Post-Game Talk: Oilers lose 3-2 in OT to San Jose

[s7ark]

I didn't get a chance to watch. Sounds like the sharks took it to us. But they kept it close and got a point and now we are 1 point out of the division lead going into the xmas break. I am 100% sure that if someone told us this summer that we would be 1 point behind the scf Sharks for the division lead going into the xmas break we'd all be beside ourselves with joy.

 

[McJadeddog]

Is it just me or did McDavid look like a totally different player when Eberle and Lucic were moved off his line?

no, it was not just you... it was very apparent

coach keeps trying to force a square peg into a round hole with lucic/eberle with mcdavid... it is pretty apparent that it isn't working that great... maroon, drai, and RNH should be the wingers for mcdavid until it is proven that they won't work (just like it has been proven to not be working with lucic/eberle)

i would try something like:
maroon-mcdavid-RNH
lucic-drai-eberle

this gets lucic/eberle off of mcdavid's wins... gets maroon back with mcdavid... and keeps our two drivers drai and mcdavid on separate lines, so we aren't just loading up one line

 

[booyakasha]

Was just going to post exactly the same line up.......

TMac wont do it though, seems like they have a deal with Lucic that he will always play with McDavid.

That's not on TMac though....pretty sure that comes from above.
I think it was in his contract....the guy is on McDavids wing for the next 7 years.
he's our Clarkson...MacT just about handcuffed this org. with an albatross, but Chia made sure to do it.
yay.

 

[frag2]

Hes still young and has lost some development time due to injuries. I would be more worried if we hadnt see an A game from him at this point. We have hes just inconsistent. Give him time. Klefbom, Larsson, Nurse, Davidson are trending up and should only get better in time b/c they are all young.

Klefbom's issues are his decision making skills and his inconsistent game. One game, he'll look like bonafide #1, which happened a lot last year, and then next bunch, he'll be crap.

Like someone mentioned, have to wonder how Larsson would actually do in a more offensive role if he didn't spend more than half his time trying to be the sole defensive conscience in his pairing. Granted, I'm beginning to think Larsson doesn't even care about the offensive part of his game that any longer and just wants to be a defensive rock.

yeah i don't get it with caggiula either... he isn't terrible, but he isn't good either... his PPG is almost exactly the same as pulj's is, but with 1.5 more minutes per game (and 1 full min ute per game more on the PP), and not nearly as good defensively as pulj is... so in other words: drake has less production, with better minutes, and less defensive results

i like drake fine enough, think he will be a serviceable middle-6 player in time, but *right now* he is the inferior option to pulj.... sitting pulj hurts his development more than drakes as well, considering the age gap... makes no sense

Maybe Puljujarvi still has difficulty understanding English? I honestly dont know why they didnt just send him to the AHL if they have no plans of playing him consistently.

 

[Arpeggio]

That's not on TMac though....pretty sure that comes from above.
I think it was in his contract....the guy is on McDavids wing for the next 7 years.
he's our Clarkson...MacT just about handcuffed this org. with an albatross, but Chia made sure to do it.
yay.

Lucic hasn't been on that line the whole year, and he wasn't to finish the game last night. Thinking its in his contract is dumb.

 

[booyakasha]

Lucic hasn't been on that line the whole year, and he wasn't to finish the game last night. Thinking its in his contract is dumb.

it's dumb to think you would take that seriously.

 

[koeltrain]

2nd place in the Pacific and players brought in ARE contributing

Whiners be whining

 

[McShogun99]

Lucic isn't made for 3 on 3 hockey. He's made for playoff hockey. That's where you'll see Lucic's real value.

 

[rboomercat90]

McLellan needs to learn from what is going on right in front of him. We better not see Ebs/McDavid again for a long time. And ideally not Lucic either because that Lucic/McDavid without Ebs stat is probably more to do with the RW contribution than Lucic.

I don't follow advanced stats much at all. Is this as big of a discrepancy as it seems to be to the uneducated? If it is it's incredible that one guy could drag a line down like that.

 

[OneMoreAstronaut]

Sharks are an excellent team, they made the finals last year for good reason. To get 2 points from them would have been a real steal - 1 point is absolutely acceptable. Loved the fight back to tie it up after going down twice too. There's always things that can be worked on but that's a result that I can be satisfied with for now.

 

[BlackDogg]

McD did seem to pick up his spirit once the lines were switched. It looks like he's tired of that first line as one poster mentioned. If Tmac goes back to the same lines again next game, I don't know what to think anymore.

 

[HockeyGuy1964]

Lucic hasn't been on that line the whole year, and he wasn't to finish the game last night. Thinking its in his contract is dumb.

it's dumb to think you would take that seriously.

Not really. People say idiotic things that border on absurd on this board all the time & are 100% serious.

 

[frag2]

McD did seem to pick up his spirit once the lines were switched. It looks like he's tired of that first line as one poster mentioned. If Tmac goes back to the same lines again next game, I don't know what to think anymore.

If he goes back to that first line, then chances are, Chiarelli is probably telling him because Lucic is his golden boy and Eberle needs to up his value.

Either that, or we can just accept Tmac is an idiot

 

[Weitz]

Was great to hang in there and steal a point in a game we didn't deserve one.

But boy those defensive breakdowns that caused the 2nd and OT goal are just ridiculous and are totally unacceptable. How the keep happening is beyond me.

 

[dssource]

So much negativity in here over this loss. I was really excited and looking forward to this game and it did not disappoint.

-as a hockey fan that was a very entertaining game.
-as an oiler fan, not once, not once was there ever any fear of that sjs team. Those were two very good teams on the ice last night. Contributions from everyone. Good coaching decisions. The pp although it didn't score, generated lots of chances in the third and got the team rolling.

Unfortunate end not to get the W but sjs actually taught our boys a few things and made us a better team. I have no problem losing a close game to a very good team and almost beating them. The next game will be different. The oilers have a very good team and are still improving. We should be happy.

1point behind the leaders in the Pacific at Christmas time. A gift from the team to the Oiler fans.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Klefbom's issues are his decision making skills and his inconsistent game. One game, he'll look like bonafide #1, which happened a lot last year, and then next bunch, he'll be crap.

Like someone mentioned, have to wonder how Larsson would actually do in a more offensive role if he didn't spend more than half his time trying to be the sole defensive conscience in his pairing. Granted, I'm beginning to think Larsson doesn't even care about the offensive part of his game that any longer and just wants to be a defensive rock.

In general it's an effective pairing, but I wouldn't mind breaking it up.

I could see Klefbom-Sekera being really effective together, same with Davidson-Larsson as another solid pairing, one that could draw a bit more offence out of Larsson.

It's a pity Nurse went down when he did, as he and Larsson seemed to work well together.

Klefbom-Sekera
Nurse-Larsson
Davidson-Russell
Gryba


I like it. With Letestu stepping up, that need for RH PP option has gone down.

 

[McDeepika]

San Jose was the better team but we had our chances to win. I just want to point out a couple of things that didn't make sense to me.

1. I hate having McDavid be the trailer on the PP. Teams just keep one player back to stop the drop pass and it nullifies him. He needs to be the guy carrying the puck into the zone.

2. Did anybody notice the weird faceoff alignment we had in OT? Letestu won the draw back into the corner but both our players were on the opposite hashmarks. The Shark center literally just went and got the puck. We never could really touch it after that. Not exactly sure how we are supposed to win possession with that formation.

 

[belair]

yeah i don't get it with caggiula either... he isn't terrible, but he isn't good either... his PPG is almost exactly the same as pulj's is, but with 1.5 more minutes per game (and 1 full min ute per game more on the PP), and not nearly as good defensively as pulj is... so in other words: drake has less production, with better minutes, and less defensive results

i like drake fine enough, think he will be a serviceable middle-6 player in time, but *right now* he is the inferior option to pulj.... sitting pulj hurts his development more than drakes as well, considering the age gap... makes no sense

He's a nothing player right now. Perfect example of a guy who looks like he's trying but he's getting absolutely nothing done. I think it would be best to send both him and Pulj down together after the Christmas break so they can get some key minutes in Bako. Guys like him, Pulj and Beck are barely treading water out there when they aren't pinned in their zone.

Going out and getting another NHL option at forward should be high on the to do list in early 2017.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

2. Did anybody notice the weird faceoff alignment we had in OT? Letestu won the draw back into the corner but both our players were on the opposite hashmarks. The Shark center literally just went and got the puck. We never could really touch it after that. Not exactly sure how we are supposed to win possession with that formation.

That's where (I think it was) McDavid was originally before the draw was won but before Letestu took the faceoff he waved him over to the hashmark closest to our goal, right? Didn't make sense then and if McDavid had stayed where he originally had been instead of listening to Letestu, we would've had possession.

At least that's the one I think you're talking about. Seemed like more of a Letestu decision than a coaching one.

 

[KCC]

2nd place in the Pacific and players brought in ARE contributing

Whiners be whining

Yeah that's the positive. But the first 40 minutes are what we've seen this team play like far too often. You just don't know what you're going to get from this team sometimes if this team actually brings the work ethic they are very hard to play against. Just need more of it more consistently.

 

[Tyrolean]

Oilers were dominated for the most part in that game. make not mistake about it. To get even and a point was lucky.

 

[bobbythebrain]

Breaking news.

Good hockey team plays better hockey team. Manages to get a point. Fans are restless and disgusted

 

[blue_n_copper]

Playing poorly for two periods against a very good team and still getting a point is just fine with me. Larsson had a good game despite being hung out to dry by Klefbloom more than once. When he knocked that rebound away from whichever Shark was about to pounce on it after a Klefblom giveaway in the first period (I think) he probably saved the point for us and that hit on Thornton was a beauty.

 

[McFlyingV]

Oilers were dominated for the most part in that game. make not mistake about it. To get even and a point was lucky.

Lucky sure, but you still need to be a good team to keep that one close and battle back in the 3rd. The Oilers of the past years would never have clawed their way back into that game (Oilers were the better team in the 3rd quite easily). Despite being outplayed in the first 2 periods really bad, they still limited the number of high quality chances the sharks had throughout the game, and on the few that they gave them Talbot made some strong saves, much like Jones did in the 3rd period when the game was 2-2.

Every team in the league has bad games, but despite playing awful the first 2 periods they still managed to keep the game close enough, and had a huge kill on Kassian's outburst that could have put this game away, where the PKers were outstanding. At the end of the day good teams are able to have bad games but still keep them close enough to claw back in and thats exactly what Edmonton did, and anyone who has watched this team for years should be able to spot the difference between this team when they're having a bad game vs. past years when they would be having a bad game. Are we an elite team in this league? No, of course not, we have about 7 core players under the age of 24 and our two best players are 19 and 21. But, this is a team that is becoming a good team and they're only going to grow as the players mature.

Be mad at the performance, but don't be down on the team. They showed last night that they have 100x more guts than teams we've been icing for the past 10 years just by being able to keep a game they played like **** in within reach, and then by being able to crawl back into it to get at least a point.

 

[BlackDogg]

Make no mistake, if he had stuck to the original lines, they would not have clawed back. Hopefully we all learn a valuable lesson from this and don't forget it over the break.