Post-Game Talk: Tipped Off | Oilers lose series 3-1

[Fourier]

Well, my point stands that since Nov 24, 2019, collectively, the Oilers aren't any good. October and early November skewed hot more than December skewed cold.

I mean we could slice time lines, but overall the Oilers created a healthy stagger from pack early in season and were starting to fade as the season went on. By Suspension of season the team was playing badly and running on fumes.

In anycase since Feb 1 the Oilers Won 10 games and lost 10 games. The Oilers were bad in December and good in January. They were lukewarm rest of the way.

Fact of the matter is a club that was 11 games over .500 as early as Nov 24 2019 ended up 12 games oThe ver at end of season. pretty much treading water.

January 1st was not a cherry picked date. I have used this many times. December was a horrid month for the team. As a fan of Draisaitl you should be aware of this. Because his month was particularly horrid. Something seemed to happen over the Christmas break and what we saw was a very different team. Draisaitl went from disaster to the best player in the league. The goaltending went from as bad as it had be in the dark years to above average. Secondary scoring became a real thing. And the emergence of Yamamoto and the Draisaitl / RNH/Yamamoto line gave the team the best line in the league. From January 1st onward, the toughest part of their schedule by the way, the team was very good. And while Chicago was playing better hockey the Oilers still out pointed them 37 in 29 to 30 in 29. The Oilers were also top 10 in GA over that period. So in fact the trends from the latter part of the season did not actually foreshadow what happened in the playoffs.

 

[Fourier]

I feel we were a 2 trick pony this year. Darlings of the PP and PK. We were beating teams we shouldn't have because we were crushing it with the special teams. But the Hawks had lots of time to dissect these strengths, and to make matters worse our PK was not near as polished as it was during regular season. When you're playing regular season against teams, you're debriefed by the coaching team about what to expect and counter but as a player you don't always buy in for a couple games of a regular season. But a playoff series is a different matter entirely.

The Oilers pp was at 29% for the series. The pk gave up 3 goals in game 1 and 2 of those Smith should have stopped. It did not give up another goal 4-5 for the rest of the series despite Chicago getting a lot of chances. (Chicago's only other pp goal was 3-5). And take a look at the last pp goal Chicago scored if you want to know what this series is all about. Draisaitl has Toews completely tied up about ten feet from the net and as Teows is spinning he kicks the puck with the toe of his skate and it barely gets over the goal line. 99% of the time that is a completely nothing play.

It's actually a depressing thing to re-watch the Hawks goals.

 

[Soundwave]

I think the take away from this season is that the Oilers can be a good team but only when they have two offensive lines going.

The RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto was basically the revelation of the year. Once Yamamoto was inserted into the lineup the Oilers played at a 105 point pace.

Tippett made an error in breaking that line up. While in the long term I agree with putting RNH with McDavid, that's something you do NEXT SEASON when you have more time to play around with combos in a regular season setting.

Doing it during a short do or die playoff tournament like this was a mistake.

It impacts the team defensively too ... when you have the Draisaitl line being dominant in possession and McDavid doing McDavid stuff you effectively "shrink" the game, because you have two lines that are controlling the play for a big chunk of the game.

That makes the amount of time the defence is under duress smaller.

To have success as a team in the interim phase, we must stick to this formula.

Put Athansiou with McDavid and Kassian and who cares if they don't gel for 2-3-4 games. Eventually they will start scoring. Keep the Draisaitl line as is until Yamamoto gains NHL experience.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

You'd think the geniuses who are paid to coach these slugs might say something at some point.

Or are they too worried about “balance”?

I've never seen a team deflect so many pucks into their own net.

I know we all praise Russell as a warrior and whatnot but he puts an awful lot of pucks into his own net.

 

[frag2]

I think the take away from this season is that the Oilers can be a good team but only when they have two offensive lines going.

The RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto was basically the revelation of the year. Once Yamamoto was inserted into the lineup the Oilers played at a 105 point pace.

Tippett made an error in breaking that line up. While in the long term I agree with putting RNH with McDavid, that's something you do NEXT SEASON when you have more time to play around with combos in a regular season setting.

Doing it during a short do or die playoff tournament like this was a mistake.

It impacts the team defensively too ... when you have the Draisaitl line being dominant in possession and McDavid doing McDavid stuff you effectively "shrink" the game, because you have two lines that are controlling the play for a big chunk of the game.

That makes the amount of time the defence is under duress smaller.

To have success as a team in the interim phase, we must stick to this formula.

Put Athansiou with McDavid and Kassian and who cares if they don't gel for 2-3-4 games. Eventually they will start scoring. Keep the Draisaitl line as is until Yamamoto gains NHL experience.

The problem with AA is he needs to be the puck carrier in order to be effective and he's not a good enough playmaker to mesh with anyone.

I've never seen a team deflect so many pucks into their own net.

I know we all praise Russell as a warrior and whatnot but he puts an awful lot of pucks into his own net.

Been saying it all season. With Russell, it might just be a habitual thing. Shot coming, he throws his face at it.

Nurse on the other hand is a bit more egregious. How many times this season has he caused a GA by simply dropping down right in front of the goalie [interestingly, most of the time being Smith] and preventing the goalie from seeing the shot clearly or even impeding his movement? No idea why he insists on doing that especially right in the blue paint.

 

[dustrock]

I think the take away from this season is that the Oilers can be a good team but only when they have two offensive lines going.

The RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto was basically the revelation of the year. Once Yamamoto was inserted into the lineup the Oilers played at a 105 point pace.

Tippett made an error in breaking that line up. While in the long term I agree with putting RNH with McDavid, that's something you do NEXT SEASON when you have more time to play around with combos in a regular season setting.

Doing it during a short do or die playoff tournament like this was a mistake.

It impacts the team defensively too ... when you have the Draisaitl line being dominant in possession and McDavid doing McDavid stuff you effectively "shrink" the game, because you have two lines that are controlling the play for a big chunk of the game.

That makes the amount of time the defence is under duress smaller.

To have success as a team in the interim phase, we must stick to this formula.

Put Athansiou with McDavid and Kassian and who cares if they don't gel for 2-3-4 games. Eventually they will start scoring. Keep the Draisaitl line as is until Yamamoto gains NHL experience.

Yeah I had a bad feeling in the training camp when they were trying AA with Drai & Yam, then it went to Ennis, like if it's not working in camp, why would we expect it to work in the games?

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

The problem with AA is he needs to be the puck carrier in order to be effective and he's not a good enough playmaker to mesh with anyone.



Been saying it all season. With Russell, it might just be a habitual thing. Shot coming, he throws his face at it.

Nurse on the other hand is a bit more egregious. How many times this season has he caused a GA by simply dropping down right in front of the goalie [interestingly, most of the time being Smith] and preventing the goalie from seeing the shot clearly or even impeding his movement? No idea why he insists on doing that especially right in the blue paint.

Nurse's job should be to clear the crease and nothing else.

 

[frag2]

Nurse's job should be to clear the crease and nothing else.

He seems to think his job is just to crash into his own crease and block shots

 

[McJadeddog]

I've never seen a team deflect so many pucks into their own net.

I know we all praise Russell as a warrior and whatnot but he puts an awful lot of pucks into his own net.

Exactly. Again, and I'm sure Fourier and myself (and others) are tired of pointing this out, but what happened in the Hawks series was not normal at all. It was exceptionally bad luck, and advanced stats people have pointed this out as well. We didn't play great at all (some of our worst hockey of the year actually), but Chicago also got pretty much every break you can imagine. That includes refereeing, such as a gifted 5 on 3 from a just RIDICULOUSLY bad penalty on Russell and the elimination of a 5 minute major from an equally unbelievable penalty against Nurse. We didn't get puck luck, and we didn't get any help from the refs. I know that sounds like excuses, but its the reality.

No we didn't play well enough to overcome this, and stanley cup level teams need to overcome these things. But we aren't a stanley cup level team, we are a good team right now, but not at that level.

 

[McJadeddog]

It's almost as if not playing hockey for 4 1/2 months and then getting thrown into a short elimination series after only one exhibition game can throw a PK off for a little bit.

Totally idiotic return to play format, to be honest I'm not sure why the players ever agreed to this, NBA players never would have.

The NBA format was miles better for sure, as it still made the season count for something. Why we couldn't have played 12 more games in the bubbles to finish the season is beyond me. It would have pushed the end of the season back maybe 10-14 more days. And lets be honest here, we aren't starting the 20-21 season on December 1st like they want anyhow. We'll be very lucky start it on February 1st.

 

[OfCorsiDid]

Y'know, its been a week or two. And let's just say I've had a chance to digest this diabolical failure.

I'd have to say we are easily the most depressed fan base in the league.

Sure Pitty experienced a similar fate, but their demise was expected, upcoming. They were eventually going to falter.


The Oilers couldn't be more different. A team of twenty-somethings who haven't accomplished shit. This. Personally, is what scares me.


Do we ever become a good team? Our owners and management have had nearly 5 years of Connor McDavid and still haven't created even close to a complete team. Will this ever happen?









Honest opinion is that it doesn't. We're doomed to the McDavid curse when we trade him at some point. We will not win another cup until most of us are far beyond dead.

 

[Aerchon]

Y'know, its been a week or two. And let's just say I've had a chance to digest this diabolical failure.

I'd have to say we are easily the most depressed fan base in the league.

Sure Pitty experienced a similar fate, but their demise was expected, upcoming. They were eventually going to falter.


The Oilers couldn't be more different. A team of twenty-somethings who haven't accomplished shit. This. Personally, is what scares me.


Do we ever become a good team? Our owners and management have had nearly 5 years of Connor McDavid and still haven't created even close to a complete team. Will this ever happen?









Honest opinion is that it doesn't. We're doomed to the McDavid curse when we trade him at some point. We will not win another cup until most of us are far beyond dead.

If you have paid attention to the nhl the last few years you should really know hockey is MORE of a team game than ever. 4th liners today are 10 times better than they were 10 years ago. Our fourth line of Chaisson Sheahan and Neal has more talent than some second lines back in the day. Superstars matter less and less.

Both McDavid and Draisaitl need to be better 200' players. I hope both Tippett and the Oilers superstars realize what it takes to win in this League after this playoffs.

The team we have is at least average nhl caliber on paper. It just needs to work better as a team. Work harder. Work smarter. Work faster. Support each other better.

Team defense still wins better than having superstars just look at the Oilers, Pittsburgh, and Toronto this year to fully realize just how much this is true.

We have all the pieces to be a great team it's just a matter of doing so.

I think if Tippett didn't screw the pooch on so many things we might have been talking about the Oilers this year doing so instead of hopefully next year.

 

[Samus44]

Do we ever become a good team? Our owners and management have had nearly 5 years of Connor McDavid and still haven't created even close to a complete team.

Our management and coaches have had a year and the team was 2nd in the division with 10 games to go. Stop living in the past. The team is still very young in terms of it's core, that's why Holland has been adding vets.

 

[Stoneman89]

Y'know, its been a week or two. And let's just say I've had a chance to digest this diabolical failure.

I'd have to say we are easily the most depressed fan base in the league.

Sure Pitty experienced a similar fate, but their demise was expected, upcoming. They were eventually going to falter.


The Oilers couldn't be more different. A team of twenty-somethings who haven't accomplished shit. This. Personally, is what scares me.


Do we ever become a good team? Our owners and management have had nearly 5 years of Connor McDavid and still haven't created even close to a complete team. Will this ever happen?









Honest opinion is that it doesn't. We're doomed to the McDavid curse when we trade him at some point. We will not win another cup until most of us are far beyond dead.

Not sure how you figure Pittsburgh’s failure was expected. To me, that was a way bigger upset than ours.

Not to mention , our coaching/management have had exactly one year to work with McDavid and company, not 5.

 

[Louis Cypher]

Y'know, its been a week or two. And let's just say I've had a chance to digest this diabolical failure.

I'd have to say we are easily the most depressed fan base in the league.

Sure Pitty experienced a similar fate, but their demise was expected, upcoming. They were eventually going to falter.


The Oilers couldn't be more different. A team of twenty-somethings who haven't accomplished shit. This. Personally, is what scares me.


Do we ever become a good team? Our owners and management have had nearly 5 years of Connor McDavid and still haven't created even close to a complete team. Will this ever happen?









Honest opinion is that it doesn't. We're doomed to the McDavid curse when we trade him at some point. We will not win another cup until most of us are far beyond dead.

I disagree, we are 3-4 players away from being a powerhouse.
Problem is we need 2 of those to come from within the organization because we have no money.

 

[OfCorsiDid]

If you have paid attention to the nhl the last few years you should really know hockey is MORE of a team game than ever. 4th liners today are 10 times better than they were 10 years ago. Our fourth line of Chaisson Sheahan and Neal has more talent than some second lines back in the day. Superstars matter less and less.

Both McDavid and Draisaitl need to be better 200' players. I hope both Tippett and the Oilers superstars realize what it takes to win in this League after this playoffs.

The team we have is at least average nhl caliber on paper. It just needs to work better as a team. Work harder. Work smarter. Work faster. Support each other better.

Team defense still wins better than having superstars just look at the Oilers, Pittsburgh, and Toronto this year to fully realize just how much this is true.

We have all the pieces to be a great team it's just a matter of doing so.

I think if Tippett didn't screw the pooch on so many things we might have been talking about the Oilers this year doing so instead of hopefully next year.

As a challenge to this, why do you think that Drai and McDavid’s 200 foot play is underwhelming?

The answer is because they know that outside of their lines, it’s unlikely anyone is going to be scoring goals. So they cheat for offence.

That’s why you see both of them opt for quick stick check fly-bys rather than taking the body. They know that if they play conventional defence they’re going to tire themselves digging on the boards, thus leading to a change with no o-zone time.

Both of them also don’t go very deep in the zone because they want to break out as quickly as possible.

The solution to getting McDrai to play a better 200 foot game is to surround them with a 3rd line that can score and a 4th line that isn’t a liability.

Right now, our 4th line of Chaisson/Kharia/Neal (or my preferred line of Chaisson/Haas/Neal) is good enough, even if they look like glaciers out there.

However, all season our 3rd line hasn’t contributed jack shit offensively. Compare our most common 3rd line this season (AA/Sheahan/Archibald post-deadline, Nygard/Sheahan/Archibald pre-deadline) with Colorado’s (Jost/Compher/Burakovsky) or Tampa’s (Goodrow/Gourde/Coleman) and you begin to see the issue.

The smart play for Holland is to tool up the 3rd line so they can potentially put the puck in the net. I firmly believe AA can be our 3C. We just need wingers and the solution might be inside our organization.

LW:
Benson
Nygard

C:
Athanasiou
McLeod

RW:
Archibald
Kassian
Puljuljarvi

Now we can look outside the organization, but I don’t know if we got the cap space for that.

 

[Soundwave]

Having had time to digest it more a few thoughts

- Bear/Nurse pairing got caved in games 3/4, too many goals against. Bear is a rookie so he deserves a bit of a pass. Nurse was covering air on one of the tip deflections in game 3 (tying goal) and Bear was covering no one on one of Chicago's tip goals in game 4. Tip goals killed us.

- Tippet as has been stated likely made a big error in not reuniting the Draisaitl-RNH-Yamamoto line earlier, they had some good chances when he finally put them back together with 8 minutes left to play. Think McDavid and Athansiou needed to learn to play together, simple as that.

- Koskinen didn't really let in any bad goals.

- Oilers advanced numbers are quite good for the series. CF% they outplayed the Hawks 3/4 games, PDO was also good. We got some bad luck in this series.

- That said intensity level wasn't where it needed to be. Also you need to be able to score more than 3 goals more than once in a series I think, yeah they got 4 in game 1, but those were gravy goals as the Hawks were on cruise mode. 5 goals total for game 3/4 gave the team a razor thin margin and they weren't able to play mistake free hockey. Need an extra goal there from any of Kassian/Neal/Athansiou/Sheahan/Khaira/Haas/Yamo.

 

[Lacaar]

I think the take away from this season is that the Oilers can be a good team but only when they have two offensive lines going.

The RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto was basically the revelation of the year. Once Yamamoto was inserted into the lineup the Oilers played at a 105 point pace.

Tippett made an error in breaking that line up. While in the long term I agree with putting RNH with McDavid, that's something you do NEXT SEASON when you have more time to play around with combos in a regular season setting.

Doing it during a short do or die playoff tournament like this was a mistake.

It impacts the team defensively too ... when you have the Draisaitl line being dominant in possession and McDavid doing McDavid stuff you effectively "shrink" the game, because you have two lines that are controlling the play for a big chunk of the game.

That makes the amount of time the defence is under duress smaller.

To have success as a team in the interim phase, we must stick to this formula.

Put Athansiou with McDavid and Kassian and who cares if they don't gel for 2-3-4 games. Eventually they will start scoring. Keep the Draisaitl line as is until Yamamoto gains NHL experience.

I think this is really the nuts and bolts now in the NHL. You need to have two effective scoring lines.

The fancy stats say the McDavid/RNH pairing was dominant in the series and I can agree to an extent. One thing about McDavids play is that I liken it to an assassin. They didn't really generate a lot of offensive pressure constantly, in fact they give up a lot of defensive pressure before they strike. It results in good scoring numbers but I don't feel it generates a lot of momentum for the rest of the team to play off of. I feel the Draisitl/RNH/Yam line did. They assualted the other teams defence and wore them down. Letting the 3rd and 4th line come out with momentum on their side while also allowing the defence some time to collect themselves. That line did more than just score. They put the other team back on their heels. I don't feel Chicago was ever really in that situation until they got re-united with 10 or minutes left. Of course urgency definitely played a factor as well.

To illustrate the point in a couple of games we came out and scored fast but never really translated that into sustained momentum. We couldn't put them on their heels. It was aww crap McDavid just went super sonic and that happens. But there was no fear or waiver in the Chicago team after.

McDavid needs a strong defensive pair to back him up. He's just not a great at helping out with defensive pressure. Klefbom and Larsson did him no favors with their play.
Draisitl and Yams couldn't keep the offensive pressure up without RNH and so we had a lot of backend pressure on both those lines. Resulting in a ton of point shots that made their way into the net.

I think that was one of the themes of the series and one of the main reasons we lost.

 

[Mr Positive]

Having had time to digest it more a few thoughts

- Bear/Nurse pairing got caved in games 3/4, too many goals against. Bear is a rookie so he deserves a bit of a pass. Nurse was covering air on one of the tip deflections in game 3 (tying goal) and Bear was covering no one on one of Chicago's tip goals in game 4. Tip goals killed us.

- Tippet as has been stated likely made a big error in not reuniting the Draisaitl-RNH-Yamamoto line earlier, they had some good chances when he finally put them back together with 8 minutes left to play. Think McDavid and Athansiou needed to learn to play together, simple as that.

- Koskinen didn't really let in any bad goals.

- Oilers advanced numbers are quite good for the series. CF% they outplayed the Hawks 3/4 games, PDO was also good. We got some bad luck in this series.

- That said intensity level wasn't where it needed to be. Also you need to be able to score more than 3 goals more than once in a series I think, yeah they got 4 in game 1, but those were gravy goals as the Hawks were on cruise mode. 5 goals total for game 3/4 gave the team a razor thin margin and they weren't able to play mistake free hockey. Need an extra goal there from any of Kassian/Neal/Athansiou/Sheahan/Khaira/Haas/Yamo.

I disagree about the dynamite line.

You are right that it all hinged on Anathasiou, but the playoffs is not the time to build chemistry. So blame AA's skills, or blame that we didn't get to finish the season to give AA that chance to build chemsitry with McD, but the fact is that we only had 4 established top six players. If we would have been a 1 line team like you are saying, Chicago would have adjusted, probably by moving their best checkers to the Drai line. The damage to the McDavid line by removing RNH would have erased any gains by putting the dynamite line together. We still would have played poor team D and still wouldn't have been mentally prepared, and still would have underestimated Dach and Kubalik.