Speculation: Oilers habits that drive you nuts.

[T-Funk]

Zero desire to hit. We get beat down all over the ice with clean and dirty hits and we're backing off any chance to hit a guy clean, instead reaching from 5 feet away to poke at the puck we never get, then at random we'll board someone and take a penalty.

Panic giveaways starting on one side of the dzone, hammering the puck blindly around the boards to the other team just waiting at the blue line on the opposite side. Constant panic play probably because they're going to get hit. Take some juice off that and pass to your team or ice it imo. Don't cycle for the opponent.

Ozone possession (often any zone) by a dman. That dman had to pass to his d partner no matter what. Covered or not, a better play available or not, that pass to his partner is happening at the detriment of whatever is occurring on the ice.

The Oilers version of dump and chase: dump and chase and stop and reach.

 

[Frank the Tank]

Draisaitl.
Makes equally amazing passes and complete bonehead passes.
Laziness equalled by his determined play.
Such an enigmatic player.

I'd love to see Draisaitl in a Team Canada environment where he's surrounded by 4 lines of elite talent. It would allow one to understand if he stretches his shifts because he doesn't trust he teammates in key situations (that excuse would be removed)? Or does his ability to monitor his gas tank during a shift require refinement?

I love the player, but the scientist in me can't stop thinking of how to design an experiment where we'd find out why he continues to stretch his shifts (his biggest weakness). He gets away with it 90% of the time because he's a elite talent, but it does cause problems in key end-game situations

 

[ToeMcDrag83]

They never go 98-0 and it bothers me

 

[Leonardlizard]

Lackluster blue line pressure both ends of the rink... Mostly offensive lately... there are times when I see a puck Nurse almost hesitates towards pressuring (that he could get to) but he ends up retreating.

"Stand and watch" mentality with loose pucks. I feel like puck possession and the desire to keep it or get it isn't there .. less so in initial run with Woody but honestly I was screaming "get the f***ing puck what the f***!" A lot in the last two games. Like oh just let them get it in the corner and throw it freely around the perimeter...

 

[Leonardlizard]

match the level of hockey you're playing against and hope for the best...

 

[Leonardlizard]

CHASING THE GAME

 

[OfCorsiDid]

• Defence playing up the puck up the half wall when nobody is there.
• Forwards not helping the D on the half wall.
• Flipping the puck out of the zone instead of passing.
• Throwing pucks into skates when we do pass.
• Icing.
• Overpassing in the Ozone and PP.

 

[thadd]

Playing down to their oppositions level..

Out chanced, out worked and simply out played the bolts and canes and lost. Get massively outplayed by the shitty Hawks and Flyers. And only come out with 3 out of a needed 4 points.

Just a recent example, but it's been an issue for years.

This has blown my mind. We've had this habit since before we even had McDavid. It as if our team as a whole has never been aware of their own limits or the game they want to play.

This is why we can go to being tied to ending up being down 3 goals over the course of 5 minutes or why we often accomplish next to nothing in the first period.

Second period a wide variety of things happen. Sometimes they come out strong for the first 10-15 minutes and then let off the gas and still end up behind in the game and there's not enough time to make up for previous failures in the 3rd period. Sometimes we're still in it in the 3rd and can still end up losing games to bottom 10 teams.

 

[Tyrolean]

Oilers have had bad habits like forever.

 

[ThaddeusandYenj]

2 on 1 and the player with the puck tries to pass when they have the better odds of scoring by shooting on the fricken net. Oh, but that leads to my next pet peeve, which is even when they are 2 feet in front of the net they hit the glass or the boards instead. They cannot hit the net to save their lives.

 

[tardigrade81]

For me it has to be missing the net. That was a back breaker against Chicago. Absolutely frustrating. We have two of the best scorers in the league and even they shut their pants with a open net. It’s like the players get way too excited, over think and either hit the cross bar or miss all together. That was the difference in losing to the Hawks yesterday. (And Kosk’s bone headed 3rd goal) really hope they can settle down and figure that out.

 

[Gordy Elbows]

We could load any game the Oilers play on a video and likely see all the bad habits noted here.
The bad news….we’ll see them all in the games ahead. They never abandon them.

 

[Draiken]

I mean... getting scored on with the first shot of the game has to be #1, doesn't it?

 

[Duke74]

I'd love to see Draisaitl in a Team Canada environment where he's surrounded by 4 lines of elite talent. It would allow one to understand if he stretches his shifts because he doesn't trust he teammates in key situations (that excuse would be removed)? Or does his ability to monitor his gas tank during a shift require refinement?

I love the player, but the scientist in me can't stop thinking of how to design an experiment where we'd find out why he continues to stretch his shifts (his biggest weakness). He gets away with it 90% of the time because he's a elite talent, but it does cause problems in key end-game situations

My theory is that he takes a great burden of responsibility upon himself to produce. Part of this may result from knowing that if he and/or McDavid don't produce, the team won't win. Perhaps this can be interpreted as a lack of trust in his teammates, but it can also be his own sense of personal accountability. He wants to do whatever it takes to help the team win, but he doesn't realize his own limits, the fact that by staying on the ice for three-minute shifts, he's actually hurting the team. I wonder if someone, a coach, a player, or whoever, has talked to him about it. My guess is that they have but either Draisaitl is stubborn or old habits die hard. I don't expect this to change much over the course of his career. I think that at this point, we'll just have to live with it.

 

[94 Oil Drops]

As some of you who use the live GDTs regularly have probably noticed, over passing the puck makes me rage big time. Especially over passing on the power play!

 

[BoldNewLettuce]

no one agrees with starfishing? you sons of bitches

 

[Shaquille Oatmeal]

no one agrees with starfishing? you sons of bitches

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Obsession with the absolute least important aspects of hockey like intangibles/character/veterancy or whatever other crap Ken Holland preaches.

 

[mastersak]

Mcdavid passing instead of shooting when in the slot

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

At this point the list of things they do that don't piss me off is very, very small.

 

[snag]

alll the no look passes have been pissing me off for a while....

 

[Old Boys Club]

Basically the entire way they play the game, from the net out. They're incredibly unlikeable, this franchise is the equivalent of the trust fund kid with a huge inheritance that squanders it all on drugs and hookers.

No matter who the opponent is, I know the Oilers are capable of losing to them. Despite McDrai having immense talent, for whatever reason they prefer to play a fancy and complicated style as opposed to a straight line sort of game. Every player on this team underperforms what they are capable of, as evidenced by the success of former players after leaving and the prior success a lot of players have before arriving here.

To top it all off, the guys at the top have remained comfortably employed for the past 15 years. There is no threat of being fired, they just get promoted away from the spotlight.

Nothing has changed from the DoD days.

 

[Kerberos]

The lack of determination, intelligence and pride.

There's an absence of it in this organization from the top all the way on down.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Losing.

 

[Shaquille Oatmeal]

Pretending Mike Smith is a goalie