Jay Woodcroft is trying to figure out what works for this Edmonton Oilers team. It should be easy at some level. Put Connor McDavid at center, add in a Coke Machine and a roadrunner and bam! Stanley Cup. Doesn’t work that way. This is the point in the season where the coach may consider shuffling the roster. Two straight losses that should have been wins, a roster getting healthy, it’s all there. Will we see it in Dolly Parton’s city?
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: What’s wrong with the Edmonton Oilers?
- Lowetide: Can Oilers prospect Reid Schaefer make the NHL leap next season?
- New DNB: Oilers throwing away points as defencemen continue to make crucial mistakes
- Lowetide: Inside Oilers’ Philip Broberg’s progress as an NHL defenceman
- DNB: Why the Oilers need to make a trade to give Darnell Nurse more help on defence
- Lowetide: Ranking Oilers GM Ken Holland’s 5 best trades in Edmonton
- DNB: Oilers’ Klim Kostin much happier in Edmonton than he was with Blues
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects, winter 2022
- DNB: Connor McDavid questions NHL rules, Darnell Nurse’s gaffes prove costly in Oilers loss
- Lowetide: Will Oilers pro scouts help identify quality at the deadline?
- DNB: If the Oilers can trade Jesse Puljujarvi, where is he likely to end up?
- Lowetide: How Edmonton Oilers winger Jesse Puljujarvi is redefining his role
- DNB: The Oilers don’t need someone like Zack Kassian. They need more efforts like this
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers avert disaster with strong finish to November
- DNB: Oilers GM Ken Holland Q&A: Can the team be improved? If so, how?
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ Jack Campbell will be better, but can he be a true No. 1?
- Lowetide: Oilers rookie Stuart Skinner is chasing history
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers reasonable expectations for every player in 2022-23
WHAT TO EXPECT IN DECEMBER
- On the road to: MIN (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 0-1-0)
- At home to: MTL, WAS, ARI, MIN (Expected 3-1-0) (Actual 3-1-0)
- On the road to: MIN, NAS (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 1-1-0)
- At home to: STL, ANA (Expected 1-0-1) (Actual 0-1-1)
- On the road to: NAS, DAL (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: VAN (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: CAL, SEA (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: WPG (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- December expected result: 9-5-1, 19 points in 15 games
- December actual result: 4-4-1, nine points in nine games
- November results: 7-7-0, 14 points in 14 games
- October results: 6-3-0, 12 points in 9 games
- Oilers in 2022-23: 17-14-1, 35 points in 32 games
A win tonight would give the Oilers 37 points in 33 games, that’s a 92-point pace and a playoff team. If the team loses tonight, the trajectory would have Edmonton finishing with 87 points, outside the postseason. If a team this talented misses the playoffs, it’s their own damn fault.
TRACERS
The Oilers have connections to every NHL team, and Nashville has some fun tracers. For instance, do you remember the Miro Satan trade Glen Sather made with the Buffalo Sabres? One of the players who came back in that deal was defender Craig Millar. He played 36 games with the Oilers over three seasons before Slats dealt him to the fledgling Preds in June of 1999. Edmonton received a 1999 third-round pick, No. 91 overall. Who did they pick? Mike Comrie. Still a terrible idea, trading Satan.
OILERS SIGN JASON DEMERS
Edmonton signed defenseman Jason Demers yesterday. He was on a PTO with the Bakersfield Condors and has signed to a two-way deal for the rest of the season. I’m not sure he will play in Edmonton, but with the news yesterday that both Philip Broberg and Ryan Murray are hurt, it’s possible we see him in Edmonton sooner than later.
I’ve watched his games in the AHL, and he is a solid veteran at that level, but foot speed has eroded since the last time he played in the NHL. His next game in the league will be No. 700 for his career.
I have tracked the on-ice even strength goal differentials for the season, and they are below. One quick item. The Condors have had a lot of defensemen playing significant minutes, and some of the AHL contracts have better goal differentials than the signed players. I have placed my estimate of ‘top-four’ Condors blue in bold, to give you an indication of the men who are both playing tougher competition and more minutes.
If this was next season, my bet is that Mike Kesselring would get the call. As it is, Demers may be the next man up. I’ve always liked him but he hasn’t seen the NHL since May of 2021.
TONIGHT’S LINEUP
I thought there were some interesting tweaks in the game against Anaheim, especially once Woodcroft hit shuffle. I don’t think we’ll see any change, but would like to see this.
- Zach Hyman-Connor McDavid-Kailer Yamamoto
- Dylan Holloway-Leon Draisaitl-Warren Foegele
- Mattias Janmark-RNH-Jesse Puljujarvi
- Klim Kostin-Devin Shore-Derek Ryan
- Darnell Nurse-Evan Bouchard
- Brett Kulak-Tyson Barrie
- Markus Niemelainen-Cody Ceci
- Jack Campbell (Stuart Skinner)
I like the lines and pairings, although Ryan McLeod and Evander Kane are clearly missed in this group. The players on the horizon who could help are a little distance from ready, or a longer distance from ready.
One of the things this team needs is the group who are mostly established as NHL players (Evan Bouchard, Kailer Yamamoto, Jesse Puljujarvi) to step up. It would also help if the coaching staff gave a push to Dylan Holloway, as I’ve described above in the suggested lines and pairings.
Jack Campbell has to start tonight, no? I was in favor of running Skinner until Saturday, that was the next obvious slot for Campbell. Maybe the staff thought he’s better off with a road start? Either way, start Campbell and let him work through these issues. History suggests a hot streak at some point and Edmonton needs one of those. Also, Stuart Skinner is coming off a tough game, a little rest might do him good. Edmonton should be able to go 4-2-0 to close out the month, but the team needs a solid rebound effort tonight.
LOWETIDE AND JAMIESON
We’re on for the full four hours today, 10-2 TSN1260. Expect a heavy dose of Oilers chatter and we’ll also drill down on the best World Cup ever and the championship game for the ages. NFL talk, NBA, you name it we’ve got it over four hours. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. Talk soon!
The first goal against needs to be watched multiple times.
It is, to a certain extent, a microcosm of the season.
Neutral zone turnover/ lost puck battle.
Utter Indifference on the back check.to make up for the turnover.
Our 5 on 5 play is just so underwhelming…..
Bison King learned he can score if he passes it into the net tonight.
Wish that my old coach was still around so I could tell him he was wrong.
0-0 at the end of 3 in Colorado.
Avalanche with 92 shots attempts.
Sorokin with a 43 save shutout.
i guess that colorado shooting accuracy should regress!
Just watched highlights.
That 1st GA was everything wrong with this team in 4 seconds.
Free giveaway, No interest in defending or backtracking. Goaler turns a routine save into an HDA. Way too easy. And this was shift #2!
Yep.
Ugly
And that was the top line
If I told you a week ago that the Oilers will lose all three games to St. Louis, Anaheim and Nashville, what would you have thought?
Oilers finally sign one of the big fish starter goalies in the off-season. Yes, finally we get the guy!
He then goes on to play less than AHL level hockey and makes the Oilers yet again look like idiots and sewer our hopes of a successful season.
This team is cursed. We must have sold our hockey soul winning the McD lottery.
Put Campbell on waivers…and pray someone takes him. 5mil for 5 more seasons of this…dear lord.
I don’t think you can blame Campbell on that . His teammates let him down.
…Every game it seems.
I think it’s safe to say he’s let his teammates down all year.
When does he have to own up?
Campbell was an UFA but I’m not sure how much of a hot item he was
I recall Holland saying teams were interested but what does that mean? To Holland a lot I guess. Most teams aren’t good right? Who cares what they think?
I see a pattern of Holland thinking the Leaf’s analytics dept can do his dirty work
Missing the part where they don’t want the guys back he gets
Hyman, Barrie and Ceci are all cornerstones on this team. All Ex-Leafs.
Yes Campbell was one of the big names on the market in the off-season. Its not Holland’s fault he’s decided to play like garbage for us.
Hyman is as advertised, energy player with some hands
Ceci and Barrie are also as advertised. Ceci is second pairing who can struggle as we see. Barrie is fine when sheltered. Both are soft players
Barrie has the best numbers, on the Oilers, currently a terrible team defensively
He’s only ok down the depth chart. At 4.5M
Not tonight – Barrie was by far the Oilers best D and was not sheltered (most often on against Ekholm, Forsberg, etc.) and was fairly dominant in possession, etc.
One thing I don’t like about Holland and the Oilers in general is their seeming inability to think outside the box. They always go for the “big name” guy over the best fit. Being famous seems more important than actually being good, see Chiarelli, Nicholson, Holland hires. This also applies to players they acquire. Oilers never go for the good value players or make astute plays for under the radar guys.
This is the Guide & Record book method.
Yeah, I’ve been advocating for the Oilers to do this for years now often making suggestions.
My suggestion last year was to take the Ghost bear plus assets for free, not sign Barrie, and not trade for Keith. Not signing Barrie would have meant keeping Bear.
Things like that.
In Ghost Bear, you could have gotten a player for free with a million less cap than Keith, with more tread on the tires, and a guy who can play 20 minutes per night in the top 4, unlike Barrie.
Could have re-signed Bear but, for all the verbal, well, he isn’t all that great in Vancouver – he’s leaking goals against to a tune of a 37% goal share with negative possession numbers across the board. Ok, bad team, well (a) not that bad and (b) he’s negative relative to the team in some areas including goal share (nominally) and he’s not getting fed defensive zone starts (slightly more o-zone face-offs than d-zone). Barrie a much better and more valuable player.
The Ghost bear is a better player than Barrie or Kulak.
The Oilers could have taken Gostisbehere for free, plus received a 2nd and 7th round pick as a bonus.
He would have been able to play on the Oilers first powerplay unit, so we could have saved the $4.5 m we spent on Barrie.
Better to pay $4.5m for a second pairing d who can run the powerplay than a 3rd pairing d, no?
Barrie is better than Bear, but Barrie is an expensive 3rd pairing d.
The Oilers turned Bear into Foegele. The Foegele contract is unmovable from what I understand without packaging him with an asset.
The Oilers could have walked away from Bear and that would have had more value than having Foegele on a bad contract.
Is Gostisbehere a better player than Barrie? I think that’s highly debatable.
Perhaps the overall transaction including the draft pick would be a positive, but he’s never played top pair D before Arizona. He was 3rd pair every year in Philadelphia aside from 17-18 when he did play 2nd pair. Barrie’s played more on the 2nd pair than that (and he’s actually been top 4 by PuckIQ each of the past 2 seasons).
Barries real on ice GF% numbers have been far better than Gost’s, and even his relative numbers have been better aside from Gost’s time being a decent D on an awful team. Barries fancies aren’t great, but he’s been beating those in real GF/GA for his whole career.
I personally think that Barrie is having his best season as an Oiler, even better than his leading scoring season – his 2-way game is much improved to my eye.
My post was mainly related to Bear though. A highlight gets posted, or a tweet that the Ducks are looking to extend him, and many in Oilers Nation go off on the terrible trade and how he should be an Oilers, etc. I like the kid and his game but his numbers in Vancouver are pretty mediocre, and that’s being nice.
Finding the guy on the outs/undervalued early to mid 20s is the sign of great scouting and GMing
Satheresque
Like?
Devon Toews
Sam Girard
Artturi Lehkkonen
Val Nichushkin
Evan Rodrigues
Alexandar Georgiev
Like that?
No,
Like sign Kassian to a 4x$3.2m after you’ve extended Chiasson to a $2.1 x 2, so you’re stuck bridging Nurse.
Trade 2 x 2nd round picks for a guy like Athanasiou who can’t even play a basic level of defense, so you don’t have ammo to trade for Devon Toews.
Than trade real assets for Duncan Keith, so you can free up cap space for the Hawks, so they can set the market on d with the Seth Jones contract.
Then pay Nurse after a career year during peak market conditions with a $9.25m x 8 when he’s a year old than PK Subban was when he signed his 8 year pact.
Then go out fast and loose in free agency and sign a goalie with a $5m x 5 when every other GM is using assets to minimize contract term and dollar risk on goalies.
Sounds like a plan 🙂
Pssstt….
You forgot the Kassian disposal costs and the James Neal adventure.
Good luck in Dallas.
Terrible line change
Sportsnet panel really pushing Ekholm to the Oilers
I’d love that but I thought it was just an HF boards thing not the MSM
Oilers gotta do something. Ekholm would certainly be something.
That’s alot of money for a number of regression years……
Anytime you can scrap a point when trailing after two you gotta take it. OT is a coin toss, can’t beat a team up or a goalie for losing. 3v3 is exciting but not a true game state, and it’s one the Oilers do well in typically.
If this team could have gotten a couple more loser points earlier in the year they’d be solidly in the top 3. They are right there and just need to go on a little streak. If they can at least split these final two games before the break they’ve done ok.
Oilers were the last team to get a loser point this season. (Game 31 vs. St. Louis). At least they’re starting to lose in OT (vs. Getting no points at all). The Kings have 5 loser points and Calgary has 6!
Not good
To me that means they win when things favour them and are out of it when they don’t
Sending out an SOS .
I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle.
I’m not sure they are getting the message?
3 game losing streak heading into Dallas
ffs
It would be such an Oilers thing to happen to beat Dallas after losing 3 in a row to teams lower in the standings than them. Vegas has no clue how to set a betting line with these oilers.
Where would this team be without the power play this year?
Bad change, Yamo coasted to the bench and it led to the 2 on 1.
Not at all.
Winnable game. Oilers almost as good as Nashville tonight.
Hell yes. And they almost beat St Louis couple games ago, and almost beat Anaheim in their last game too. But as Woodcroft says, they were all 1 goal games and with one lucky bounce they could have won any of them. All 3 of these teams are not in the playoffs picture. (Bubble teams at best). If you can’t find a weak spot in the schedule….
What happened on the line change??? How did that result in a 2 on 1?
It was weird because it looked like Nuge changed for Connor well in advance of Nashville picking up the puck in their zone. No idea how he was out of the play there.
Oh look, a shot high glove beats Campbell. Fancy that.
It wasn’t that high…
His glove was that low.
Terrible line change
Not sure that winning goal was an unstoppable shot.
He came right down the pipe . Nice shot . Not much chance for Campbell
He did.
It was.
He sure did.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mikko Campbellnen.
Bah.
I’ll take the point, not sure they earned it.
Ovechkin!
Oh Carrier
What a save on Hyman Holy Cow
I’m not sure have NST has the expected goals for this game at 5 on 5 essentially even – I feel very fortunate for this point and a chance at a second….
Holy Christ nurse…
I was just thinking “ya know, he’s been alright up to now for the most part . . . “
Wonder if woody would have the balls to scratch Nurse for a game. He needs a reset.
and play Demers, Kesselring, Kemp or 5D?
Yes
I would not be in favour of that.
This is a dumb idea and you know it.
Its the kind of idea that gets a coach fired
When the Dementor scratched Petry, how did that turnout?
Surprised there were no TO to rest the defenders on that icing…
Could this be the year RNH finally scores 20 goals? 🙂
Do you think people will stop slotting him in as a third line center if he ever breaks that 20g 50p barrier?
Keep nurse off the ice here
Nope he’s out there
A guy with 500+ games experience should not make that error
Preds don’t want OT .
Yamamoto with the hit of the night!
Man nurse almost loses it for us again
We’re getting worked over right now – I’m praying for overtime
Nurse is awful!!
Holy hell Nurse, seriously?
Next goal wins .
Tyson Barrie continues to be this team’s best, and most consistent, d-man.
And surpassing that level would be a low bar..
Dylan Holloway… takes shots, makes passes, buses tables…
Good job by Holloway to negate that icing so they could get a full line change – key.
Ya, Devon, you better get your stick off that after your awful decision 2 seconds prior….
Drai turnover on a bad play and they defend much of the shift.
I wish he’d tidy up his game and save the heroics for when they are typically needed
Which isn’t playing a really high risk game and having to play catch up, almost always
I think Nurse should try reverse starfish and lie on his back
Campbell making some scramble-hero saves in the 3rd…….
Good to see Ryan back out there.
where was Pujo going on that zone exit?
lol
no ones knows for sure but he was going to get there first!
Like a one man 100m dash…
Did you know . I love it when the Nuge scores.
Nice one Nuggey!
What a gorgeous shot by Nuge.
The Dude abides, and the Nuge delivers!
An actual snipe by Nuge. He dusted off a six plack of donuts first but he actually picked his spot and hit it
An absolute laser. As per usual.