Today’s title is a great dog song, because last night the final scores suggested it was a dog’s breakfast times two. The truth is a little different than the score. You can choose to get angry about the results, or look under the hood at the performances. The Oilers stretched the training camp roster to its outer limits and the results were predictable. The people you count on delivered. Seriously.
THE EDMONTON GAME
When the NHL players were on the ice (top line, top pairing, Draisaitl trio) the team was 2-1 goals and miles past 50 percent in shot share. The Calgary goalie (Devin Cooley) did brilliant work (37 of 39, which sounds like seven of nine and that’s top drawer). The Oilers outshot the Flames 39-23, they should call it goalie, McDavid’s shot was the best anecdotal takeaway on the evening.
If you linger under the hood, Raphael Lavoie had seven shots and two HDSC’s, Connor Clattenburg flattened people and drew two penalties, Noel Hoefenmayer was noticeable in mostly a good way. If you’re looking for an NHL player to blame, Calvin Pickard wasn’t brilliant but good gosh almighty it was Game 1 people. Let the goalie live.
Some of these names will fly out of EIG today on the way to their junior league teams, and I will say the kids Edmonton drafted this summer look good to me. If you’re mad about this game, calm your tits. Seriously. The NHLers won the results when they were on the ice and the Oilers got goalied.
THE CALGARY GAME
These are strange numbers, especially the top line (Henrique trio) not playing much and not playing well. I checked the expected goals for the line thrice and that’s what it said, although it seems impossible.
Mike Hoffman scored, I see the comments section has plenty of fans and many detractors. Hoffman had great hands, that’s a valuable tool. He scored last night. No idea where he’s going, I don’t see a job for him, but he scored a goal and that’s kind of why they signed him. I recommend letting things play out, secure in the knowledge he could be cut at any moment.
The five-on-five Corsi Rel took a dim view of veterans Viktor Arvidsson, Derek Ryan and Josh Brown. Hopefuls Cam Dineen, Drake Caggiula and Travis Dermott also received a disdainful look from the Corsi Gods five-on-five. Olivier Rodrigue had a tough night.
Corsi for five-on-five percentage loved Ben Gleason, James Stefan, Sam O’Reilly, Jasper Weatherby and Maximus Wanner.
Sam O’Reilly, Derek Ryan and Drake Caggiula had two HDSC’s each. I think one of them is impressing the hell out of everyone, another is fighting for his NHL job and the other one is a game warrior who played 282 NHL games and may not see another one. It doesn’t mean we don’t cheer for him, though, in fact it makes me cheer louder for him. The man has a desire to play the game at age 30, despite that same game leaving pieces of him across North America in exchange for his devotion. Loving something so much that loves you back less is something we can all relate to, I’d say.
What’s next? Cuts, practice, the dreaded Winnipeg flight, more games with structure and then opening night. My article at The Athletic gently suggests the Oilers get down to their actual roster in time to play a couple of preseason games, but this has rarely been the Oilers way. We’ll see.
At noon today, on the Lowdown (Sports 1440) we’ll read your texts and give your rage, confusion or general malaise a full hearing. Our feature guest will be Daniel Nugent-Bowman at The Athletic, he’ll bring the smart hockey talk and give us a sense of wind direction at Oilers camp. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly.
Keys for the Edmonton Oilers to achieve an all-important fast start
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5785453/2024/09/23/edmonton-oilers-keys-fast-start/
From Tony B (this, for me, says that Derek Ryan remains in poll position):
First on-ice group today is composed of players primarily who spent their time in the AHL/Junior last season.
Mike Hoffman — who scored last night in Calgary — is also on the ice with this group.
Other notables: Noah Philp, James Hamblin, Matt Savoie. #Oilers
As expected with Ryan, I would think. Nobody from last year’s team is going to lose their job off of a couple of exhibition games. That said Philps has looked pretty good to me so far.
I’ll bet he at least has Ryan looking over his shoulder.
Philp, if I am not mistaken, does not have to clear waivers. Send him down and see how long it takes him to get back to where he was and then improve on that performance.
There is a $125k difference between the two in salary. So calling up Philp a few times during the year to give Ryan some days off should help Ryan, Philp and the cap accrual.
The #Oilers have returned goaltender Nathaniel Day & forward Connor Clattenburg to the
@FlintFirebirds
, forward William Nicholl to the
@LondonKnights
& forward Dalyn Wakely to the
@OHLBattalion
. Best of luck this season, fellas!
Wakely’s return to North Bay for his overage season brings the number of NAmateurs this season to a baker’s dozen.
This is what I’ve “learned” about the training camps/pre-season for every professional sport always, forever:
— When fans team loses : “it’s just spring training, pre-season it doesn’t matter”
— When fan team wins: “team looks awesome ready to make an impact once the regular season starts”
— When fan favorite players don’t do well “it’s just training camp, no issues here, they will be ready once the season starts”
— When fan favourite players play well “he’s shown up on best shape of his life and looks primed for a massive season”
— There’s always a few prospects that surprise and extrapolations are made that rarely happen
— All good teams already know exactly who is making their team for day 1, except if injuries during camp.
— All teams tell media and fans that there is lots of competition for spots.
— There is absolutely no correlation, none, between the results when the games don’t t matter and how teams do in the regular season.
— I like following the off-season to see who gets signed traded fired etc. but pre-season just not at all for me (except going to spring training in baseball in Florida where the access to players is so fun).
GOILERS!!!
Dennis King pointed out (rightly in my opinion) that Pickard struggled last night as he did against good teams last year. I do not think he should be counted on as a solid back up for Skinner. Having said that, Rodrique needs to light things up for me to start having faith in him too.
The Oilers can’t afford to have sub standard D and goaltending to start this year.
I definitely would have preferred Lankinen
Amazon already upping the anti.
Sports on Prime Canada
Debuting Oct. 10: Your one-stop whip-around covering all things NHL.
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Lavoie put himself in good positions, played well but did not cash. Shooting at the crest on the goalies’ jersey is not a recipe for success in the NHL. If he wants to make the NHL he needs to score in THIS preseason – especially getting the push to 29’s line.
Hoping for him but he is looking more and more like a tweener / career AHL player.
Anton Lander looked godly in the preseason.
I’ll reserve judgement until I see Lavoie play in the regular season.
I thought he scored the other night
One notable play from last night was McDavid exploding in to the slot and ripping a shot through the d-man and in the net.
That was something that McDavid seemed to add to his game on his 64 goal season and he scored goals like that consistently.
To my eye, that essentially disappeared last season and it was rare to see him shoot in that position. I think most of us presumed that was injury related and I hope we see a lot more of that this year.
Connor said somewhere that he trained too hard last off season, that probably had something to do with it.
I only watched a handful of shifts of the game on the road (when the home game was on break) but Josh Brown has a bad giveaway for a goal against and, the accounts are that he struggled all night. I saw him good the night before so this is a disappointing arrow. The accounts are that Stecher struggled as well – double disappointing.
Its September 24 and it was a split squad game – remind myself of that.
By eye, Philp has looked better than Ryan for that 4C spot but, at the same time, it was one game for Ryan and, of course, remind myself that veterans are simply doing what they need to do to get ready – Ryan’s performance in his one game is no indicative of, well, anything.
Noah Philp is coming though.
I just watched the Ice District game. From the non-NHL players Lavoie, Philp and Hoefenmayer in that order were additive to the cause and Should hang around for more games and training with KK,
Podkilzin and Petrov finished checks but did not contribute in any meaningful way.
Hit up the game in Calgary with the kids last night. Tickets listed for $3 online, still worked out to $50 for 4. Go figure.
Can’t say there was a lot to take from the game other than O’Reilly continues to look good and Flames fans continue to be annoying.
I stated last night. The best choice for that last defenceman position was playing for the Flames. Barrie looked quick, steady, effortless with the puck.
I also liked Gleason.
Still time for Barrie to pull a Versteeg on the Flames and come north.
The way the Fan960 was talking in Calgary is that there isn’t really a spot for him in Calgary either. He’s auditioning for somewhere else.
I am still against the Oil signing him though.
I didn’t watch the game, but reading this comment gave me the “aha!” moment on why I’m a bit anxious about this new era of Oilers.
In the preceding era, Holland rarely tried to be too cute with his mission critical solutions; gambling that he knew better than the room. He was conservative with his acquisitions and departures, and any time he made a move I feel like there was an easy (not necessarily correct) argument for it given the knowledge at the time. The exception to this might be the 2021 draft.
In comparison, I followed a lot of the Dubas Leafs and the narrative always felt like “if our theories are right, we’ll be the best team in the league.” Using critical problems to beta test innovative thinking. I think about the carousel of cast-off goalies, or their acquisition of Jared Mccann during the Seattle expansion in order to give cover to Kerfoot, when they could have protected both and exposed Holl. I call the phenomenon “getting-too-cute-itis”.
Trading our 2RD before camp (in an already turbulent off-season) for an analytics gem still shrouded in the dense muck of small sample size strikes me as pretty classic “getting-too-cute-itis”, especially when there were vets without even a PTO.
The challenge with new coaches/GM every few years is they want to see the prospects in action and therefore may not pull the final roster together until the 11th hour in pre-season. It crushed us last year.
Add to that the hole on RD and questions for the 4th line.
Wonder how Knob/Bowman will handle it as the entire City is desirous of a quick start this season.
What a bizarre signing Josh Brown was.
Weird then, even weirder after watching him struggle against AHL laden squads.
It’s like Jackson thought it was Connor Brown agent that they agreed on a million per year for 3 long years.