Post-Game Talk: Agent Smith | Drai/Kassian/McDavid 3 - Smith 31/33

[Magnum23]

Mike smith is not the best goalie but his puck moving ability is superb.

Must be nice for the d to breakout half already without having to worry about retrieving the puck every play

 

[Satire]

Danger will Robinson...

I don't really recommend this. JUST because Smith is very good at this doesn't mean its something that you can slip in your Koski arsenal just with a few practices. I sure hope the team isn't telling Koski to be doing this as it has to be a naturally confident thing. If it isn't bad things happen.

I know some posters here said the goalie coach should be working with Koski on puck movement but damn, I hate to think people here are giving any advice..

But just in case...

Put Jurco in lineup immediately, call up Burdasov again, and be nice to Gagner..

Oh, and don't send Bear down.



Get your preference and recommendations in folks..hehe

I believe they're only sending Bear down for the purpose of paper work. He'll be back for Saturday, but it opens up cap space due to the interaction with the LTIR. I recall reading that in an article online; I am not exactly sure how it works so someone wiser than I can explain it I'm sure.

 

[Raab]

What a load of trash. Nurse went for more offense last year because he was pointedly instructed to by the coaching staff because he was the only Dman on the roster with the skill set to be able to do so. Did someone lock your personal Nurse/Nuge bashing thread?

Not according to his agent Anton Thun. Nurse views himself as comparable to Hedman, and demanded more offensive opportunity.

 

[Mr Positive]

Not according to his agent Anton Thun. Nurse views himself as comparable to Hedman, and demanded more offensive opportunity.

An agent isnt doing their job if they aren't pressuring for more offensive usage. Nurse has the skills to get a look in that role, on merit

 

[McFlash97]

Koskinen channeling his inner Mike Smith

A little more enthusiasm Koskinen. Please dont try doing this in a game. It's not mimicking anything.

 

[JayE]

Drai is a better player than Kopitar now, and better than Kopitar ever was, and I'm a huge fan of Kopitar saying that. My hope originally was that Drai would be German Kopitar, kind of a Kopitar lite kind of player. He's blown the doors down. He's better than Kopitar. At this point, and right now, there aren't 5 forwards in the whole league better than Drai.

The broadcasts and NHL pundits and other boards are very slowly catching up to that. I mean c'mon people this guy pushed OV for the Rocket Richard last season and was the first NHL player to score 50 goals while getting 100 or more pts in the same season, in the last 8 NHL seasons. Nobody else has done it.

Anywhere else but in the shadow of McD Drai would already be considered generational. He's better than Malkin too. That was another hope of mine and the signs that he could be came early.

He's better offensively than Kopitar was. Kopitar was better defensively. Both of these players are dominant, and you couldn't go wrong with one or the other. Malkin had a bad season last year and might be clearly past his best. Draisaitl isn't what Malkin was at his peak, though, if that's what you were suggesting.

 

[Forgot About Drai]

I liked Nygard, but I think his game is better suited for the bottom 6. He could really cause some issues on the forecheck with that speed.

When Jurco is back, id bump him up to McDavid's wing and Nygard to the 3rd line.

 

[nexttothemoon]

A little more enthusiasm Koskinen. Please dont try doing this in a game. It's not mimicking anything.

I picture Koskinen mumbling underneath his breath as he practices his puckhandling in that video...

....Mutherf***er comes in here... (shoots the puck)... and takes my mutherf***ing starter job away... (shoots the puck harder)... with his fancy puck handling skills... (shoots the puck even harder)... and his fancy functioning glove hand... mutherf***er....

 

[Cloned]

I picture Koskinen mumbling underneath his breath as he practices his puckhandling in that video...

....Muther****er comes in here... (shoots the puck)... and takes my muther****ing starter job away... (shoots the puck harder)... with his fancy puck handling skills... (shoots the puck even harder)... and his fancy functioning glove hand... muther****er....

Oil Change on HBO

 

[nabob]

Not according to his agent Anton Thun. Nurse views himself as comparable to Hedman, and demanded more offensive opportunity.

Big, great skater and the most skilled Dman on his team. Yep they are comparable especially if you look at the years before Hedman broke out. Show me any proof that he “demanded” more offensive opportunity. Or else I’ll just have to consider it more irrational Nurse hate from you. It’s also, as Mr Positive said, an agents job to try and get their client in the best position to make the most money. But nowhere has any demanded as you say.

 

[Skolman]

Random question, but was there not a pump up/intro video to the season from the Oilers this year?

 

[Del Preston]

Koskinen channeling his inner Mike Smith

That was actually sad to watch. He looks depressed.

 

[Raab]

Big, great skater and the most skilled Dman on his team. Yep they are comparable especially if you look at the years before Hedman broke out. Show me any proof that he “demanded” more offensive opportunity. Or else I’ll just have to consider it more irrational Nurse hate from you. It’s also, as Mr Positive said, an agents job to try and get their client in the best position to make the most money. But nowhere has any demanded as you say.

Edmonton Oilers have decision to make with Darnell Nurse

 

[Porkleaker]

In hilarious news, Calgary fans all saying Lucic looked great etc, despite 0 points 0 shots on net, a penalty and they put him out as the 6th man with the empty net.
lmao you can all guess what happened there.

 

[T-Funk]

In hilarious news, Calgary fans all saying Lucic looked great etc, despite 0 points 0 shots on net, a penalty and they put him out as the 6th man with the empty net.
lmao you can all guess what happened there.

Love it. He's Calgary's overpaid ogre now.

 

[Oilhawks]

In hilarious news, Calgary fans all saying Lucic looked great etc, despite 0 points 0 shots on net, a penalty and they put him out as the 6th man with the empty net.
lmao you can all guess what happened there.

The level of delusion they have reached is incomprehensible. I actually couldn't believe how many people (even outside of Flames fans) thought it was a reasonable deal for them after the initial shock.

 

[Bangers]

I wonder if smiths thick leathery veteran hide will provide some sort of defense against schwartzs soul sucking proboscis

It will be interesting to see the dynamic between Smith and Schwartz this season. Smith is a veteran who gets a bit fiery. If Schwartz is as bad as most posters think he is, I could see a serious issue developing there.

If not, Schwartz may not be the pile of dog turd we think he is.

 

[nabob]

Edmonton Oilers have decision to make with Darnell Nurse

So you agree with everything I said as that article is basically what I said word for word

No where does he demand anything, he simply points out the obvious. You’re overly emotionally invested in your dislike for Darnell Nurse and should just stop posting about him. All it does it make it look like you’re even more irrationally biased against him. Even the articles you post in your defense prove you wrong. Please stop. For the first time in his career Nurse was used some offensive situations and he put up big numbers with great success. That was while still being relied upon as our top LH shutdown Dman often playing over 25 minutes a night.

 

[SaltNPeca]

Drai looked great.
He was snapping shots from all over, making zone entries, and yeah just playing well and finding his teammates.
Lazy guy seemed to take the summer off...

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Edmonton Oilers have decision to make with Darnell Nurse

I don’t think that article is helping prove your made up point about nurse.

 

[CupofOil]

Went back to re-watch the game and saw the following:


A lot of people are crapping on Larsson. Totally undeserved. He was a rock out there.
What i especially liked is, he was extremely vocal on the ice, calling out assignments and instructions to forwards.
He did that in 16/17 but the last 2 seasons got quiet.

Nurse, we saw the good and bad. He did a lot of smart things in the neutral zone.
His bad is that when he faces a lot of pressure he panics and some of his bad habits come out. He'd shake his head sometimes, after, showing that he's at least aware of these bad habits and hopefully that can get coached out.

Klefbom is very steady and looks like he did in 16/17 with larsson. Larsson's job was the corners, Klef stayed in front to clear the net and funnel pucks. (he was a rebound clearing machine tonight)
Bear worked the corners. I even saw Klef defer to him on the breakout and he made great first passes.

Benning and Russel didn't play a lot, in the minutes they played i liked.

On the forward side aside from the obvious:

I don't know why people were ragging on the PP, they only had 2 PP's and almost scored on both of them.

All of Neal, Chaisson and Nuge had some grade A chances.

And if you look, 20-30 goal scorers typically get about 8 on the PP, so 5vs5 they would only score about every 4-6 games. The fact that they both had great scoring chances, i expect to continue and they should fall right within the 20-30 goal range.
Nuge, especially was our best player on the PP tonight.

On Kassian's goal, i actually credit McDavid. Van was so scared of McDavid that he had all the coverage which gave Kass all the time in the world on that.
Kassian is a very very smart player though, i loved his decision making with the puck tonight.


Also what i haven't seen talked about with Smith yet is when he's down and out he doesn't just lay there and hope like Talbot did. He actually gets back to his knees. On one of the canuck power plays, Smith was down and out and a huge scrum happened. I thought it was a for-sure goal against, but he got to his knees quickly, battled, and when the puck got back out to the slot he was ready.

Excellent post. I especially liked the well informed rundown of the Dmen, things that a lot of us don't get to see on TV.

 

[dssource]

Definitely some positives from this game.

-A goalie who played well, kept us in it when needed and can play the puck like or better than the D. I didn't like the Smith signing, now i hope he continues to be our starter and really question why Calgary let him go, especially seeing how he played in the playoffs.
-Drai was beastly. Kass played like a skilled tough forward. Nuge was great. Neal looked good.
-Bottom 6 was hot garbage 5 v 5 but was really good on the PK. If they can at least contribute that much, it would be a huge gain on our goal differential compared to last year. It would help if we could score more goals, but if we could allow much less to make up for the non goal scoring, that would work too.
-D played OK overall, other than not being able to make a breakout pass.

Smith and Neal bring something they thought they were getting in Lucic. Experience. Their veteran leadership showed in game 1. Just smart plays from guys who have been around the league for a long time. Smith purposely passing the puck to a teammate while nucks were changing was planned. He knew they would get a penalty for that. Just a smart play. Stuff like that is what we need. And his emotion in game 1 like we're playing game 7 of a cup final, that has been lacking as well.

WTF was up with the line blender all night?

Get well Lars.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Definitely some positives from this game.

-A goalie who played well, kept us in it when needed and can play the puck like or better than the D. I didn't like the Smith signing, now i hope he continues to be our starter and really question why Calgary let him go, especially seeing how he played in the playoffs.
-Drai was beastly. Kass played like a skilled tough forward. Nuge was great. Neal looked good.
-Bottom 6 was hot garbage 5 v 5 but was really good on the PK. If they can at least contribute that much, it would be a huge gain on our goal differential compared to last year. It would help if we could score more goals, but if we could allow much less to make up for the non goal scoring, that would work too.
-D played OK overall, other than not being able to make a breakout pass.

Smith and Neal bring something they thought they were getting in Lucic. Experience. Their veteran leadership showed in game 1. Just smart plays from guys who have been around the league for a long time. Smith purposely passing the puck to a teammate while nucks were changing was planned. He knew they would get a penalty for that. Just a smart play. Stuff like that is what we need. And his emotion in game 1 like we're playing game 7 of a cup final, that has been lacking as well.

WTF was up with the line blender all night?

Get well Lars.

The line bender was probably due to the bottom 6 sucking so much and haas getting 2 minutes of ice time.

Although the team didn’t give up a lot of high danger chances.

 

[Arpeggio]

I actually don't mind the in-game line blending as long as it's just switching Nuge and McDavid every once in a while/double shifting the big guys on the 4th line every so often. I think it's an interesting approach, and if Kassian and Neal stick in the top 6, then you basically have six players consistently playing with each other. I like that Tippet was putting McDavid and Draisaitl out there when he felt he had an advantage, and it makes it more difficult for the other team to line match.

I though what Tippet did against the Canucks was actually quite innovative.

 

[Paralyzer]

I don't know what it is, but I feel like having Smith back there was the right decision for the Oilers moving forward. The fact he has the whole defence there to discuss puck moving and kind of taking a leadership role makes me very happy to see. I think a lot of people here need to realize Smith is a vocal guy, and I really feel he is a much needed presence on our blueline. Especially when we don't have too much in terms of proven leaders on our defence. Maybe this is what the Oilers defence has been lacking. A voice.