GDT: WCQF | G3 | “Welcome to Holloway” | Oilers @ Kings | 4.26.24 | 8:30PM | Staples Center | SN/CBC

[Slats432]

They'll not take our freeedom!!!

 

[NashtoNowitzki]

Hey remember in last years playoffs when the top 4 D and goaltending clearly weren't good enough, and then over the course of an offseason, regular season, and trade deadline Ken Holland did jack f***ing squat?

Good times...

 

[94 Oil Drops]

Kane and Holloway need to be bumped up and Nuge and Foegele bumped down.
Just do it.

I'd like to see a line of:

Hyman - McDavid - Holloway

 

[bone]

Key to the game. Don't let it get to Overtime. Kings are 7-17 since their last cup win. 5 of those 7 wins were in Overtime.

 

[Mr Kot]

I like money

 

[K1984]

The Draisaitl line got absolutely owned by the Kopitar line last game.
That simply cant happen again.

The team needs to tighten up defensively as well to have any chance at winning. The little things matter.
Im expecting a much more detailed game today.

We have to stop attempting to deploy the Leon line to match up against the other team's best. The line usually gets rinsed and part of the reason we lost last year was because Eichel was dummying them and Woodcroft wouldn't change it. McDavid will win the hard matchup, just give it to him. Leon can win the hard matchup too, but that comes and goes and when it isn't working, it really isn't working.

Honestly I don't think that stacking the two of them is necessarily a bad idea against the Kings. They only really have one line that is scary and our bottom 6 is doing fine. On the road they would probably match their top line against a McDrai line anyways, so we take away the concern of them deploying Kopitar against whichever top 6 line isn't working.

 

[TB12]

Oh Captain, my Captain!

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Key to the game. Don't let it get to Overtime. Kings are 7-17 since their last cup win. 5 of those 7 wins were in Overtime.

Kings haven't won a regulation playoff game since Game 4 in 2022

11 games ago

 

[K1984]

Key to the game. Don't let it get to Overtime. Kings are 7-17 since their last cup win. 5 of those 7 wins were in Overtime.

Conversely, the Oilers are on a run of playoff OT futility and incompetence that I can only assume it has to be approaching a record. Isn't just the losses, it's the speed in which we lose them. The total game time in our last 5 overtime losses combined is probably like 20 mins max.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

- Fewer own goals
- Greater team commitment to defending and goal suppression (dial down some risk taking)
- More stops from Skinner (less talk about little impact on a game. Tender is always at the heart of any game)
- Line 2 has to be better to a man against the Kopitar line

Oiler zone time is better than their elite regular season:
Playoff: NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics - Comparisons
Regular Season: NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics - Teams

Offensive Zone Time: 44.9% (regular season 43.9% //93 percentile)
Neutral Zone Time: 17.5% (17.6% //below 50th percentile)
Defensive Zone Time: 37.9% (38.6% //90 percentile)

This is an elite team that I feel has earned more belief than a one game OT loss on an incredibly fluky play that freed a future hall of fame to finish on a perfect shot. Let's f***ing Go!!!!

 

[Messrules11]

I'd like to see a line of:

Hyman - McDavid - Holloway

I’d give it a go, on Holloway’s 2nd goal he flew down the RW and made a shot that Nuge/Forgele would never make, and Kane needs a better center than McLeod.
Besides, Drai is getting nowhere with Nuge and Foegele. That Foegele is on the 2nd line is ridiculous in the first place.

 

[jeffff]

I'm not really concerned honestly. If we get the lead, LA is done. They need to open it up and they just can't against us.

But we can play LAs game too and we're still a better team than LA even playing LAs "style", just need to play smart....skill will prevail. Skinner needs to be better but he'll bounce back tonight. I have more faith in him this year than last. And while I'm not making excuses because good teams create their own luck.....LA has scored lucky goals. Doughtys break away, Kempes double mid air tip and Fialas (1 in 500 ) goal.

We are not a perfect team by any means but we do have the tools in the tool kit to do the job. As Ekholm said last game, "we're not going 16-0"

 

[JohnnyBerts]

I’d give it a go, on Holloway’s 2nd goal he flew down the RW and made a shot that Nuge/Forgele would never make, and Kane needs a better center than McLeod.
Besides, Drai is getting nowhere with Nuge and Foegele. That Foegele is on the 2nd line is ridiculous in the first place.

Same here. I really like Holloway. I thought he was going to be better sooner but he's still so young. Nice to see how confident he looks since coming back up.

 

[Stealth1616]

Basically all LA’s goals have been total flukes or poor goals on Skinner. The fluky goals won’t continue but it will be up to Skinner to fix the other issue.

If not there is nothing really we can do

 

[Oilgasms]

I definitely have a soft spot for goalies and the insane mental pressure the playoffs puts them under.

Skinner has all the normal pressure plus he is in an absolute pressure cooker market, his hometown, in the first real cup window since 1988. And he's in his sophomore year when he wasn't supposed to be the starter for at least a few more years but the wheels came off Campbell.

From what I gather from Stoic Stu is that he has a good grasp on the mental game and can bounce back from adversity. Some pull quotes from this article.

Then there was the night in Wichita, Kansas, when he was the goalie for the Wichita Thunder of the ECHL. Skinner recalls giving up nine goals. League records show it was eight, but the point remains the same.

"I remember hanging out with [Oilers defenseman Vincent Desharnais]. We went back to our apartment and I remember saying, 'I don't know if the NHL is going to happen for us. It seems so far away,'" Skinner said. "Those are the moments you look back on and you feel a lot of gratitude. Because of that experience, it made me want to work that much harder."

"I've been thinking about that lately, what success really is to me," Skinner said. "There is a quote, and I forgot the book, but it really resonated with me. Somebody said, 'A form of success is meaningful relationships and meaningful work. Trying to strive for that is what makes you successful.'

"Learning from how you deal with loss and failure really helps you for when the lights are on you, the cameras are on you and you are in the NHL. It's important to know how to deal with that. The same goes for success."

I won't lie, the guy looked frazzled on Wednesday night. Sometimes I do wonder what the missing piece is for him - if it's the physical tools or the mental ones? Either way, our management put Stu in a very high pressure situation and I really hope him reading Ryan Holiday and Marcus Aurelius books help him have some peace and success this Spring.

In Stu we Trust

 

[CornKicker]

Same here. I really like Holloway. I thought he was going to be better sooner but he's still so young. Nice to see how confident he looks since coming back up.

hes playing like a kid who has said " im never playing in the AHL again"

 

[K1984]

I'm not really concerned honestly. If we get the lead, LA is done. They need to open and they just can't against us.

But we can play LAs game too and we're still a better team than LA even playing LAs "style", just need to play smart....skill will prevail. Skinner needs to be better but he'll bounce back tonight. I have more faith on him this years than last. And while I'm not making excuses because good teams create their own luck.....LA has scored lucky goals. Doughtys break away, Kempes double mid air tip and Fialas (1 in 500 ) goal.

We are not a perfect team by any means but we do have the tools in the tool kit to do the job. As Ekholm said last game, "we're not going 16-0"

The first 5 mins of this game are the game tonight.

I've seen the recipe in LA before. They come out flying, they seal off the walls hard hoping our d men will do something dumb (not a bad strategy), and work their crowd into it. We absolutely have to win the first few shifts, I would even consider mundane "nothing happens" shifts a win. Just need to lull them into the 1-3-1 and not have them feel like they can roll lines over on us in our own end.

We often struggle to seize momentum early in any period, but absolutely has to happen tonight. We cannot let them spend the first few shifts in our end.

 

[Mav3rick07]

They better come out strong and take this game. If Skinner shits the bed early we need to bring Pickard in while there's enough runway to try to win the game.

I agree. Skinner should be on a very short leash. If he lets in a couple of early goals, then it's Pickard time.

 

[Soli]

Disappointed in the main board mods putting the whistles away.

We will be using the Home Team GDT for the main forum. If there is no GDT posted in the local team forum by 12pm ET or 3 hours before puck drop, whichever is first, we will use the Away Team GDT or the mod/admin team will create a neutral one for the main playoff forum.

Et tu, @hangman005?

 

[hangman005]

Disappointed in the main board mods putting the whistles away.



Et tu, @hangman005?

Hopefully this is the only time your behind tonight... (was that believable?)

GDT: - WCQF Game 3: LA Kings vs Edmonton Oilers @7:30pm PT | Series tied 1-1

Los Angeles Kings(43-27-11, 99pts, 3rd in Pacific) vs Edmonton Oilers(49-27-6 104pts, 2nd in Pacific) Crypto.com Arena | Los Angeles, CA TIME: 7:00pm PT | TV: Bally Sports West/ TBS RADIO: I Heart Radio App Regular Season Stats *Lines subject to change* **The website I use to get these...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Drivesaitl]

While I don't like that LA can push their matchups, reality is that Knoblach didn't seem that concerned about chasing matchups anyways other than the occasional o-zone faceoff on an icing, so it may not be all that different here.

tbh I think its a coaching copout to say we don't care about matchups. Even the best team in the league I ever watched, in the 80's, Sather, and Muckler cared about matchups and exploited and benefitted from them anyway they could. Not disputing what you are saying, Knob has stated that but I don't agree with it. Also the teams mantra is we don't worry about opponents, we focus on what we're doing isn't always working out so well EV and it could even hold us back in that regard.

 

[Mav3rick07]

 

[Drivesaitl]

I think Skinner actually looks decent tonight. I learn to expect the unexpected. This will be some kind of tough game with uber focus. We could actually see a lower scoring game tonight and the Oilers playing an actual road game with goal suppression intent. We were already getting some teasers of that. Oilers may just decide to make the Kings come out of their 1-3-1 by clogging game up further.

The Oilers may also seek to just limit any goals EV and focus on the regular goals they get on PP to be enough. Nurse was already toying with the 1-3-1. "want to stay back there, I'll f*** around with the puck for a minute"

 

[ToeMcDrag83]

Brown should be getting a game here. Not a major thing, but I believe he was coming on well and it's not the right move to scratch him.

 

[Heavy Dee]

Corey Perry has been junk