the upper right quadrant with blue bubbles because they are the only pairing to play 200+ minutes versus elites. I have X axis as DFF percentage and then we have all levels of competition. What does it tell us?

Ken Holland made a brilliant trade for Mattias Ekholm while also limiting the team by being slow to give Evan Bouchard the opportunity to show just how brilliant he is at five-on-five. I know some are non-believers, as single events in games can have enormous impact while also being single events. If you read “when will Evan Bouchard stop making mistakes” your brain should immediately respond with “never, but his level of execution with the puck is elite and the biggest part of the story is how much he impacts the good with Edmonton” or something similar. Man, what a draft pick by Peter Chiarelli and Bob Green.

The Darnell Nurse-Brett Kulak-Troy Stecher experience will be a full chapter in the Oilers story during 2024-25. This is an unusual platoon by Kris Knoblauch, Paul Coffey and Mark Stuart and it is innovative and (so far) successful. It’s kind of amazing, really. I don’t discount the talent here, these are quality hockey players. Still, the impact has been incredible. Here’s the elite player card, I’ve relaxed the TOI to less than 200 minutes.

We see that Ekholm-Bouchard are clearly doing most of the heavy lifting, but we are also aware that Nurse-Kulak-Stecher are sans 97 and not that far down the graph (although averaging about 90 seconds less per game versus elites). This is music! Long live the PuckIQ Sledgehammer!! The third pairing is flotsam and Ty Emberson is protected bigly, but there’s much to like here from the top-five blue on the roster. Notice where these men land compared to 50 percent on the graph. So good. Now the forwards, this is including all levels of competition. Will McDavid still land upper right?

This is cherry. SO cherry. I included McDavid’s player card here becaue it’s le freak and the world should know. The PuckIQ sledgehammer slices and dices, but recognizes true greatness belongs top drawer, right side. Don’t tell the burglars. Leon Draisaitl is also supreme major here, a little different bubble than we saw in January of 2017. Podkolzin is a lucky fella and our man Nuge is doing a little walkabout but he’s still contributing. The third line needs to pull up their pants, but Adam Henrique’s jazz trio added Astrud Gilberto and things are looking better now. Here’s the forwards versus elites.

McDavid is King of Kings. What a player. Also, Draisaitl is king. Hyman is a king. Look at the kings!! If the Vollman sledgehammers from the past saw the Puck IQ sledgehammers of today, it might get ugly (it wouldn’t, Rob Vollman is a gentleman on the level of Bruce McCurdy). I hope you enjoyed the Sledgehammer review, there’s plenty I didn’t mention (Adam Henrique is doing a great escape on a motorbike in the elite sledgehammer) we can get to in the coming days.

At noon today, Sports 1440, we preview the Oilers-Wild game and talk about early-season trends that appear to be correcting. We’ll talk to Bagged Milk from Oilers Nation and spend extended time discussing the big deals from MLB’s winter meetings. Declanations will be MMA today and we’ll discuss the NFL weekend and Thursday night game. 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.