Post-Game Talk: A successful season?

[North Cole]

Goalie puck handling efficiency in the playoffs:

I'm not sure what to think about this though, it seems way too binary. Outside of a few horrific gaffes, I thought he played the puck very well. Given that he was at a recorded 7-8 per game, a few over the playoffs doesn't seem that horrible.

How much of this was him stopping the puck for guys and then them losing it to the forecheck or simply throwing it away stupidly? The amount of times we failed on second and third attempts to clear the zone feels like it presents a little unfairly on Smith in this graphic. He certainly has things to be critized for but I felt that was the better part of his game, minus the one time it ended in the net and two other times he had to manufacture a Hasek save.

 

[sportsdynasty]

Coach blew it by playing Smith 4 games in a row against Colorado. Koskinen was the better goalie all season and the main reason the Oilers made the playoffs.

 

[BlackDogg]

Coach blew it by playing Smith 4 games in a row against Colorado. Koskinen was the better goalie all season and the main reason the Oilers made the playoffs.

Koskinen was certainly the best choice for the last two games but apparently the team was married to Smith.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

I appreciate the clear view. I feel similar.

Lets unpack it a different way. Look at our top 5 producers in the playoffs. McD 33pts, Drai 32 in unprecedented performances. This is 3 rounds of excellence. Kane piling in 13goals in only 15GP, Hyman with another 11 goals. Nuge with 14 pts.

These players were piling in pts and contributions. Of a volume that the team will likely never match. The sordid view is that the team couldn't outscore its mistakes. The team got those incredible performances from so many production forwards and still got swept by the AV's and needed 7 games against the Kings. Its a mixed bag at best. The team was ,500 in the playoffs and two of their opponents were LA without Doughty, and the Calgary Flames (who I don't think are very much) We lost in straight games to the first stiff opponent.

In my view what occurred in the AV's series resembled so much what happened in the Jets series a year ago. Team can't keep a lead, team shows up weak in games 1, and 2, team never gets the big goal to get a result in the closer games. This was a team that lost EVERY first game of rounds. Not a great look.

We almost got knocked out by LA in first round. It took incredible production and performance from our core players just to avoid that fate. The only impressive round we brought was against the Flames, a club that almost always loses out in the playoffs. An old WC club that couldn't score took that club 7 games. Flames were paper tigers and we knocked them over. I'd expect to. But I'd expect a team with Kane (and we probably can't keep him) to at least be better than being swept against the AV's.

What you saw was several of our players on a mission. Like the Habs last season. Like Dallas a few seasons ago or maybe STL the year they won the cup. The dig down from our leading forwards was incredible, clearly as much as they could ever give. It still wasnt enough to even be close to Colorado.


There are services like Jeet that could bring those tapes back to life and transcribe digitally but costs a lot of money to get that done. Thanks for the videos above.

Hyman having 11 goals through 16 games would have created a stir in any other year. And yet it will be a footnote to what others on the team did. Historic levels of offensive production like that might not be seen again for another 30 years. What a time for an already unreliable goaltender to go cold even by his standards. But Woodcroft married himself to Smith after the shutout in Game 7, and somehow Smith would always come up with a great 15 minute stretch of play in each game to reaffirm his bias and live to start another game. What was there to lose by starting the other streaky goaltender for Games 3 and 4 and hoping he got hot?

Ron Low is on the record that he was going to start Bob Essensa down 3-1 to the Avs in 98. Reconsidered in the hours leading up to the game, and Cujo allowed 1 more goal the entire series to steal it from Colorado. Funny how these things come full circle, not changing goaltenders this year prevented any comeback.

 

[Oilhawks]

We'll never know how things might have gone, but injuries were mounting for Colorado and Francouz was looking leaky by the third period of game 4. Avs are a great team, but they were beatable, particularly after Kadri was knocked out. But alas...hope it doesn't take 15 years to get close again.

It won’t.

 

[redgrant]

Coach blew it by playing Smith 4 games in a row against Colorado. Koskinen was the better goalie all season and the main reason the Oilers made the playoffs.

Koskinen is highly inconsistent just like Smith. But absolutely Smith basically played himself out of game 4 at the very least. He did not deserve that start and was poor all playoffs aside from the LA series.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Coach blew it by playing Smith 4 games in a row against Colorado. Koskinen was the better goalie all season and the main reason the Oilers made the playoffs.

Thanks for letting everyone know you didnt pay attention to the Oilers down the stretch.