What is Causing Edmonton's Success Right Now?

[Replacement*]

Well, our division specifically is kind of built in the kind of way to give us problems. But not necessarily the whole of the west. I'm curious to see our games against Chicago, Dallas & Colorado.

But I do agree that we're going to need to toughen up, and play some blue collared games against Phoenix, Calgary and Vancouver, those are going to be critical matchups. Maybe we can steal a few wins from California too, it's not like it hasn't happened before.

Curious why you mention Dallas. Stars will own us physically as they always do. Its one of our worst matchups.

Since 2010 head to head matchup is 13-3 for Dallas. Dallas has had 6, and 5 game Win streaks against us in that stretch. One of our W's was in a shootout.

As mentioned teams with a tendency to play us physical will do we against us. Dallas is a textbook example. Even a team like Calgary do pretty good against us by banging and bringing intensity.

 

[Eirhead*]

Curious why you mention Dallas. Stars will own us physically as they always do. Its one of our worst matchups.

Since 2010 head to head matchup is 13-3 for Dallas. Dallas has had 6, and 5 game Win streaks against us in that stretch. One of our W's was in a shootout.

As mentioned teams with a tendency to play us physical will do we against us. Dallas is a textbook example. Even a team like Calgary do pretty good against us by banging and bringing intensity.

you fig? Dallas has been reshaping their team quite a bit. They're playing good hockey now, but their hits are near basement of the league.

 

[Replacement*]

Tired? Weak? Right....I'm going to need those TPS reports
LoL, the oilers played 3 quality and hungry opponents. East/west, 2 of the 3 were NHL teams with excellent pedigree and a record to show it

Tampa bay gave MTL their only loss at 7-1, defeated Vancouver Calgary and Winnipeg, making EDM the only west CDN team to defeat them. Tonight, MIN had an incredible feat in that they haven't let in a single goal at home yet. Tonight TBL scored 2, and Nabokov was Dubynk on sleeping pills if you actually watch the highlights. 4 goals on 11 shots.

Washington haven't even lost in regulation, until they played us. Ovechkin didn't have a shot until late in the 3rd period. WSH dismantled Boston, scored 5 goals on SJS, and just pwned Calgary tonight

Carolina was playing better than both WSH and TBL in those first 1.5 periods. They were hungry and battling, which on most nights is much more dangerous than reputation. I put my money CAR wins their next game.

If the oilers beat a streaking MTL on Monday, who right now is the reigning King of the East, you can put it down as the Oilers are a much better team with a 4 win streak forming into a formidable force, rather than blame it on location and 'easy' opponents, waiting for a western challenge and expecting the worst

Now if the oilers faced Buffalo, Florida, and Toronto in succession, i'd be inclined to agree with the trend on this topic. But the fact is they faced quality opponents with tons of skill, confidence and most importantly momentum, and although it wasn't pretty, they stopped their momentum and came out on top as a team. I am very very excited to witness this transition, it's the journey to forming an identity, and it's happening right now

I'm interested when I read this what people actually discern in a game. Did you notice for instance that OV and Stamkos had very ordinary nights against us? OV in particular is noted to check out with a half hearted effort in games where things don't appear to be going his way. OV is a beast when he's on top of his game. He really wasn't doing a lot to be a factor in this one. Stamkos just looked really off. had trouble even handling the puck. Point is both had lacklustre games and on teams that fairly took the night off and expected easy pts.

Good on the Oilers I guess to play well enough to get 2pts in these games but we've already seen what the Oilers look like when a good team does bother to bring it and with the LA KINGs just spanking us for 60mins in a game that was over from puck drop.

Weird results happen. I don't draw too much from it. Oil had lots of trouble putting Canes away. That isn't a good sign of a team ensuring results. Its a sign that a club won a couple games in a row and already came to the rink with an uninspiring effort.

What identity are you referring to? A team that plays up to or down to their opposition?

 

[Replacement*]

you fig? Dallas has been reshaping their team quite a bit. They're playing good hockey now, but their hits are near basement of the league.

Hits can be a misleading stat. That team routinely bumps us off the puck for fun. Dallas is a disciplined team that won't go chasing after hits. But will take them when they are there to turn the puck over.

A memory etched in my brain is a normal player like Garbutt looking like god playing against us. Because he LOVES to play against undisciplined weaksauce players. I'm sure he circles the calendar.

Dallas is a vet team that schools other less experienced clubs. Its why they will make the playoffs.

 

[McXLNC97]

You still have to play the game people. The lowly Sabres went into San Jose and beat the Sharks.

 

[Doc Scurlock]

I will only get excited if we can actually beat some of the annual western playoff teams. Beating up on the eastern conference teams doesn't really convince me that this team has turned a corner. The two conferences have two different styles and the Oilers fit into the Eastern conference a lot better than they do the Western.

 

[dustrock]

If we assume we'll lose to Ana, SJ, Stl, Chicago, LA, we need to be able to beat the rest of the West.

 

[Replacement*]

I will only get excited if we can actually beat some of the annual western playoff teams. Beating up on the eastern conference teams doesn't really convince me that this team has turned a corner. The two conferences have two different styles and the Oilers fit into the Eastern conference a lot better than they do the Western.

Yep.

This stuff isn't made up at all either and people need to consider it to have an objective take. The Oilers were 14-14-4 against EC teams last season. Only one WC club had a losing record against EC clubs last year.

Beating up on EC opponents is not a huge hill to climb for any WC club. For many its gravy time.

 

[roboninja]

We are so bad at winning now that we make excuses for when it happens. Sad.

 

[oobga]

Scrivezina and playing Eastern teams played a big part, especially in the washingon game where the ES corsi was 2:1 in favour of the Caps. With Dubs/Lolbarbera we lose against Caps and possibly the Carolina game because they came so hot out of the gate.

That said, I'm not actually sure if it's playing the East or playing teams that don't play us often that helps us out. Western teams seem to figure us out, but Eastern teams never really get the opportunity. I guess playing the east and playing teams that don't face us often is the same thing, but basically trying to say if we were an Eastern team we might still get figured out over there and end up a bottom feeder anyway. Can't underestimate the power of having a HC that can't make adjustments on the fly.

 

[Zihuatanejo]

The most promising thing I've noticed from the team this year is if they put the effort in and push the play they are able to control the game for stretches at a time. Teams in years past have not been able to do this, there would be random, flashes of talent on a rush resulting in a few goals but no sustained pressure in the offensive zone, no smart short neutral zone passes to advance the play and basically no putting the puck deep and going in on the forecheck. These are all things this years team has been able to do and fairly regularly.

They have finally started to turn into a team that will fail as a result of lack of effort and mistakes like any other NHL team instead of a team that lacks the ability to make trying matter.

 

[mkwong268]

We're playing the same if not worse than the start of the season. Difference is mainly goaltending(for and against) and us not hitting the post 2-3 times a game.

Goalies weren't going to sustain a .95 save percentage against us the entire season and Scrivens is better than a .800 goalie.

 

[DarkSaturn]

Defensive pairings seemed to be working better together as well. Eakins strategy of swarm the offensive point of focus player works well against teams with one such clear focus (Stamkos, Ovechkin). It only fails miserably against stacked western teams that roll 3 strong puck possession physical lines, but it's not like the Oilers play those teams a lot... oh wait...

 

[McArthur]

the size has made a huge difference. mental lapses aside, this season could be 8-1-0 right now. its a far more balanced attack with pouliot and Purcell now. calmer back end, looks like they are starting to gel a little easier in the beginning of games. i'm really looking forward to see some meat and potatoes hockey from lines 2-3. that will be the difference when playing the western conference powerhouses. especially on 3 once things settle out. here is to hoping injuries don't plague us early.

 

[underdog]

I think a lot of the success they are having has to do with pride and how they are viewed around the league as failures by fans and media alike. Never give a player or a team you dislike a reason or a cause to improve or ralley behind.

 

[joestevens29]

I'll summarize what I said in the Ramsay thread.

We are getting a better rounded effort by the majority of the players night in and night out, to go with Scrivens play. I look at our forwards especially and while some guys haven't gotten it going there are others that have stepped up in there place. Lots of healthy competition this year and guys fighting for their jobs..

 

[KCC]

Playing the East is the only reason. Most of the East are smaller and have poor defense where as we all know the West is bigger and play a team game on the other side of the puck. That said, the team IS playing better and more disciplined. People harp on Eakins, but he's the only coach in this entire rebuild that has focused on defense first. I give him credit for that at least. He's been drilling it into his players for over a year and it looks like it's working.

On the other side of that though, just wait until they play many of the tough West teams. They're going to get hemmed in all game.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

Marincin replacing Hunt is huge. I don't know why that wasn't done from Day 1.

 

[Mr Positive]

Marincin replacing Hunt is huge. I don't know why that wasn't done from Day 1.

I'm a huge fan of Marincin. If I had to guess why he was sent down it would be for the same reason we got rid of Smid. To maximize the effectiveness of our top end forwards we need defensemen who are at least offensively gifted enough to have offensive zone chemistry with those forwards. Marincin is calm and has great zone exits but he's somewhat lost in the offensive zone. Hunt at least gives a playmaker like RNH an option that could lead to a score.

Like I said, I'm a fan, and part of that is that I believe that Marincin has a lot of untapped potential as a player on offense. Even so, the steady presence he gives in the mean time means that our guys spend more time in the offensive zone and less time scrambling for possession in the defensive zone.

 

[voxel]

If we assume we'll lose to Ana, SJ, Stl, Chicago, LA, we need to be able to beat the rest of the West.

And I want those losses to be close tight games rather than 7-1 blowouts. Wins are nice, but how we play is just as important. Oilers are a real NHL team today. Not a great one, but we can take our paper bags off temporarily.

 

[Aceboogie]

1. Scrivens

 

[guymez]

1. Scrivens

2. Commitment to defence and red zone protection.
3. Balanced TOI for the forward lines.

 

[nexttothemoon]

The Oilers are still being outshot in most games BUT... they are now 17th in the NHL in shots against per game. That's still not great... but much better than they were in previous seasons... so you can already see glimpses that perhaps the improvements in team defense are starting to take effect.

 

[Dorian2]

I'm interested when I read this what people actually discern in a game. Did you notice for instance that OV and Stamkos had very ordinary nights against us? OV in particular is noted to check out with a half hearted effort in games where things don't appear to be going his way. OV is a beast when he's on top of his game. He really wasn't doing a lot to be a factor in this one. Stamkos just looked really off. had trouble even handling the puck. Point is both had lacklustre games and on teams that fairly took the night off and expected easy pts.

Good on the Oilers I guess to play well enough to get 2pts in these games but we've already seen what the Oilers look like when a good team does bother to bring it and with the LA KINGs just spanking us for 60mins in a game that was over from puck drop.

Weird results happen. I don't draw too much from it. Oil had lots of trouble putting Canes away. That isn't a good sign of a team ensuring results. Its a sign that a club won a couple games in a row and already came to the rink with an uninspiring effort.

What identity are you referring to? A team that plays up to or down to their opposition?

Am I reading this right. So you are basically saying that all 4 wins are due to each and every team we've played "not bringing it"?

Your better than this Replacement.

I think you need a bag skate or something!

 

[Horseradish]

Home ice
Weaker opponents
Great goaltending
Figured out a way to ensure that a shooter isn't wide open in the low slot 15x per game

That's really all it is.

This team should be at least a .500 team on paper. They are in the standings now as well.

But to think they're much more than that based on beating up some eastern teams on home ice may shatter some fans' expectations once they start playing again with "the big boys," especially on the road.