Post-Game Talk: Oilers sing the Blues

[McCombo]

Pretty bad effort, but team hasn't had a two day break since 23rd of november That accounts to 14 games in 26 days. Top guys are playing very big minutes, so no wonder they look sluggish. There is also no time to practice, it is just playing games and trying to recover in a one day between games.

Now they will have 3 day break before Tampa Bay (by far the best team in league right now) and after that 4 day Xmas break. Well needed and earned breaks for our top guys. When is Russell coming back?

The poor start the team had I am fairly satisfied what I have seen after that and espicially after coaching change. Either in playoff position or barely out in Xmas break.

What I have seen so far I would count Calgary and San Jose to be top2 in Pacific. Anaheim, Vegas and Oilers battle for third spot and wild cards.

Anaheim is one of the worst teams in the league if we look at expected goals, Corsi, Fenwick, scoring chances and high danger scoring chances. Gibson has been the best goalie so he is their clear MVP, but I would lean towards slight drop if their play doesn't improve! Bounces are going to end up in their net if they are regularly out played.

Vegas is the opposite. Good numbers and are starting to collect wins after poor/unlucky start. I would put my money down that they end up above Anaheim after 82 games. They are over playing Fleury a lot, we will see if that will backfire via injury.

Oilers are in the middle ground in numbers. Eye test shows much improved defensive zone coverage (at least before this two last games). Powerplay needs a makeover. Defense really needs Russell back asap, of course Klef is more important but he isn't coming back for a while. I would say it is wild card or barely out for Oilers if nothing drastically changes for Oilers or competing teams.

 

[Oilers in NS]

I just don't get Hitchcock's reasoning for scratching Spooner, Zykov and Wideman and dressing Rattie who has done SFA all season and Garrison.

They were rolling with Spooner and Zykov, with Spooner starting to get some points and Zykov trying to settle in but was driving the net. Wideman just isn't getting any opportunities.

Garrison needs to sit for sure, Spooner has been playing good in my view, and I thought Wideman was playing good. Chiarelli needs d help now, immediately

 

[LaGu]

10 GP last 18 days, last games without Russell and Klefbom (who are much more important than I think some realise). Not surprising result tbh.

It'll hopefully be great for the team with some rest now with only 1 GP in the next 7 days. Hopefully Russell is back by the end of the Christmas break.

 

[Oilers in NS]

Blame Woodcroft ... oops
Blame McLellan ... oops
Blame Hitchcock .... oops

Look out Santa Claus, you're going be next in line to be blamed for the Oilers PP.

Blame me. I usually watch the games and yell at TV from NS hoping they will hear me in Edmonton. I fell asleep last night in 1st. Sounds like it was a good idea

 

[Oilers in NS]

I’m not sure what’s worse:

Lucic with only 1 goal, or Rieder with zero

Rieder is playing good. He was flying before injury, played great the previous games before this game

 

[ThePhoenixx]

The Oilers looked really tired.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I took my family of four to this dumpster fire. Ouch.

Hope you got the tickets for free or didn't pay much. I saw tickets as low as 30bucks for this one. I think people must have had a premonition.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Rieder is playing good. He was flying before injury, played great the previous games before this game

Rieder also hit a post which could have went. He was relentless on the forecheck and played well in his minutes. His game was probably disrupted by the 5 Oilers PP's where he doesn't get on the ice much.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

What an awful game that was. They scored once against Jake Allen, woof.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I haven’t watch the whole thing, I tuned out after the 3rd goal.

Does Hitch ever changes his lines when one isn’t going? I know he does it after PP and P.K. I would have liked to have Chiasson taken off the first line. It wasn’t going, he should have put a guy with better forecheck and puck control to help the two top canon.

Improfise, Adapt, Overcome.

5mins in theres a routine transition pass to Chiasson and he fumbles it and the puck is going the other way. Which happened a lot of other times in the night. Its as if people are only looking at the goals. The trouble is Chiasson, talent wise, of course limits what the topline can do on some nights. When McDrai are not feeling their legs its hard for them to do both the digging for pucks, the grunt work, and the superstar plays while Chiasson stands around in the slot like he's a sniper. The trouble is we really have nobody like the bolded on our roster. This is no knock on Chiasson but the sad thing is he's our best winger right now. That's a ridiculous state of affairs with only Chiarelli to blame.

 

[BamaOil]

Oilers record the last two years where McDavid registers at least 1 point:

50-29-7 (not bad at all, easily a solid win %)

Oilers record the last two years where McDavid doesn't register a point:

4-24-2 (uh way worse than even the Eakins years).

That's just...my Lord... absolutely incredible. One player is NOT supposed to make such a big difference in hockey. Maybe basketball, maybe baseball if you're hitting 50 hone runs a season, but those results are like if Floyd Mayweather had a twin brother who sucked at boxing and made him fight a few fights. That's how striking those records are.

Based on that stat alone, if we go off of the actual definition of the Hart trophy, McDavid should win it every season.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Not world beaters... but with this year's version of Klefbom (above average)... Russell (solid and reliable as always) and if Sekera was even close to 16/17 Sekera... all in the lineup, this game wouldn't have the same outcome.

That's not to say it was all on the D either... the 12 forwards as a group were awful out there offensively.

There's a group of wingers (The Insipid Six) on this team that continue to be horrendous...

Goal production:

JP 3
Khaira 2
Kassian 2
Rattie 2
Lucic 1
Rieder 0

10 goals combined after 35 games. That's a pace that will see the Ho-Hum Half Dozen score a grand total of 23 all season long.

Sad.
Pathetic even.

In defense of Rieder he's only played 21 games and on 5 of the nights he's had a bare 10mins or less a night which is frankly disgusting considering he's a can opener that can play so many roles. If you're not using this guy for 15mins/night there should be explanation. The guy works hard, is hot on the forecheck, good on coverage, skates like the wind and good at breaking up passing lanes. McLellan didn't seem to have a clue who this guy even is. Was very involved last night, again, and hit the post on a good cycle sequence.

In defence of Khaira he's also been buried and forgotten in the lineup but has 11 assists. To put it into perspective he has almost as many pts as Chiasson who has had around 20 games in topsix, PP, now and is at least scoring, but not much else. If the Oilers wanted to lessen the workload for McDrai a bit they might actually put diggers like Khaira or Rieder on first line, let them do the grunt work and let McDrai naturally worry about the goals. Both Khaira and Rieder shown they can pass the puck as well. Khaira actually repeatedly doing a nice stop up move he apparently learned from Drai. He's learning how to hold, how to wait, and read who he can feed it to. With his strength, and him learning to do these things he can actually make more of a contribution in topsix. Given our lack of winger depth Khaira has earned more topsix.

 

[varano]

Tavares 11, Marleau 6.5, nylander 7, kadri 4.5, Matthews 12, marner 9-10. Andersen is 5 mill. Rielly and zaitsev is another 10. Plus kessel still costing them 1.2 million. That’s 13.5 million left for 6 forwards and 5 defense and a back up. Gardiner and kapanen coming up on contract years also. Tell me again how they won’t have to lose any depth?

We won't. Hainsey is gone, and Gardiner is gone... we have all of our top players that will be locked up and we have sandin and liljegren coming to fill the blue line. Marleau is gone the year after.

Lou created a succession plan of cap space for us that gets the older vets off the books year after year and Gardiner is going to be an oiler next year.

 

[varano]

Can someone explain why talbot was playing yesterday when Koskinen has his home record the way it is?

 

[Drivesaitl]

What an awful game that was. They scored once against Jake Allen, woof.

Yeah I called this one. It had every look of beware this night because the Blues just got a huge tongue lashing for their last putrid game and were going to be better in this one. As others have mentioned the Blues don't often play too stinkers in a row (although the Oilers do). The other thing that had me concerned, I stated it, is the Oilers play Tampa next. I was pretty certain the Oilers would overlook this one regardless of what they were stating. Its schedule effects as well. Oilers have 3 days off now and then the Lightning, and then 4 days off. I had a feeling the Oilers were going to take a mini vacay during this stretch.

I do think they show up against the Lightning but the result there, even with extreme fortune, is kind of moot considering we got zero pts against the Blue Nucks.

 

[BlackDogg]

i actually had a dream that the Oilers were down 3-1 with the goalie pulled and scored two goals. It was so real until I woke up this morning.

 

[Oilers in NS]

Rieder also hit a post which could have went. He was relentless on the forecheck and played well in his minutes. His game was probably disrupted by the 5 Oilers PP's where he doesn't get on the ice much.

Exactly, thank you. Someone always has to be a whipping boy. When we signed Rieder, I was happy. The ghost of Kale Kassey would leave. Rieder is helping this team, not hurting

 

[Oilers in NS]

We won't. Hainsey is gone, and Gardiner is gone... we have all of our top players that will be locked up and we have sandin and liljegren coming to fill the blue line. Marleau is gone the year after.

Lou created a succession plan of cap space for us that gets the older vets off the books year after year and Gardiner is going to be an oiler next year.

No thx

 

[Drivesaitl]

Can someone explain why talbot was playing yesterday when Koskinen has his home record the way it is?

Because its completely sensible to play and utilize both goalies when you have two healthy goalies that can play. Which Hitch, unlike McLellan, realizes. As it is the distribution has been Koski 10 games and Talbot 5 during Hitchs run. Its an 82 game season. You do this because the season is long and Koski has never played as many games as an NHL schedule can dictate.

Next, who was in net had nothing at all to do with the outcome. We scored 1 goal. That was matched by the NHL giving the Blues a free goal on a fictitious call. A joke of a call. With the goal being awarded AFTER the play and a review and without clear evidence that the puck was over the line. Talbot actually kept the Oilers in it as once again the Oilers started the game completely flat. In most of two periods we had 5 PP's already and only 17 SOG which is disgusting. Granted 5 PP's you should have way more SOG than that over two periods. Talbot held the fort when the Blues had a 1-0 lead as they had lots of chances to make it 2-0 and he was stoning them. In one shift the Blues got 3 shots off from the slot.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Exactly, thank you. Someone always has to be a whipping boy. When we signed Rieder, I was happy. The ghost of Kale Kassey would leave. Rieder is helping this team, not hurting

What a mind numbingly stupid trade that was. I flamed it at the time as well.

We have Brodz and Rieder back and both players are among our hardest workers. They have always have been, here or elsewhere. How does an org determine there is no value or use for players like this.

 

[Nunymare]

Also, is there a team worse than us with the goalie pulled? It's bloody comical how bad we are and literally a free goal for the other team every time we pull the goalie, and it's been that way for at least the last 2-3 seasons. I can probably count on one hand the number of game tying goals we've scored in the last minute over the last 2 seasons.

 

[elmeroil]

This place is so much fun after a loss, still sitting in a playoff spot with some rest for the boys coming up. I'm a realist and know they are still going to have let down games no matter who the coach is. Hopefully Koskinen can steady the ship against Tampa.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Also, is there a team worse than us with the goalie pulled? It's bloody comical how bad we are and literally a free goal for the other team every time we pull the goalie, and it's been that way for at least the last 2-3 seasons. I can probably count on one hand the number of game tying goals we've scored in the last minute over the last 2 seasons.

Its sad panda time as well that the faceoff was pretty much a 50/50, McD was close to the puck and the Blues won it clean and moved easy up the ice with it. McD lost the battle for the loose puck, needing a goal Drai moved forwards to the net ( a bad mistake) and it was over as soon as the Blues were able to move the puck up pretty easily.

But the goalie pulled situation pretty much mirrored how inept we were with man advantage all night. No sense of urgency. Just looked bone tired because the PP's really mean the same players are just getting more minutes and that they are already done, toasted.

It stings a bit that the game after Hitch was pleading for more calls, we get them, and on the results I could care less we had them. These were throw backs. Fish not worth having.

 

[Drivesaitl]

This place is so much fun after a loss, still sitting in a playoff spot with some rest for the boys coming up. I'm a realist and know they are still going to have let down games no matter who the coach is. Hopefully Koskinen can steady the ship against Tampa.

Its never that great a look to state you derive satisfaction viewing others misery. That's how one can read what you posted.

I'm a realist too and knew our top 3 forwards are exhausted. Running on fumes. WE don't have much else to generate offense.

 

[Todd from Leduc]

Reffing lost us another one.