Post-Game Talk: How many lessons will it take?

[CycloneSweep]

After he is healthy we should send him down. He needs more AHL time.

 

[Duke74]

But here's the rub with that paragraph; Draisaitl is a creative player, creative players often times try things that other players flat out will not try, but that's what makes Draisaitl great. He will always have the occasional errant pass that gets picked off and turned the other way, that will never go away as long as continues to try and be a creative. what makes him a superstar, is the fact that those plays work the majority of the time, but when they don't work, it looks absolutely atrocious, and usually leads to scoring chances against. Now, I would much rather have a player of Draisaitls caliber making some risky plays to create offense and putting up 110 points a season, then have a "safe" Draisaitl not try that stuff and be a 65 point player.

I remember another creative player floating risky errant passes that would get picked off by the other team a couple times a game almost every game, but the fact that he would put up 200 points in a season made up for the risky plays that didn't work out.

Draisaitl will always have that aspect to his game, and we he has games where not a lot seems to be working, it looks bad, like real bad, but then he turns around and has a game where everything is working and becomes a German hockey god again. Such is life with his type of player.

Interesting perspective. Upon watching some of the highlights again, I think it was one of those games where everything went wrong for him: not only did his two errant passes result in Sabres goals but all of his own Grade-A setups to others (Nurse, Hyman, RNH) failed to cash. I hope that the GA were a particularly stinging lesson for him and that he can still find a way to be creative while minimizing risk.

I know we are a flawed team and maybe not as good as last season has make us believe...but this game was a bad example...we dominated the first and the third period...Comrie was awesome and thats the only reason we didn't win the game.

At the end of the first if Yams digit the inner post its 2:1 and we will run away with it.

I know Drai plays a risky style but I don't get the hate in here...the first time he lost the puck he got it mid air and were preasured by two Sabres...after that it's an amazing play by Thompson and also a good backcheck from Drai without reward....Nurse and Skinner both had a chance to stop it...but as I said amazing play.

Yeah the other pass...Sure bad decision to try it...but if Yams had his stick on the ice in front of him he can easy control him (I know you can only pass if the pass receiver wants the puck and is ready for it) but WTF is Barrie defending there? A player with his experience is also in no mans land as the last defender...
Otherwise Drai had insane advanced numbers in this game (even Bretter than McD, yeah I know he doesnt try as risky passes as Drai and don't need them to be effective)
Thats Drais game...and I take the risk everyday as long as his positive output is the same.
That was one of the luckiest wins this year and will be one of a few at the end of the year.
And for the big minutes McDrai played this game....just keep in mind they played half the game with 10 forwards instead of 12.

Just relax...we will 2 out of the next 3.

I've struggled to understand it for the longest time. I think there's several reasons for it. I think people react in the moment. I also think that expectations for Draisaitl are higher than they are for say, Yamamoto, so he gets a pass for not being in the right spot to receive the pass. At the same time, if McDavid made those giveaways, you wouldn't hear a peep against him because his generational status overshadows any blunders he may make. Fans of Draisaitl will just have to put up with tearing their hair out for the next decade

 

[Drivesaitl]

But here's the rub with that paragraph; Draisaitl is a creative player, creative players often times try things that other players flat out will not try, but that's what makes Draisaitl great. He will always have the occasional errant pass that gets picked off and turned the other way, that will never go away as long as continues to try and be a creative. what makes him a superstar, is the fact that those plays work the majority of the time, but when they don't work, it looks absolutely atrocious, and usually leads to scoring chances against. Now, I would much rather have a player of Draisaitls caliber making some risky plays to create offense and putting up 110 points a season, then have a "safe" Draisaitl not try that stuff and be a 65 point player.

I remember another creative player floating risky errant passes that would get picked off by the other team a couple times a game almost every game, but the fact that he would put up 200 points in a season made up for the risky plays that didn't work out.

Draisaitl will always have that aspect to his game, and we he has games where not a lot seems to be working, it looks bad, like real bad, but then he turns around and has a game where everything is working and becomes a German hockey god again. Such is life with his type of player.

I've supported Drai on a lot of these plays but the play that led to the Peterko goal was a really bad pass. Drai had Nemo on the wing darting deep and could have had a breakaway. Drai didn't put the puck there which could have been a safer play lobbing a puck into space there, putting it deep. Drai instead passed across, up high, and theres no reason to do that on the play. Drai's pass in effect put his own team mates on the wrong side of the puck and put himself on the wrong side of puck. On the play Drai is also passing high to Yama who it should be mentioned is a far from ideal passing target in traffic. Yams doesn't end up coming up with many of those passes and isn't strong on puck.

The specific point is that a pass up high is more dangerous in creating Ga possibility than it is GF possibility. Especially if that area of the ice is covered which it was. It was just a careless pass. The issue is whether the player makes the pass up high or down low. Passing down is the safer play, and if available take it on the rush if zone is already gained.

 

[FlameChampion]

After he is healthy we should send him down. He needs more AHL time.

I think after serving up a pancake on his first play in the regular season, hes been tentative. Combined with that his shifts and toi have been all over the place. Woodcroft has to either give him some shifts and tell him to play his game or Holland needs to send him to the AHL if Woodcroft doesnt feel comfortable playing him.

 

[K1984]

In general the team system (or compulsion?) to fire the puck point immediately on every zone entry needs to stop. Pretty much nobody in the equation seems to be able to recognize when not to do it and then the 10 bell turnovers that result in instant odd man breaks the other way are the result.

We have bigger body wingers and centres that should be able to work the puck down low before moving it high. McDavid, Drai, Hyman, Kane, Jesse and even McLeod usually fair pretty well down low. Yamamoto too. I don't understand the logic of just pissing it to the point immediately with this team.

Honestly if we just cut out the goals that we essentially score in our own net we will be fine. We don't get scored on a ton based off conventional plays, it's always a catastrophic f*** up that was completely avoidable.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I still don't think that just because there is a similar issue that we've seen in the past, that that means that the same thing is happening. It's worthwhile to ask that question of course, but I'm not resting on any conclusion until we get a true sample. We are still very much in a phase where poor execution might be just the team working through what the depth chart should be arranged like. Or, if we do find consistency this year, it wouldn't even be concerning if there was a rough stretch of a few games in the middle of otherwise good play.

Also by 'cult of woodcroft' I just meant those who believe that he's a great coach who deserves some credit for the success last season. It's completely reasonable at this point to be on that side. I just call it a cult as a bit of a joke, but also just that they are sticking by him even as the mood is shifting negative around here.

I don't think putting McDavid and Draisaitl together is bad coaching either. Every coach in the league would do it in different situations, no matter how committed they'd be to spreading talent. I'll definitely add that to the pile of unfair critiques of Tippett, although the issue there might be minutes.

The hope for Woodcroft is that his defensive systems from last season were for real, and that they'd give us better consistency like they did last year (and I'll put Manson with Woodcroft here). If that consistency can be rekindled here, then we won't fall behind so much in games, and the coach won't feel the need to put McDavid and Drai together so much to fight back into the game.

Tippett put McDrai together in situations where the team couldn't piss a drop of production and at times where we had virtually no productive topsix wingers. The depth at forward Tipps had was paper thin. This is not the ase at all now with Woody and he has full season of Kane to work with here, and also possibly Holloway. Hyman also wasn't here for the majority ot the Tippett tenure. The propensity to load up should be deterred by depth and now being able to utilize players other ways and still have strong enough lines without loading up. You get more game bending minutes if McDrai are seperated. It makes it harder on opponents who then have to potentially focus on dangerous players the majority of the minutes of the game, instead of say 24 minutes of the game.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Of course all decisions are made in an effort to win games. What decisions would ever be made to ever lose games?

Woodcroft was pretty consistent throughout training camp playing duos together to build or retain chemistry: Kane McDavid; Hyman Draisaitl; McLeod Nugent Hopkins. He integrated others throughout camp to evaluate fit to complement the various set duos.

My comment is largely in response to some posts that have excused this team's poor starts because the big guns didn't play enough together during camp. If there were any merits to this theory, it bares questioning why Woodcroft would change his lineup and risk creating turbulence going into a statement game against the team's greatest rival ... and only second game of the season. Keeping it simple would have seemed to be the smart play.

As the game played out, clearly this strategy did not work as the Oilers were run out of their rink in the first period and the line blender went to work again. This team expects to win this year. There's no feeling out period for the roster 'to take.' That was training camp and extended practice building up the core duos. This year from all levels of the organization we hear that this team expects to win.

But again, as repeated, we're only at a 3 game sample. No need to drop the life boats. However reasonable to look at the factors that have this team losing 2 of 3 within a cherry home schedule to start the year.

What we hear from the Oilers seldom matters. Theres no established connection or even correlation between what players here state and the kind of thing that happens in games. Hockey quotes are mostly composed of say the right thing snippets. Hockey players are well versed in this. On teams that have historically had less expectation the pad quotes occur to even greater degree. Its a sobering exercise to go back to pregame quotes after games have been played. One realizes how little the spoken words have to do with the actual games and play.

 

[Juxta Position]

I've supported Drai on a lot of these plays but the play that led to the Peterko goal was a really bad pass. Drai had Nemo on the wing darting deep and could have had a breakaway. Drai didn't put the puck there which could have been a safer play lobbing a puck into space there, putting it deep. Drai instead passed across, up high, and theres no reason to do that on the play. Drai's pass in effect put his own team mates on the wrong side of the puck and put himself on the wrong side of puck. On the play Drai is also passing high to Yama who it should be mentioned is a far from ideal passing target in traffic. Yams doesn't end up coming up with many of those passes and isn't strong on puck.

The specific point is that a pass up high is more dangerous in creating Ga possibility than it is GF possibility. Especially if that area of the ice is covered which it was. It was just a careless pass. The issue is whether the player makes the pass up high or down low. Passing down is the safer play, and if available take it on the rush if zone is already gained.

I disagree with that. For one thing it's not on Draisaitl to make sure Yamamoto is ready for the pass, Yama needs to realize who he is playing with and expect that passes could come at anytime from anywhere when Drai has the puck.

there's a reason why the up high pass is a riskier play, it also has a much higher probability for success as the trailing player is immediately in a grade A scoring area with minimal coverage. Yes, the chance for a turnover is higher as well, but I would much rather Drai continue to look for those weak coverage passes as he has the skill to pull them off.

Neutering creativity is what gave us the current iteration of Nuge. When he came up he was an incredibly creative player, but then coaches like Eakins got their filthy mitts into him stifled any semblance of creativity to have him play a "safe" game. Offensively he's a shadow of the player he once was. Sure he's slightly better defensively, but is it really worth it at the expense of not being able to create anything offensively.

There are so many examples of Drai firing rink wide backhand passes to players that connect and lead to direct scoring chances, that he has become arguable the most dangerous playmaker in the game. Draisaitl will always try the high risk, high reward plays, and to get him to look to make the safe plays all the time will leave him a far less effective NHL player.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I disagree with that. For one thing it's not on Draisaitl to make sure Yamamoto is ready for the pass, Yama needs to realize who he is playing with and expect that passes could come at anytime from anywhere when Drai has the puck.

there's a reason why the up high pass is a riskier play, it also has a much higher probability for success as the trailing player is immediately in a grade A scoring area with minimal coverage. Yes, the chance for a turnover is higher as well, but I would much rather Drai continue to look for those weak coverage passes as he has the skill to pull them off.

Neutering creativity is what gave us the current iteration of Nuge. When he came up he was an incredibly creative player, but then coaches like Eakins got their filthy mitts into him stifled any semblance of creativity to have him play a "safe" game. Offensively he's a shadow of the player he once was. Sure he's slightly better defensively, but is it really worth it at the expense of not being able to create anything offensively.

There are so many examples of Drai firing rink wide backhand passes to players that connect and lead to direct scoring chances, that he has become arguable the most dangerous playmaker in the game. Draisaitl will always try the high risk, high reward plays, and to get him to look to make the safe plays all the time will leave him a far less effective NHL player.

Yama is not a good pass option up high. For that risk position on ice you would need somebody that is going to come up with most of those pucks. To be clear I don't even think Yama should be with Drai. He's not a strong cycle option either.

My issue isn't that Drai can make amazing passes. If you know anything about my posting you know I speak of the risk reward of that at length and I've often pushed back at the conclusions here based on whether play worked or not.

But still, I'm a purist. passing the puck back from the wing to high blueline in a competed area is a high risk/low reward play. It is not justtifed. Nor did Drai have to force the pass there he had time and space. But the key is a pass to that position does not create HDC for, it creates them against. That play has more probability of going wrong than right. Plus that its Yama who is not nearly good enough pass target to be playing in NHL topsix.

 

[Broberg Speed]

I have no doubt the club will turn it around but we should be looking to the long term outlook beyond the regular season.

Perhaps not looking to next season's plans and line-up strategy, but to the possible playoff matches we may encounter this postseason. It's early but we should begin contemplating line matchups against the best in our Division and Conference.

We have some call-up options but probably not anyone that slots easily into the top six or even top 9 and the defense is thin on the immediate horizon.

The players we should focus on acquiring, upgrading over what we already have, likely are not all that expensive to acquire. We should be just looking for solid NHL contributors. That's it. It's shedding the salaries of Foegele, Yamamoto and Puljujarvi that will come at a cost.

This is all on Holland now. Even the buyouts are all on Holland, even if the buyouts were well advised at the time.

 

[FlameChampion]

Do we not have pre-game or game thread anymore? Everyone feeling apathy about our start? lol

Edit: Didnt realize the pole thing was a PGT lol

 

[Broberg Speed]

Do we not have pre-game or game thread anymore? Everyone feeling apathy about our start? lol

Edit: Didnt realize the pole thing was a PGT lol

you could do it and different posters could add content if you had nothing planned

Edit: oh yeah, I never open the poll threads either.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Do we not have pre-game or game thread anymore? Everyone feeling apathy about our start? lol

Edit: Didnt realize the pole thing was a PGT lol

WE only had a first game GDT established just hours before opening game. Definitely a lot of apathy which is somewhat odd given the team went deep in playoffs last year. Somehow interest has decreased, or people have less time after returning to work and no covid restrictions etc. I think people were more involved here online during the Covid years. Distance contacting. heh.

 

[ujju2]

Oh btw does anyone remember when Drai used to be an Ovi-like threat from the right circle? What happened to that?

Not criticizing drai, just thought it's funny how much that element of his game has shrunk both last playoffs and the 3 games this year. He's getting his points in different ways now I think. Sort of a reverse-Ovi situation haha.

 

[Juxta Position]

Yama is not a good pass option up high. For that risk position on ice you would need somebody that is going to come up with most of those pucks. To be clear I don't even think Yama should be with Drai. He's not a strong cycle option either.

My issue isn't that Drai can make amazing passes. If you know anything about my posting you know I speak of the risk reward of that at length and I've often pushed back at the conclusions here based on whether play worked or not.

But still, I'm a purist. passing the puck back from the wing to high blueline in a competed area is a high risk/low reward play. It is not justtifed. Nor did Drai have to force the pass there he had time and space. But the key is a pass to that position does not create HDC for, it creates them against. That play has more probability of going wrong than right. Plus that its Yama who is not nearly good enough pass target to be playing in NHL topsix.

I do agree on the Yama points there, all of them. I don't think he's a good fit in general with Drai, and definitey not a good high man option as well.

i don't agree on the opinion of that specific play though. the reason you pay players like McDavid and Draisaitl more than players like Foegle is that McDrai can pull that stuff off and should be allowed to attempt it. If Foegle even thought about attempting a play like that he shouldn't see the ice for the rest of the game.

Safe plays are safe defensively as well, but they are also easily defended. The high skilled players get paid the big bucks to break those defenses down through unorthodox creative plays, if everyone played the safe play all the time, well, welcome to Jacques Lemaire's NHL. nobody wants that.

I get what you're saying, I really do, but Draisaitl is a game breaker because he is not afraid to try and make something out of nothing. and yes, sometimes it will backfire, occasionally in spectacular fashion, but he can also single handedly win games or even series because of that ability.

 

[ujju2]

I do agree on the Yama points there, all of them. I don't think he's a good fit in general with Drai, and definitey not a good high man option as well.

i don't agree on the opinion of that specific play though. the reason you pay players like McDavid and Draisaitl more than players like Foegle is that McDrai can pull that stuff off and should be allowed to attempt it. If Foegle even thought about attempting a play like that he shouldn't see the ice for the rest of the game.

Safe plays are safe defensively as well, but they are also easily defended. The high skilled players get paid the big bucks to break those defenses down through unorthodox creative plays, if everyone played the safe play all the time, well, welcome to Jacques Lemaire's NHL. nobody wants that.

I get what you're saying, I really do, but Draisaitl is a game breaker because he is not afraid to try and make something out of nothing. and yes, sometimes it will backfire, occasionally in spectacular fashion, but he can also single handedly win games or even series because of that ability.

I guess again the question remains what was there to be gained? What is the game-changing moment that comes from Yams having the puck on the blue line? The reward wasn't nearly big enough to justify the risk.

 

[Duke74]

Oh btw does anyone remember when Drai used to be an Ovi-like threat from the right circle? What happened to that?

Not criticizing drai, just thought it's funny how much that element of his game has shrunk both last playoffs and the 3 games this year. He's getting his points in different ways now I think. Sort of a reverse-Ovi situation haha.

I was wondering about that, too. I think his injury is still hampering his shot mechanics or at least his confidence with his shot. As I mentioned in another thread, I had assumed his offseason regimen would have focused on rehabbing his ankle and working on the aspects of his shot mechanics that the injury affected. I think part of it too relates to positioning as McDavid often works in the right circle while Draisaitl is stationed at the bumper, a position in which I think fails to take advantage of his best attributes. In any event, I hope he works through it and we start seeing some one-timer goals from that spot soon.

 

[Juxta Position]

I guess again the question remains what was there to be gained? What is the game-changing moment that comes from Yams having the puck on the blue line? The reward wasn't nearly big enough to justify the risk.

the reward on that particular play was yams would have had a clear lane to the net relatively unopposed. now what he would do with opportunity is a different story.

whenever I see that I think back to the game winning goal in game 6 against LA, same type of play, Draisaitl throws it back to Barrie, and Barrie finishes. If Draisaitl doesn't make that play, that scoring opportunity never happens and we could be looking at a very different outcome for that series.

 

[DaGap]

I was wondering about that, too. I think his injury is still hampering his shot mechanics or at least his confidence with his shot. As I mentioned in another thread, I had assumed his offseason regimen would have focused on rehabbing his ankle and working on the aspects of his shot mechanics that the injury affected. I think part of it too relates to positioning as McDavid often works in the right circle while Draisaitl is stationed at the bumper, a position in which I think fails to take advantage of his best attributes. In any event, I hope he works through it and we start seeing some one-timer goals from that spot soon.

Naw hes just deciding that he likes to shoot from a low percentage angle instead of moving up to the dot and more towards the slot

 

[Drivesaitl]

Oh btw does anyone remember when Drai used to be an Ovi-like threat from the right circle? What happened to that?

Not criticizing drai, just thought it's funny how much that element of his game has shrunk both last playoffs and the 3 games this year. He's getting his points in different ways now I think. Sort of a reverse-Ovi situation haha.

Hasn't been the same since the two injuries. I also find it interesting how much the org throws shade at the injury that initially occured in the Anaheim game. Only the injury incurred in the LA playoff game was talked about much. Are they even the same or different injuries. wE know the LA one was high ankle. The other was never disclosed what the injury was. Both I think put a damper on his shot mechanics and timing. I'm not even convinced he's 100%.

 

[Proko88]

Wrong thread

 

[gordonhught]

Where is the post gsme thread for the caps gsme?