Post-Game Talk: Wild 5, Oilers 2

[VainGretzky]

They were due for a loss only 16 had lots of shots bad mental breakdowns by dman . On to the next one all but 2 games in FEB on road expect a little slippage till march.

 

[Lrrr]

Wow. It's a ghost town in here...

 

[VainGretzky]

Huh? Either Slepyshev hallucinated or he was being dishonest...because the league was so certain that the puck didn't touch Slep that the scoring on the play was changed. Not sure that kind of thing goes over well in the locker room...

Omg they better get Gilbert Dionne to explain to him how that's a career ender .

 

[Paralyzer008]

Russell had a good run of games but tonight he was god awful.

3 goals were directly or indirectly on him. Sekera wasn't strong enough in front of the net at times but it's hard when you now have to cover 2 guys because Kris is roving around in his own zone.

One goal was a double fault of Hendricks and Benning failing to cover one guy.

The last one was Brossoit's a bit off a bad bounce, he had himself square to Stewart and turned his body after the shot - usually a sign of being a bit scared of the situation.

I thought the Oil attacked the net but man oh man did Russell kill them today. Russell went -7 in the 3 games against Minny this year.

Remenda didn't mention him at all and they blamed Talbot at the end in their post-game "story of the night" board which was very odd.

 

[syz]

Russell had a good run of games but tonight he was god awful.

3 goals were directly or indirectly on him. Sekera wasn't strong enough in front of the net at times but it's hard when you now have to cover 2 guys because Kris is roving around in his own zone.

One goal was a double fault of Hendricks and Benning failing to cover one guy.

The last one was Brossoit's a bit off a bad bounce, he had himself square to Stewart and turned his body after the shot - usually a sign of being a bit scared of the situation.

I thought the Oil attacked the net but man oh man did Russell kill them today. Russell went -7 in the 3 games against Minny this year.

Remenda didn't mention him at all and they blamed Talbot at the end in their post-game "story of the night" board which was very odd.

I'd go 3 directly and 1 indirectly. First goal he lost his guy, second goal he set Draisaitl up to fail and then lost his guy, third goal was mostly Hendricks going for a swim for some reason (although Russell got completely left behind behind the Oilers net), fourth goal was also a double whammy of losing the puck at the offensive blue line, then turning it over back in the defensive zone.

People got the pitchforks out for Sekera on the second one but, like you said, Sekera's alone by himself in the slot with 2 Wild because Russell commits to Koivu on the half wall for no discernible reason after floating a butterfly of a pass to Draisaitl, who was already being checked by the time the puck got to him.

 

[Jepprey]

Russell and Sekera were horrawful.

Too many giveaways and it killed us.

Better wake up for the Preds..

 

[McMozesmadness]

He had a bad game, but he owns up to it. This is an example of the great culture change we've seen.

 

[TheNumber4]

Great response by Russell. Just a smart reliable vet. Every defencemen in the league will have an off night here or there. Russell's are few and far between.

 

[Spawn]

It was way to easy for the Wild to defend tonight. Every time the Oilers threw a shot on net or put a pass to the middle of the zone there were 4 wild there and no Oilers.

Didn't help that every board play by the Oilers was a soft chip to absolutely no one.

 

[Still DRAI]

Lol what's with the talk of Slepy trying to "steal" a goal... it was credited to him at the arena and he very well could have tipped it

 

[behemolari]

- Oilers actually played pretty even with the Wild but our mistakes cost us this game. Mistakes that been very rare for the past month or so. Tonight those mistakes reared their ugly head again. Maybe it was the Wilds speed and tight checking, maybe the Oilers were just off their game after a long break.

- 2nd pairing was egregious. 2nd goal was on Sekera, 3rd goal on Russell.

- Lucic with bad giveaway on first goal, but made up for it with a beauty pass for Drais 20th.

- Nuge and Ebs still playing good.

- Pouliot still sucks. Just can't execute anything this year. He needs to be demoted to 3rd line. Lucic should get time with RNH.

- Klefbom continues to be a shot generation machine for us. Future is bright for him. Still a chance he becomes a true #1 D for us.

- McDavid held pointless sucks. Crosby gets a point

Minnesota is solid as team can be at the moment, not many team has beat them in months. Even if McDavid were doing multiple points they probably would win

 

[Jesus comma Brodin]

Wild fan coming in peace.

Always enjoy playing you guys and watching the development of the team, will be a playoff team for the foreseeable future in my opinion!

And I'd give my [mod] to have Draisatl in MN.

 

[KingKhron]

In the GDT Lucic is totally acceptable but Russell can GTFO. It's like some people haven't even watched the year objectively.

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

A game that was closer than the score, I'd say we had about 4 passengers tonight and their poor plays cost us some goals. The Wild did a good job of sealing the boards on us and exposing how we rely too heavily on the boards to get pucks out. We did a poor job of dealing with players directly infront of the net often giving the Wild 2nd opportunity chances off rebounds.

On the good side I thought Draisaitl, RNH, and Eberle were all good and I'd say Slepyshev might of given us his best performance to date.

It's also becoming increasingly clear that Hendricks isn't an NHL player anymore, love the big guy, tons of character and a warrior, but we have better options available to us and they need to start getting suited up over him.

 

[space321]

Huh? Either Slepyshev hallucinated or he was being dishonest...because the league was so certain that the puck didn't touch Slep that the scoring on the play was changed. Not sure that kind of thing goes over well in the locker room...

What the f... your thought process is ??

He thought he touched it, the pbp guys thought so, the NHL thought so. It wasn't until the beginning of the 3rd period that the scoring got changed. It's much more likely that he thought he got just a tiny bit of the puck than that he's a locker room cancer. You're out to lunch on this one.

 

[McDynasty]

I thought Slepy Had a good game, love the heart he brings everytime, glad it paid off for him with a goal.

Wild fan coming in peace.

Always enjoy playing you guys and watching the development of the team, will be a playoff team for the foreseeable future in my opinion!

And I'd give my [mod] to have Draisatl in MN.

It will take more than that Son.

 

[48g90a138pts]

What was with Slepyshev trying to take credit for Larsson's goal?

Another players stick could have hit Slepychev's stick and he thought it was the puck.

 

[dustrock]

Oilers will continue to have trouble with fast, hard forechecking teams like Minnesota.

They are built to play the Cali teams.

I've wanted Russell on the bottom pairing all year, but T-Mac obviously loves him. Run Sekera-Benning or better yet, as someone else mentioned, get another vet RHD who can play.

Can't see LB as an NHL regular at this point in time. I thought he played quite well against Calgary but also got lucky. He needs to get over the NHL nerves, it's just hard for the Oilers because they don't want to drop anymore points.

Lucic remains poor 5v5. Don't know what T-Mac can do about that. But he can scratch Matt Hendricks. I know coaches love their vets but man oh man, surely there are better options.

 

[Kerricthebig]

Thoughts (I stopped watching after the 3-0 goal)-

Team came out with energy, but it was undisciplined. Too many hope plays in our own zone, puck watching, and mental lapses.

The result was not unexpected. Especially when there are as many on ice failings as there were.

I don't think there was a single d-man that had a good game last night. Most of the forwards were pretty poor too.

RNH, Eberle, Slepyshev, Caggiula looked good. Everyone else had a sub-par evening by their season standard.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

You manage the puck poorly against a very good team, you aren't likely to win, that was last night for the Oilers.

If they don't give up that goal to Zucker, it's probably a completely different game.

 

[Aceboogie]

Meh, that was a scheduled loss. Minny after a long break? yeah not going to win that one. I thought they played well after the 1st

Klefbom/Larsson looked really solid. Davidson looked good as well, best game this year. Benning was above average. Then Sekera had his worst game as an Oiler and Russell was an absolute tire fire.

Slepyshev looke dvery good

 

[nightfighter]

Russell had a good run of games but tonight he was god awful.

3 goals were directly or indirectly on him. Sekera wasn't strong enough in front of the net at times but it's hard when you now have to cover 2 guys because Kris is roving around in his own zone.

One goal was a double fault of Hendricks and Benning failing to cover one guy.

The last one was Brossoit's a bit off a bad bounce, he had himself square to Stewart and turned his body after the shot - usually a sign of being a bit scared of the situation.

I thought the Oil attacked the net but man oh man did Russell kill them today. Russell went -7 in the 3 games against Minny this year.

Remenda didn't mention him at all and they blamed Talbot at the end in their post-game "story of the night" board which was very odd.

Russell definitely had a bad game tonight but imo he wasn't playing much differently than he usually does. He was still rimming the puck hard around the boards at every opportunity and giving up possession. Against a strong team like the wild that seals off te boards with both forwards and activating defence men, this is a recipe for disaster. Russell has to realize that against this style of play he either has to look for a release in the middle, or put the puck high off the glass. Rimming it along the boards might as well just be a pass to the other team on the opposite wing.

 

[Paralyzer]

I'm actually glad we lost. This will prepare the team mentally next time they face Minnesota (Especially if they meet in the playoffs). I know we can beat them. Just need to be physically there and stop playing Eakins hockey.

 

[CupofOil]

Team came out with energy, but it was undisciplined. Too many hope plays in our own zone, puck watching, and mental lapses.

Honestly, this has been the pattern the last 5 games or so but unreal goaltending and timely goal scoring has bailed them out. There were tons of turnovers on the 3 game road trip as well and going back to the Florida and Nashville games. It was only a matter of time until the opposition had a breakout game when the goaltending was average. Such is life with a young inexperienced team. I just think that the recent win streak masked some persisting problems.

The positive is that the effort level is consistent and they have a line that scores pretty much every game so I don't think we'll see extended losing streaks as long as they continue to play with a lot of energy and play with some form of structure. Turnovers are always going to be an issue with this group IMO.

 

[Aceboogie]

For the past little stretch the Oilers have been playing pretty loosely and as a result they were winnign some games despite being outshot and out chanced. The game vs Ducks should have been a 1 goal game or a loss for example. This game should be a learning lesson. They gotten tighten up and play more responsbility