We have reached the time of year when each game brings a conversation about possible trades between teams. The Oilers and Bruins are both locked and loaded for Stanley, so a straight trade made more sense. In the case of the Minnesota Wild, we can talk rental.
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: Why this Oilers-Bruins 4-player trade makes sense for both teams
- Lowetide: Oilers vs. Maple Leafs in the Stanley Cup Final? It’d be a fever dream
- Lowetide: Ranking 5 right-handed defenders the Oilers should target in a trade
- New DNB: Why a scoring winger should be the Oilers’ top trade deadline priority
- Lowetide: Where can the Edmonton Oilers improve their draft strategy in 2024?
- Lowetide: What are the Edmonton Oilers’ 5 biggest trade deadlines ever?
- DNB: Philip Broberg is showing his promise: Will NHL opportunity come with the Oilers or elsewhere?
- Lowetide: Breaking down the Oilers’ 50-man list at the trade deadline
- DNB: Oilers trade deadline notebook: Potential chips, fits — and will Edmonton acquire a goalie?
- Lowetide: What’s Oilers prospect defenceman Max Wanner’s NHL ETA?
- DNB: Kris Knoblauch’s lineup decisions just pan out as Oilers get back to winning ways
- Lowetide: Oilers’ right wing makeover nearing completion after years of tinkering
- DNB: Jack Campbell is regaining confidence in the minors, but an Oilers return doesn’t appear imminent
- Lowetide: The Oilers’ winning streak is over but they’re finally a 5-on-5 wagon
- DNB: Oilers come up 1 game short of NHL win-streak record. What went wrong?
- Lowetide: 7 reasons the Oilers should be all-in at the NHL trade deadline
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers top 20 prospects ranking, winter 2023
WHAT TO EXPECT IN FEBRUARY
- On the road to: VEG, ANA, LAK (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 1-2-0)
- At home to: DET (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- On the road to: STL, DAL, ARI (Expected 1-1-1) (Actual 2-1-0)
- At home to: BOS, MIN, CAL, LAK, STL (Expected 3-2-0) (Actual 0-0-1)
- Overall expected result: 7-4-1, 15 points in 12 games
- Actual February results: 4-3-1, 9 points in 8 games
- Oilers in 2023-24: 33-18-2, 68 points in 53 games
Everything, and I mean everything broke right for the Oilers last night. Regulation losses for Vancouver, Vegas and Los Angeles meant the OT loss to the Bruins on Wednesday night turned into a net positive. Here are the current standings.
- Vancouver 80 points in 59 games (.678 points-percentage)
- Edmonton 68 points in 53 games (.642 points-percentage)
- Vegas 70 points in 57 games (.614 points-percentage)
- Los Angeles 66 points in 55 games (.600 points-percentage)
Over the last 10 games, the Oilers have gained four points on Vancouver, three points on Vegas and held the Kings to a draw. The standings here are listed by points percentage, and becuase Edmonton has played many fewer games than the Canucks and Vegas, the team at the top is looking into the car mirror that says “objects may be closer than they appear.” Vancouver fans, a mature and reasonable group, are not overreacting at all over this latest turn of events.
WILD TRADE DEADLINE TARGETS
Marc-Andre Fleury would be the most interesting acquisition, I don’t see it. Even though this blog will see 1,000 posts that say some version of “they should call this game goalie instead of hockey” and even though Fleury’s contract isn’t a monster, I don’t see it happening. I suspect we will see “should have traded for Fleury” posted a few times this spring too. If the Oilers traded for him, and won the Stanley Cup, I would write an article called “From Fuhr to Fleury: Oilers goalies who won it all” just to know I made you roll your eyes.
Forward Brandon Duhaime would immediately increase the speed and hits totals on the fourth line. He doesn’t score worth a tinker’s dam, and his five-on-five underlying numbers are matzah-balls, but he does penalty kill and is wildly affordable.
Zach Bogosian is the one member of the Wild I can see the Oilers pushing to procure. If Christ Tanev doesn’t work out and the club decides to get a No. 7 blue instead of a replacement for Cody Ceci (I’m find with that plan btw), then Bogosian would be a good fit. With Philip Broberg stashed in Bakersfield, the club would have eight blue to go to war with, chances are all eight will play.
TONIGHT’S LINEUP
I would like to see Warren Foegele stay on the top line, give it a go one more time. That would allow Nuge to slide on to the Draisaitl line or play No. 3 center and put Ryan McLeod on the No. 2 unit with 29. Right now, the Oilers have seven men over 2.00 pts-60 at five-on-five. That includes wingers Zach Hyman (2.68), Corey Perry (2.63), Warren Foegele (2.43), Sam Gagner (2.23) and Nuge (2.23). The top centers aren’t bad either: Connor McDavid (3.30), Leon Draisaitl (2.49) and Ryan McLeod (1.65) all have a story to tell. Rounding out the top-nine forwards is Evander Kane (1.81). I know Ken Holland is going to find another scorer, but this crew is impressive all by it’s lonesome.
It’s Friday and there are two important Oilers games this weekend. We’ll cover things like a blanket noon-2pm on Sports 1440. Tyler Yaremchuk from Daily Faceoff will join us to preview the weekend and the trade deadline, and we’re casting about for a Winnipeg Jets guest to find out what’s happening with the Jets and attendance. You can reach me at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section or on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly.
Lots of emotion here, and no wonder. This is supposed to be our year, this year we have the best chance of any to win it all. This team is good enough that we can expect to win every night, against any opponent. Especially non-playoff teams. Moral victories aren’t enough anymore.
But here’s the thing. To win the Stanley Cup you don’t have to win every game, just 4 of every 7. I’d like to win every game too, but I’m going to step back a little and take a wider view. There are 28 games left in the regular season, that’s four 7-game series if you will. I’ll be looking for the Oilers to win 4 of 7 through the end of the season, if they do that I’ll be satisfied.
Playoffs start tonight.
The Oil won 4 of the first 7 block since the ASG break. The are 0-2 in the 2nd 7 game block. Tough to climb out of 0-2 hole against playoff teams
This is in no way trying to offend anyone, but the team is going to start to need players that they can count on, both in the playoffs and in the future.
Okay.
Time now to bring up as many as 5-6 AHLers; give all of them between 5-10 games while cheerfully benching all current non-hackers and borderline dependable players. The players who shine get to play the full 10 games, while the flops get a ticket back to the minor leagues.
If I had any say I’d be more than happy to play as many of them as possible against any Oiler’s opposition like Boston for example. All part of the process.
Benching players does not create the cap space to call a bunch of players up.
Which 5-6 players would you call up?
What would you base their promotions on?
OP, earlier you were making a point about justification of when an NHL team can just terminate a players contract.
Now we see another example with Adam Ruzicka of the coyotes. “Suspected” illegal substance.
I would have hoped a team would get past suspicion to factual, then offer the player help.
But perhaps they are more interested in getting him off the books.
But yeah. Another example termination due to conduct, but the question remains what is or who is the judge of the degree of poor conduct.
The SPC has a morality clause that basically enables the team to terminate a contract once a players conduct is deemed detrimental to the team or reputation of the team/league.
Putting yourself on instagram doing cocaine would fall under that, I’m not sure the PA would have a large appetite to defend this as there’s precedent of public drug association and contract termination.
Campbell with 28 saves on 30 shots in a 2-1 win.
Both goals on 10-bell chances.
You can carry play as much as you like
But if as a team you can’t figure out how to actually score well woof
What they do outside of Connor is so basic for what the talent level is offensively, and so AHL defensively
You do know Connor is the biggest single drag on team scoring YoY right?
and -4 tonite.
Yea he’s been volatile since the break. Racked up a positive 13 in games where’s he’s been in the zone. Given back nine of them against Minny, LA, St Loo and Vegas…
Knobby needs to cool off the line blender for a couple of periods. Let guys gel.
Connor’s not scoring goals. He should be. He’s in the places to score and passing instead of shooting. Also not making what was one of his trademarks, the ‘drive and shoot high late’ play.
If we’re trying to win the Cup in 2010 then go and acquire MAF. Can we push Holland to elevate Oly to play one of the games next week since we already know Campbell is lights out during the playoffs?
Oly has a higher draft pedigree than Skinner and lately better analytics and W/L than Skinner ever had in Bako
McDavid three goal posts. This was one of the 20 they weren’t winning no matter what
Come out pissed and kick the shit out of Calgary tomorrow night
The Wild just like lucked out. Very fortunate win. Oilers definitely deserved the victory.
Yet they have only beaten them 10 out of the last 12….
Fine, Min capitalized on chances, but they certainly didn’t deserve that win. They were completely outplayed.
Oilers got to get those gaps figured out. That’s been a lot of goals the past few by forwards enjoying huge gaps.
I thought Minnie outplayed the Oil in fist two periods. They outworked them certainly. Oilers looked slow, and coasting.
Oil can out in the third to win it. They played the game casual, then thinking they will do their third period magic.
They earned the win, could not get a goal.
My point being if they played that way to start the game they would likely have been a few goals up by the third and don’t have to play that third period surge game .
The 1st was a saw off. The second was dominant and the third was the standard Oilers third period brilliance.
I’d go split decision.Minnie out played, outworked, outcirsied them (67%) in the first.
Edmonton came on in the second. Minnie had more chances but Oil had the successful penalty kills.
Oilers completely owned them in third.
Balderdash!!!!!
Oilers forwards soft again on the backtrack in critical moments. No forward picked up Boldy on the GWG. Would have been easy to do.
Yup
Playing defence is a lot of work…..
Out goalied is bullshit
Key skaters were poor. That is why you lose. Don’t want to do NHL hockey things that work? Then lose games you should win
Still an immature core despite being on the outer edge of their peaks
It’s sad
They actually played a full 60 minutes. Your analysis is way off.
Right a great win!
Gf
They scored 2.
A team with #s 29 and 97 has not played “a full 60” if it has only scored 2.
And outscored 0-3 5vs5
They didn’t play that poorly. A couple errors that ended up in the net. Dzone coverage. Same as it always was.
I suppose some feel losing to a non playoff team when you are supposed to be the fav is cool
Why?
I think most knowledgeable hockey fans understand that elite teams lose to inferior teams, despite outplaying them, all the time.
By your standard, ALL NHL teams are immature, not good enough and sad.
Minnesota is on a heater. Scored 7 in a period against Vancouver. Record doesn’t tell the story. Calgary will play them hard tomorrow (last game of competitive hockey we will see against them for some time before they sell their D)
Get your head out of your derriere.
Been trained in that sort of behavior for too long. Forgotten what it is like to root for a winner who should win.
hockey=mostly goaltending
Nope. Not a thing.
The Bruins game showed this perfectly.
The best goalies in the world can’t do a damn thing but keep it under 7 if a skilled offensive team executes. Seriously.
It is the shooters and whether they do their job.
THAT is what you took away from the Boston game? Did you see the goals that Swayman gave up?
Elite shooting they were not hahaha.
Two games in a row sewered by garbage goalering. Too bad. But hopefully there’s a real mean team that takes the ice tomorrow.
More than a bit worried they come out and sag though.
All goes back to Knoblauch being too smart by half and blending the pair’s after Vegas. He screwed with the mojo and they’ve been in a funk ever since. Rookie coach, he’s learning.
Leon Draisaitl was very mad at the coaching staffs this evening. Just sayin.
I wonder what that argument was all about.
I’m going to go out on a limb and opine that the deployment decisions made in the Vegas game are not the reason they lost this game.
The Oilers haven’t actively controlled a game in some time. This is concerning.
No dominant offensive performances. No shut down D.
They need a kick in the rear. Wasting the games in hand can’t happen.
Did we watch the same game?
If you don’t score multiple, or completely keep the opponent off the board – you’re not controlling a game.
They lost a game they should have won. Usually a precursor to good things, let’s hope so.
I have never subscribed to this line of thought.
Oilers outshot Minny 23-5 in the 3rd, 42-12 over the final two periods.
They deserved better.
They’ll pot 10 against Calgary Saturday night.
What’s the line? Deserves got nothing to do with it?
Outshooting doesn’t matter if you’re not scoring. It is often indicative of bad shooting choices that make the other team’s job easier.
Damn. I’m not mad, though. Helluva effort and we win this game 9 outta 10. Keep the effort like this, fellas. Only luck will beat us if we play like this!
Not their night tonight. The Oilers win that game 9 times out of 10.
2 stoppable goals went in during that 3rd period.
And one in the first
The Boldy goal in the third was a bit lucky.
Can’t run Skinner into the ground and this is the first subpar game that Pickard has pitched a long while.
A bit lucky but Pickard also played it terribly.
For sure, Pickard had to get the start and, yes, his first poor game in a while – just stating the facts (as I see them) with respect to what happened on the ice tonight.
Teams are going to lose games when playing their back-up, sometimes largely because of the back up.
Nope. Game was one of those unwinable due to some kind of hockey god puck luck.
Campbell with 28 saves on 30 shots in a 2-1 win.
Both goals on 10-bell chances.
This team…
Son of a…..
Oilers deserved better tonight.
Not bashing Pickard but he was outplayed tonight and that was, by far, the biggest reason for the loss.
He was the only reason for the loss
Lost his net a couple times in the 3rd
Oiler’s getting outgoalied again for the umpteenth time. Played a responsible game but all of last nights good fortune on the scoreboard thrown away.
We need another PP!
Jittery tending aside this has been their best effort since the Vegas game from about the 10 min mark of the 1st onwards.
Hyman from his office.
BOOM!!! Hyman hugging the post an in!!!
Hyman has such a great nose for the net.
You could have left out “for the net” and still true….
Big PP goal.
Big PP energy.
I think that’s everyones goal!
Condors leave a forward all alone in front on the PP and the quick pass is buried: 3-2 Condors.
Talk about bad luck. They’re doing everything but score. Wild flukes.
Scored there after immense PP pressure.
Time to bear down and tie this up. Can’t let stellar play be negated by luck.
Gut up!
Pickard was poor there, yes
But why is Nurse getting sucked in so bad & vacating all the danger in the hig slot.
Terrible defending
Geez. Wild have a horseshoe us their butts…up Gustavo’s butt, mostly.,,
That was note strong goaltending – Pickard overplays and looses his net.
This deficit is purely on goaltending discrepancy (and some lack of finish).
The Wild have had some lucky bounces.
But yeah I agree and have been beating this drum for a while, that the Oilers need to get some forwards who can finish better.
Yea we are losing the goalie battle tonight.
and no D in sight.
Ridiculous puck luck for the Wild tonight.
All that pressure and the Wild didn’t commit a single infraction defending with straight legs…..
Bouchard should have got two for the cross check on Kaprisov. Obviously no penalties will be called this period unless it’s for puck over the glass.
Well guess they had to call that one.
Atta boy Calvin!
Team give you two shots and you spot Minny a lead.
Pathetic
Wow total domination but no goal.
I called it. Oilers dominating but not finishing. It was destined to happen
Wild have gotten lots of puck luck tonight.
Calvin Picard should retire
Little doubt the Oilers will get that back though.
Boy Kane has brain farts near either blue line. Oof…
I hate goals against the flow of play that could have been stopped.
Summarizing!
The Joel Määttä Redemption Tour continued with an apple on Vermont’s only goal.
Lachance also contributed a helper.
Day once again took the L, once again allowing three goals on 21 SOG this time.
Stonehouse and Münzenberger were denied soup and so shall have to subsist on a handful of granola.
Mazura did not suit up tonight.
Ryan gets a 5 on 5 shift – wins a draw and heads to the bench.
Holy hell! I can watch third period Oilers all day!!! It’s my favourite Oilers period!!!
Grind em to dust!!!
Wow we have had some good chances this period…..
Damn, Brownie.
It’s coming, brah. Don’t let up.
Brown with another good chance. He might just get a goal this year.
Brown may have the game winner in him tonight – he’s had a very good game through two.
and there is ALMOST was.
Great plays by Holloway and Ek and Brown.
Condors gave up that shorthanded goal late but, early in the 3rd, Lavoie bulls his way to the net and roofs the 3-1 goal on the same man advantage – a beauty.
It’s not just Leon but a few of them look really irritated. I haven’t seen a tonne behind the play though I haven’t really been looking. That poopy face he made after the PPG, oh baby, I love it when Leon gets larger. An angry Leon is exactly what the doctor ordered!
I think Wild are sneaky dirty.