Less awful defencemen so we don't spend the majority of time in our own end.
I wouldn't look far past this team's most obvious weakness.
I wouldn't look far past this team's most obvious weakness.
How do we score more?
- Thread starter Perfect_Drug
- Start date
nexttothemoon
and again...
2 words...
O - Mark
Seriously though, OP sums it up pretty well. Lots of contributing factors causing the team to be 5th lowest in shots per game and 2nd worst in shots against. Differential of almost 5.8 shots per game. Over the course of an 82 game season that's close to 500 more shots the team faces than they get on the opposition. At even 8% accuracy... that's about a 40 goal differential right there.
No way the team can become consistently competitive until the ice isn't slanted towards their own net every game.
More size for more dirty crashing and banging. More willingness to shoot in all situations. Better faceoff abilities... Belanger in the pressbox or Smithson playing 8 minutes on the 4th line doesn't really help. They need their top 3 centres to be better on the dot... and that hasn't been the case for years.
I figured out some more stats... on the PP the Oilers take the 3rd lowest shots per minute in the NHL. That's the PP folks... where there is an extra man skating around and the Oilers have all their top talent out there... and they still aren't willing to shoot the fricken puck more.
It's easy enough to see that they need to get more aggressive and dirty... go to the net and shoot a lot more. Also they need to be better at wiping opponents off the puck and not letting them cycle in the Oilers end.
They simply don't have enough talent. Hall, Eberle, RNH... all great talents but two of those are having off years and dealing with injuries. Gagner is streaky and there are whole strectches where he isn't generating enough. Hemsky (when healthy) is an enigman (misspelled but I like it.
) at the best of times... either invisible or looks like he can walk through everyone and score almost at will... but certainly we don't see the latter often enough.
Yak still has his training wheels on and is slowly learning the NHL game. He just needs more time and experience and he'll be at the Hall level of performance soon enough.
Justin Schultz looked good early on but he's smashed into a wall of reality... again time and more experience is needed to get him on an upwards trajectory again.
The rest of the roster is an abyss of talent... MPS looks good in some games... and the odd game you have some compete from 1 or 2 others but it just isn't enough.
The team just isn't talented enough or big enough or physical enough and doesn't play with the level of heart and desire to get them to the next level. Too many passengers and not enough drivers.
Coaching obviously isn't getting enough out of the players either. You can say there is only so much coaches can do but every game is like a photocopy of each other. They don't seem to be able to change anything up... again combo of non creative coaching and lack of the right roster mix to achieve results.
O - Mark
Seriously though, OP sums it up pretty well. Lots of contributing factors causing the team to be 5th lowest in shots per game and 2nd worst in shots against. Differential of almost 5.8 shots per game. Over the course of an 82 game season that's close to 500 more shots the team faces than they get on the opposition. At even 8% accuracy... that's about a 40 goal differential right there.
No way the team can become consistently competitive until the ice isn't slanted towards their own net every game.
More size for more dirty crashing and banging. More willingness to shoot in all situations. Better faceoff abilities... Belanger in the pressbox or Smithson playing 8 minutes on the 4th line doesn't really help. They need their top 3 centres to be better on the dot... and that hasn't been the case for years.
I figured out some more stats... on the PP the Oilers take the 3rd lowest shots per minute in the NHL. That's the PP folks... where there is an extra man skating around and the Oilers have all their top talent out there... and they still aren't willing to shoot the fricken puck more.
It's easy enough to see that they need to get more aggressive and dirty... go to the net and shoot a lot more. Also they need to be better at wiping opponents off the puck and not letting them cycle in the Oilers end.
They simply don't have enough talent. Hall, Eberle, RNH... all great talents but two of those are having off years and dealing with injuries. Gagner is streaky and there are whole strectches where he isn't generating enough. Hemsky (when healthy) is an enigman (misspelled but I like it.
) at the best of times... either invisible or looks like he can walk through everyone and score almost at will... but certainly we don't see the latter often enough.Yak still has his training wheels on and is slowly learning the NHL game. He just needs more time and experience and he'll be at the Hall level of performance soon enough.
Justin Schultz looked good early on but he's smashed into a wall of reality... again time and more experience is needed to get him on an upwards trajectory again.
The rest of the roster is an abyss of talent... MPS looks good in some games... and the odd game you have some compete from 1 or 2 others but it just isn't enough.
The team just isn't talented enough or big enough or physical enough and doesn't play with the level of heart and desire to get them to the next level. Too many passengers and not enough drivers.
Coaching obviously isn't getting enough out of the players either. You can say there is only so much coaches can do but every game is like a photocopy of each other. They don't seem to be able to change anything up... again combo of non creative coaching and lack of the right roster mix to achieve results.
Look at the win percentage for outshooting opponent and outshot by opponent. It is night and day.
nexttothemoon
and again...
Exactly... and it's pathetically sad that the team has only outshot their opponents 10 times in 45 games.
Connor McOilers
We have the precious
- Feb 16, 2013
- 1,238
- 0
Obtain more defensemen who are good puck movers.
Add some functional size to win battles, drive the net, and in general cause problems for the opposing defence.
Add and extra 15-20 goals from a healthy Nuge.
And underrated but potentially most important, either find more players with high compete factors, or place the ones we already have (Hall, maybe Gags) in leadership positions.
????
Profit?
Add some functional size to win battles, drive the net, and in general cause problems for the opposing defence.
Add and extra 15-20 goals from a healthy Nuge.
And underrated but potentially most important, either find more players with high compete factors, or place the ones we already have (Hall, maybe Gags) in leadership positions.
????
Profit?
Start a conditioning program that will turn our top line into machines that are capable of playing 40+ minutes a night?
nexttothemoon
and again...
An adequate defense.
Forwards with both grit and skill, not one or the other.
Dumping of the older players who can't get over the offensive blueline without running out of gas, who tend to resort to taking lazy shots with the intent of drawing a play stoppage so they don't have to skate hard to the bench on a line change.
A real team game, instead of a bunch of individuals trying to carry every play by themselves.
Forwards with both grit and skill, not one or the other.
Dumping of the older players who can't get over the offensive blueline without running out of gas, who tend to resort to taking lazy shots with the intent of drawing a play stoppage so they don't have to skate hard to the bench on a line change.
A real team game, instead of a bunch of individuals trying to carry every play by themselves.
The Oilers are way, way to small to play in the NHL!! They are a KHL team, very skilled but zero grit!! the NHL is all about big men that are hard to play against, not the little boys like we have. The Oilers must do what ever they can in the offseason to get 2 players like Lucic or Backes. It is time to rebuild the rebuild!!
McBaevid
Lottery Dynasty
AlowlyMcOilersfan
Comrade
- Oct 30, 2011
- 7,526
- 3
I hate to say this, but our top line has been pretty bad since that win streak. I Know Nuge is out, but he wasnt doing much.
KeithIsActuallyBad
You thrust your pelvis, huh!
AlowlyMcOilersfan
Comrade
- Oct 30, 2011
- 7,526
- 3
this could work
"And Yakupov is out for his forth shift in a row- it's almost like there's more than one of him."
Bingo-our defense has no clue how to get the puck in our end let alone know what to do with it once they retrieve it.
OneMoreAstronaut
Reduce chainsaw size
- May 3, 2003
- 5,495
- 5
Can't outshoot an opponent when you have no ability to get the puck in your own end.
s7ark
RIP
- Jul 3, 2003
- 27,579
- 174
Shots can be a deceiving stat though. Are the shots the cause of the wins or another symptom of the actual cause? I suspect teams that outshoot their opponents tend to do so because they have excellent puck moving D and maintain possession for much of the game. Could that be why those teams win more and the shots are incidental?
Most any starter and half of the backups out there can handle 40 perimeter wristers a night without too much difficulty. Scoring chances and time of possession are the real measure of how a team performs, imo. But those are tough to track.
We need more scoring chances every game. And yes I know I am repeating myself here, we do that by adding size to get the puck back when we don't have it, and passing from the back to hit our forwards in stride. How many break aways have our kids been spring on from a laser pass out of our zone? Not many. We need less "off the glass and out" and more "pass to a streaking ..."
GrandLarseny
Jersey Enthusiast
Oiler fans can be so god damn greedy. I mean we have a president that has SIX cup rings and we all want him canned too?!
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