Post-Game Talk: Oilers Wars: A New Hope

[McTonyBrar]

 

[bone]

Don't mind the player, but have no idea how they could find $6.25M for the next 3 years. Will also be 36 when the contract runs out.

 

[McJeety McJeet]

Don't mind the player, but have no idea how they could find $6.25M for the next 3 years. Will also be 36 when the contract runs out.

Yuck.

 

[tardigrade81]

Playoffs?!! Playoffs!!? Let's just win a f***ing game!

Lol good point

All I have to look forward to now is the colts getting Will Levi’s in the draft. Oilers better at least make playoffs for me

 

[Gordy Elbows]

Was Niemo that bad, that he deserved only 3½ min?

Oilers need a new partner for Nurse badly through trade.

I’ve been fine with Nemo’s play recently…definitely deserves more play time.

 

[SwedishFire]

I like how Barrie and Draisaitls stepped up to be vocal in the room. And maybe some more guys. Draisaitls seems to have some leader instuncts, albeit not like to have that label. My gut tells me that all of Fogele, Yamamoto and Pulju got some reality checks, Yamamoto played idmideatly better. Did Niemo had his share too? I hope Nurse got some of it too.

 

[The Panther]

I like the suggested idea of the 11-7 with Holloway, McLeod, and Yamamoto on the "third" line. That line would almost never score, but the speed of McLeod and Holloway on the rush and the puck-pursuit of Yamamoto would make them a pain in the ass to play against, and if nothing else they'd hold their own and often hem the opposition in.

I love Yamamoto, but I have to admit he lives a kind of 'charmed life' on the Oilers. It seems both Connor and Leon love playing with him, so he gets a disproportionate amount of time in the top-six, when, by production rates, you'd have to say he doesn't really belong. However, the current line of he, McDavid, and Kostin looked good for one game anyway, so I'd just leave it for now and see where it goes. Anyway, Evander Kane will be back soon.

Foegele, I agree, is a weird player. Has the size, strength, shot, but lacks playmaking / passing ability (which is kind of another way of saying he lacks hockey IQ). Most of all, though, he's just INCONSISTENT, which is why we all get frustrated. It's like he'll get elevated up a line or he'll finally score after 7 weeks, and then he shows flashes of brilliance for three or four games in a row and you think, "Oh! He's found his game at last." Then, he disappears for the next ten games. As consistency is the Oilers' nemesis, I'd say he is more part of the problem than the solution.

Stuart Skinner has really been a revelation this season, for me. He has finally provided the consistency (not brilliance, necessarily, but consistency) in goal that the Oilers have desperately needed. You pretty much know what you're going to get, every night, which was not the case with Smith or Koskinen (or Campbell, yet). That said, I am always a little baffled by the coaching staff's (it might not be Woodcroft) decisions about who starts in goal. They seem to be over-playing Skinner recently, and then when there's a chance for a rested Campbell to start against a weaker opponent... they play Skinner. Then, they play cold Campbell against tougher teams. Not sure what the logic is.

Anyway, Campbell has been looking better and was very good yesterday. My attitude to goalies is: I don't care how many shots they face or how bad goals against are -- as long as they let in 2 goals or less (which Campbell did the past two starts), then the team's loss is never the goalie's fault. I repeat: NEVER the goalie's fault. A team on home-ice with McDavid and Draisaitl (and 5 power plays, like they had the previous Campbell game) needs to be able to score 2 goals in sixty minutes. If not, the loss is on the skaters, regardless of how good/bad the 2 goals against were.

 

[yukoner88]

"Put the La Bamba 's in the bag"

 

[bucks_oil]

Thanks for the exchange. Of course we see some the same, some differently.

Goaltending in hockey is such a fascinating position because it straddles lines between form and reaction and being natural and allowing in moment responses to some level of thought. I first became utterly focused on goaltending by seeing the radical changes in the position from say Gump Worsley through to Tony Esposito, Ken Dryden, Tretiak etc and each one representing a transition of styles that were more or less successful based on the strategems and in mode scoring types of plays played out in front of them. Thus I feel that by nature of the position, and the complexity of hockey is its evolving and dramatic changes take place. Watching Ken Dryden own the NHL, and seeing him anticipate NHL standard plays and being able to do that contrasted greatly with seeing him undressed in International hockey and particularly in 72 when Tony Esposito form was better than Dryden reaction. Thats just an aside but I wonder how much goalies, similar to myself overthink and get away from rote movements into overanalyzing on ice. Dryden had processed the NHL and what top scorers would do and was rabid in such study. But less tape was available on CCCP scoring and tendencies. It was more of an unknown that tripped up Dryden. Particularly early on.

Its always fascinated me that fresh to the NHL goalies always seem to put on a good show. Before they are impacted by the many things, situations, goals, plays, and self doubt that you naturally start to accrue in the position. It could be the hardest position in sports. But for the right disposition it is probably a lot easier. With Fuhr for instance he could more easily just rely on his reaction and rote movements. Although he had good anticipation, formed knowledge of shooters and plays he was probably not at great a risk for overthinking plays like a Dryden could be.

My first goal stick was an Esposito, found at a Home Hardware even though he’d retired a few years earlier (before my time a bit).

Thanks for the commentary… reading your words, a progression of styles based on what is borne out in front of them rings pretty true for me.

But in my time as a goalie I think a lot more of it had to do with equipment… so much changed in terms of what you could and couldn’t do. From leather pads, poke checks and skate saves to rotating, sliding pads that allow even the least flexible to have a perfect butterfly. And there are guys like Brodeur, and reinvented Roloson who saw it all.

It’s always been an evolving art form, crossed with your own athletic capabilities (or not)… regardless it becomes (your own) mastery of perfection, within the entirety of the constraints given to you. Within your control, without, and somewhere in between (I mean why not be innovative and talk to your D… strange I know!). But goalies are weird.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

Don't mind the player, but have no idea how they could find $6.25M for the next 3 years. Will also be 36 when the contract runs out.

36 is 28 in Holland years

 

[Stoneman89]

I like the suggested idea of the 11-7 with Holloway, McLeod, and Yamamoto on the "third" line. That line would almost never score, but the speed of McLeod and Holloway on the rush and the puck-pursuit of Yamamoto would make them a pain in the ass to play against, and if nothing else they'd hold their own and often hem the opposition in.

I love Yamamoto, but I have to admit he lives a kind of 'charmed life' on the Oilers. It seems both Connor and Leon love playing with him, so he gets a disproportionate amount of time in the top-six, when, by production rates, you'd have to say he doesn't really belong. However, the current line of he, McDavid, and Kostin looked good for one game anyway, so I'd just leave it for now and see where it goes. Anyway, Evander Kane will be back soon.

Foegele, I agree, is a weird player. Has the size, strength, shot, but lacks playmaking / passing ability (which is kind of another way of saying he lacks hockey IQ). Most of all, though, he's just INCONSISTENT, which is why we all get frustrated. It's like he'll get elevated up a line or he'll finally score after 7 weeks, and then he shows flashes of brilliance for three or four games in a row and you think, "Oh! He's found his game at last." Then, he disappears for the next ten games. As consistency is the Oilers' nemesis, I'd say he is more part of the problem than the solution.

Stuart Skinner has really been a revelation this season, for me. He has finally provided the consistency (not brilliance, necessarily, but consistency) in goal that the Oilers have desperately needed. You pretty much know what you're going to get, every night, which was not the case with Smith or Koskinen (or Campbell, yet). That said, I am always a little baffled by the coaching staff's (it might not be Woodcroft) decisions about who starts in goal. They seem to be over-playing Skinner recently, and then when there's a chance for a rested Campbell to start against a weaker opponent... they play Skinner. Then, they play cold Campbell against tougher teams. Not sure what the logic is.

Anyway, Campbell has been looking better and was very good yesterday. My attitude to goalies is: I don't care how many shots they face or how bad goals against are -- as long as they let in 2 goals or less (which Campbell did the past two starts), then the team's loss is never the goalie's fault. I repeat: NEVER the goalie's fault. A team on home-ice with McDavid and Draisaitl (and 5 power plays, like they had the previous Campbell game) needs to be able to score 2 goals in sixty minutes. If not, the loss is on the skaters, regardless of how good/bad the 2 goals against were.

" I don't care how many shots they face or how bad goals against are -- as long as they let in 2 goals or less (which Campbell did the past two starts), then the team's loss is never the goalie's fault. I repeat: NEVER the goalie's fault. A team on home-ice with McDavid and Draisaitl (and 5 power plays, like they had the previous Campbell game) needs to be able to score 2 goals in sixty minutes. If not, the loss is on the skaters, regardless of how good/bad the 2 goals against were."

Good thing you weren't the coach when Grant Fuhr played.

 

[Stoneman89]

So much of face to face in sports is mental and getting in heads whether it be Football, Boxing, Hockey, Tennis etc. A comment I never forget is an analyst pointing out that Boxers often lost to Mike Tyson, in their head, in their mind, before the bell rung. The thing always was whether somebody could avoid being intimidated. But the same thing goes on in Formula 1 racing, track and field, 100yd sprint you name it the mindgames are there.

Watching the WC too its always funny to see the antics of goalie vs penalty kicker. Make the kicker wait by requiring etc instruction or getting into spot slowly etc. I mentioned in last post that tactics constantly evolve. Goalies used to move back and forth and even shuffle feet to make the kicker not know what direction goalie will go. Then they enforced that and the goalie has to be careful moving feet or coming off the line. But they still shuffle back and forth which both disguises direction they will jump and also possibly gives them an initial spring if they guess right.
For years the percentage of Penalty Kicks made was higher than now. But the goalies have really had to evolve so many strategies to deal with a problem that they should be losing the vast majority of the time.

As Iron Mike used to say "Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth."