3 Games

[McTonyBrar]

It's been 3 games guys. We all should relax BUT our goaltending and defence is bad

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[OilerSuperstar17]

It HAS only been 3 games, but after getting it together last game against Vancouver, they forgot to play the same way, which is ridiculous. This franchise is cursed.

 

[LTIR]

Goaltending is fine. League average I would say.
Defense is bad no doubt.

 

[Brown Cat]

Wouldn't mind packaging Nurse ++ for an upgrade. He's just not a top pairing guy. Thank God they didn't give him his wants on the contract.

 

[LTIR]

Wouldn't mind packaging Nurse ++ for an upgrade. He's just not a top pairing guy. Thank God they didn't give him his wants on the contract.

And then what?
Have a left side of this upgraded person, Jones, Koekkoek, Russell, Lagesson ?

Still pathetic.

 

[Captain Controversy]

We have Bouchard. We should be using him.

 

[Brown Cat]

And then what?
Have a left side of this upgraded person ?

Yes

 

[Del Preston]

It is only three games, but team defense is the biggest problem once again, and there has been zero improvement or adjustment to it.

 

[Snipes45]

Goaltending is fine. League average I would say.
Defense is bad no doubt.

I blame the D 10x more than the goalie. Watch this Canucks Flames game guys. You are barely seeing massive gaffs like we have 100x a day. Dmen under zero pressure just flubbing pucks and giving it away. Fire drills left and right. I have NHLCI and watch a sh** load of hockey (I work on a computer so always have some hockey on the tv). I don't see any team that gets into fire drill mode like the Oilers or make this many gaffs nightly.

 

[LTIR]

I think its the D system. Not sure why our Dmen are inside our own net when there is sustained pressure. They tend to start playing goalie.

The Dmen turn into goalies and the forwards Dmen leaving point wide open.

 

[Oilhawks]

I blame the D 10x more than the goalie. Watch this Canucks Flames game guys. You are barely seeing massive gaffs like we have 100x a day. Dmen under zero pressure just flubbing pucks and giving it away. Fire drills left and right. I have NHLCI and watch a sh** load of hockey (I work on a computer so always have some hockey on the tv). I don't see any team that gets into fire drill mode like the Oilers or make this many gaffs nightly.

Doesn't help when their two D on the top pair are lacking poise or have a low panic threshold. Bear had it for most of last season but he's looking shaky nowadays. Barrie isn't the strongest for D play but he plays with enough poise and is defence via good offence / puck movement. Larsson is hit or miss but when he's not playing D for both partners he tends to look better.

Current D with poise or low panic:

Barrie
Koekkoek
Larsson

I think Bear would be passible with a steadier partner. Nurse is too all over the place and panics easily (IMO)

Looks to be that Bouchard, Samorukov and Broberg play with more poise but let's see how they are in the NHL.

I'd put Bouchard in and sit Jones and run with this next game

Nurse - Barrie
Koekkoek - Bear
Bouchard - Larsson

 

[Messrules11]

Wouldn't mind packaging Nurse ++ for an upgrade. He's just not a top pairing guy. Thank God they didn't give him his wants on the contract.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a blockbuster of some kind. Guys these days are way to safe with all these movement clauses. Maybe they would come to play for 60 minutes if they felt their job was in jeopardy.

 

[North]

O

I blame the D 10x more than the goalie. Watch this Canucks Flames game guys. You are barely seeing massive gaffs like we have 100x a day. Dmen under zero pressure just flubbing pucks and giving it away. Fire drills left and right. I have NHLCI and watch a sh** load of hockey (I work on a computer so always have some hockey on the tv). I don't see any team that gets into fire drill mode like the Oilers or make this many gaffs nightly.

The thing is our d isn’t great. We know that.

The one thing the forwards were doing last season when we had success was supporting them a lot better.

They’d stay closer to them to provide easier passing options.

Right now the forwards have gone back to their habit of flying the zone as soon as we have possession of the puck. With this d you can’t do that because they are just going to try to ring it around the boards in order to get it out. Which ends up with the other team getting possession.

 

[Stoneman89]

We finished the regular season losing 3 of our last 4 games, and not looking good doing it. Fading, and could very well have missed the playoffs if the season had continued. Then, continued the same trend in the play-ins against the Hawks. And now, at the start of this season, the same pattern, interrupted only by an out of world performance by McDavid to save us that game. It's disappointing and certainly concerning. Our so called "top defence pairing" looking like they are going to be unable to handle such a task on a daily basis. Not entirely surprising though, as Bear is only 2nd year, and is going to continue to have some challenges. I was hoping Nurse would take a step up this year, and smooth out his game, but he looks like a nervous first year pro back there a lot of times, giving the puck up at the slightest bit of pressure and making bad decisions. After that, it's a mish mash of young guys and vets looking to find their game.

 

[booyakasha]

It's been 3 games guys. We all should relax BUT our goaltending and TEAM defence is bad

fixed it for you.

 

[DerpMorg]

Yea, it’s only 3 games of a far shorter season. We don’t have the luxury of an 82 game season.

The fact our D and goalie situations still suck is just part of another Oilers season. We’re like that dude who keeps buying used cars thinking they’re deals but they’re unreliable and always need to get something fixed. Instead of just going to buy a new car and spending some cash, we just keep buying used cars and hope they last a season or two.

 

[Lacaar]

It is only three games, but team defense is the biggest problem once again, and there has been zero improvement or adjustment to it.

The scary part is that the team defense so far looks to have regressed even further.

 

[ujju2]

Goaltending is fine. League average I would say.
Defense is bad no doubt.

I agree our goaltending is league average. I like Koskinen. Unfortunately, league average doesn't mean division average. Between Holtby/Demko, Markstrom, Hellebuyck, Price, etc I do think our goaltending is weaker than many other teams in the Canadian division. Not a big concern for me though, defence is much more an issue.

 

[Drivesaitl]

It is only three games, but team defense is the biggest problem once again, and there has been zero improvement or adjustment to it.

What our team D looks like changes when we stop defending and being in our own zone so often. Believe it or not we made headway in that in 2nd and 3rd periods last night and dominated possession. The first period was a tirefire.

But the addition of players like Barrie, Turris, even Kahun adds some guys that are expected to be able to aid some puck possession. Particularly Barrie. But the sync magic doesn't happen over night. The confidence to have the puck control it well, make smooth breakouts, its more complex for a skill based team.

The Habs are muckers, energy guys. They can adapt quick to a season because what they do is pressure and skate hard, and reduce time and space. But the Habs were having a lot of trouble in their own end last night.

The simple key is have the puck and make the opponent play in their own end. Or to at least have shifts where you can interrupt the ownzone time. The Oilers, even the skill lines, they have to recognize when its time to get cute, and when its time to just move pucks north.

The positive from last night is the Oilers made adjustments through the game and starting with the 2-0 score. It wasn't enough to change yesterday outcome but the positive is they recovered, and the Oilers played hard to try to get ack in it. Sure they should start games that way.

 

[SupremeTeam16]

Goaltending is fine. League average I would say.
Defense is bad no doubt.

I agree, I think Koskinen is league average but I mean when you’re constantly facing a shooting gallery Im sure it gets demoralizing. Every game is just an onslaught of shots that shouldn’t of even happened if they could clear the puck at even a below average rate. Then toss in a laughable amount of breakaways and odd man rushes. I’ve seen beer league teams with better defensive awareness.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I agree, I think Koskinen is league average but I mean when you’re constantly facing a shooting gallery Im sure it gets demoralizing. Every game is just an onslaught of shots that shouldn’t of even happened if they could clear the puck at even a below average rate. Then toss in a laughable amount of breakaways and odd man rushes. I’ve seen beer league teams with better defensive awareness.

1/3the shots Koski faced in the first were due to his own rebounds.

A skilled starting goalie needs to also be able to read teams and suss out whats happening. The Oilers desperately needed breaks, stoppages, time to get composed, second breaths. The whole first period Koski failed in corralling pucks, even easy bad angle shots he was kicking out rebounds. Starting with the first goal. I mean this is a D, not a scoring D, shooting from a bad angle. This is early in the game and Koski makes a disaster out of it floating a rebound, puck deflects up, Petry punches it right through koski, goes to other side where the puck is and slots it home into a wide open net. I wonder how many steamboats Koski still doesn't know where that puck is. He failed at tracking that.

But a lot of the adventure could have been averted if we had a goalies just eating up some of those pucks. Smith is much better at limiting rebounds, and also playing the puck, which you would note Price was doing all game. The reason the Oilers had trouble establishing forecheck pressure is how effective Price was on the puck. Its like having another D back there.

 

[BlackDogg]

Miss me yet?

 

[Zenos]

We’re like that dude who keeps buying used cars thinking they’re deals but they’re unreliable and always need to get something fixed. Instead of just going to buy a new car and spending some cash, we just keep buying used cars and hope they last a season or two.

To continue the car theme, part of the problem is that nobody will accept our current one as a trade-in.

Obviously, the Oilers could have theoretically gone harder after a Markstrom, Holtby, trade and sign Murray, pay the price for Kuemper, etc. but they'd still be stuck with Miko and his 4.5million cap hit. That's not an easy player to move. And it's certainly too much to pay for a backup or 1b guy for another 2 seasons.

 

[LTIR]

1/3the shots Koski faced in the first were due to his own rebounds.

A skilled starting goalie needs to also be able to read teams and suss out whats happening. The Oilers desperately needed breaks, stoppages, time to get composed, second breaths. The whole first period Koski failed in corralling pucks, even easy bad angle shots he was kicking out rebounds. Starting with the first goal. I mean this is a D, not a scoring D, shooting from a bad angle. This is early in the game and Koski makes a disaster out of it floating a rebound, puck deflects up, Petry punches it right through koski, goes to other side where the puck is and slots it home into a wide open net. I wonder how many steamboats Koski still doesn't know where that puck is. He failed at tracking that.

But a lot of the adventure could have been averted if we had a goalies just eating up some of those pucks. Smith is much better at limiting rebounds, and also playing the puck, which you would note Price was doing all game. The reason the Oilers had trouble establishing forecheck pressure is how effective Price was on the puck. Its like having another D back there.

Righttt.. Petry punching the puck through 3 Edm players, going around the net unchecked and shooting the puck from point blank with no Oiler nearby is all on the goalie :/

 

[Drivesaitl]

Righttt.. Petry punching the puck through 3 Edm players, going around the net unchecked and shooting the puck from point blank with no Oiler nearby is all on the goalie :/

The goalie is the one that gave up the screwball rebound on a perfectly easy save. Why not just freeze that puck? There was nothing on it, bad angle, from Petry, who rarely scores. Koskinen created the goal the moment he gave up a needless rebound on a bad angle "shot"

Koski was an adventure in the first period. 5 pucks got by him fortunately 4 of them didn't go in. Sure the Oilers were bad. Smith would have handled the same game differently, would have gloved some of those pucks, would have faked a goalie pad equipment problem to get the team some time to rebound. Koski lacks the savvy necessary in a starting goalie in such a momentum swing situation. He needs to be aware that in those situations he has to corral pucks and create whistles, not keep puck in play for Montreal with tons of bad rebounds.