Oilers On Pace To Allow 2nd Highest GA In Franchise History

[Soundwave]

This thread reminded me of a quote Eakins gave during the postgame scrum in Philly that I thought should have gotten some more attention.



Well that's just SUPER and NOT AT ALL NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED. See, being a know-nothing fan, I would have just said that on, for example, Philly's second goal, the problem was that Hall left his man (Hartnell) alone in the slot in order to go for a skate and pray for a breakout pass, even though we didn't have possession of the puck. To a dope like me, it seems obvious that Hall literally being at center ice when Hartnell scores 40 of the clip below) is a problem, but in reality, the problem was that one or two other guys weren't appropriately sharing Hall's man. Phew! Who knew hockey was such a complicated game!!

I would have just assumed that essentially playing hot potato with your D-zone coverage is just a terrible plan for success, but, again what the hell do I know?

[NHL]2013020245-304-h[/NHL]

Yeah that and the Tampa game where Eakins was happy with our defensive effort ... Stamkos had like 3 or 4 uncontested shots from the slot on top of the two chances he did score on.

Is that all part of the system too? It's just horrid.

 

[sepHF]

Eakins has been an absolute disaster

 

[Suxnet]

History will be made.

 

[Master Lok]

I know people will say you can't keep blaming the coach, but how in the world have we gotten this much worse defensively? This swarm system that Eakins is employing is not working at all, even Pat Quinn's hapless Oilers of a few years ago only gave up 284.

Goaltending is part of the issue, but this defensive system is a complete and utter disaster. The players aren't getting it.

Soundwave,
I don't think it is the swarm system that's the problem. I think its turnovers. There are many times when the Oilers gain the puck in their own zone however, the Oilers puck possession in their own zone is horrendous. In particular the kids - Eberle, Yakupov, Hall, and sadly, Hemsky - all have the puck 100% and then try for either a fancy pass, or deke that kills them. Instead of chipping the puck out just to get the puck out over the blueline.

I've been watching players carefully - in particular Smyth, Arcobello, Acton - those guys really try to get the puck out of the zone first.