Game 1, Round 2: Oilers at Vegas

We are entering a series that may represent the final chapter of this Oilers season. I have the Oilers in 7, but in truth the margins are so small in today’s NHL it is best to acknowledge possible defeat in the opening moments of each series.

On the other hand, the same holds true for VGK. There’s nothing the Oilers haven’t seen, and the 2023 loss turned (in my opinion) on a questionable penalty (to Philip Broberg) and then a careless stick (Mattias Janmark) that led to some goals by the Vegas side.

Many believe the coach (Jay Woodcroft) missed the mark in line matching. Ryan McLeod’s trio was solid, Connor McDavid’s group probably the best option, but Eichel>Draisaitl to the tune of 4-0 goals and 61 percent expected goals during 28:22 of five-on-five play.

If Woodcroft had run the McLeod trio (1-0 goals for Vegas, but only 22 percent expected goals in 18 minutes) or the McDavid line (1-1 goals, 39 percent expected goals for Eichel’s unit in 19 minutes), the legend goes that the Oilers could/would have won the series.

I have an issue with this narrative. First, these are small samples, and math experts tell me that 200 minutes is required before fully trusting the data. If true, then 28 or 19 or 18 minutes is an interesting glimpse, but it isn’t close to being trustworthy. Luck, luck and luck are massive in that kind of sample, and using such a small amount of playing time is like taking 10 at-bats from a baseball player’s season and calling it true north. We can all say we understand the point I’m making, but we will also (all of us) say things like “stupid Knoblauch had the wrong line out there” despite the presence of luck and small samples.

So, what is the solution? I think it’s fair to trust the process until shown it doesn’t work. It means that sometimes you’ll be wrong. I genuinely believed in Craig MacTavish as an NHL coach. I defended him on this blog day and night, night and day. I still believe he is the best coach this team has had post-John Muckler.

I genuinely believed Peter Chiarelli would make things go. I was wrong. I stopped trusting the process the night of the Griffin Reinhart trade and was in full ‘this is bananas’ mode on the day of the Taylor Hall deal. But I trusted the process in the beginning.

I didn’t trust Ken Holland to get things done and much of his early work was poor. I mostly blame Archie Henderson, but maybe that’s unfair. Beginning with the Zach Hyman addition, I think Holland did some fine work and it is on display now on the Oilers roster.

I’m not at all sure of Stan Bowman, but have to say he has added some nice pieces to this roster. I’m especially pleased with Vasily Podkolzin, Ty Emberson, Jake Walman, Trent Frederic and John Klingberg. Klingberg most especially has been a revelation in the Oilers current ‘secure puck in defensive zone and make astute short passes’ system.

Enjoy the series. Please be kind to each other. Please remember that luck plays a part in all of these games and hockey, unique among many sports, is mostly made up of broken plays, ad libs and weird bounces. This is going to be a blast.

The Lowdown will be live at noon today, Sports 1440. Daniel Nugent-Bowman at The Athletic will join us to talk about tonight’s lid-lifter in Vegas and about any lineup changes (none indicated so far). We’ll also talk about that 2023 series and the difference in approach from the current coaching staff. Declan Krueger will have ‘hi my name is…’ and Donovan Paulson will flatten the Blue Jays with his verbal. It’s fun! 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.