General Manager Peter Chiarelli spoke to reporters instead of hiding in his office and the sound byte that leaked through was about how he described the start to this season: General Disappointment.
I’ll provide the quote as transcribed by
Greg Wyshynski of ESPN:
We're in second-last in the division, so it's obviously not satisfactory. I think the way that we started we were loose, and now we've tightened up, and when you tighten up generally as a team you have trouble scoring goals. We're almost at the 20-game mark and it's obviously disappointing where we are, but I see some positives and it's a grind. We have to get some traction in terms of winning just one game or losing just one. …[The] general takeaway is general disappointment. There's your headline. But I do believe in the critical mass of the team and I do believe that we're still in it.
There are some things here that are probably true. The Oilers skated through preseason getting easy victories for the most-part. When the regular season started and everyone ramped their speed up, the Oilers had nowhere to go and were passed by everyone. Maybe they thought it would be easier. I’m not sure. That’s the excuse Chiarelli is going with, despite the fact that they addressed complacency explicitly before the season even started.
I’m not going to lie. It makes my blood boil a bit (a light simmer at least) when I hear about Chiarelli’s disappointment with the results after the moves he’s made as Oiler GM. What were his expectations for this group? I thought they would struggle to make the playoffs, but I did think they would get there. Last year that’s what Chiarelli believed he would be getting from his group. They over-achieved on those expectations due to a lot of factors (like near perfect health) but then he downgraded that team in the summer.
McDavid, for all his struggles, is only a hair off his point per game pace from last season.
Leon Draisaitl is on the same point per game pace.
Milan Lucic is on the same pace as last season.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is WELL ahead of his pace from last season.
Patrick Maroon is ahead of the pace he set last year.
Ryan Strome is almost identical to the pace he was on last season.
That’s 6 of the top 7 forwards on the team who are producing more or equal to what they did last season. The bottom 6 is less effective than it was a year ago. He made bets on Drake Caggiula and Jokinen that either blew up in his face or he’s bailed on. He bought out Benoit Pouliot at least 1 year early for absolutely no reason. Pouliot has 6 goals this season.
The defense hasn’t worked out the way he envisioned…I think. The truth is I have no idea what he was expecting on defense. The only clue we have was that he committed 16 million dollars and 4 years to Kris Russell last summer.
So I assume he imagined the duo Klefbom and Larsson would stay together then Benning and Russell would be the 2nd pair with Nurse and Gryba on the 3rd. At least that would be the case while Sekera was out with injury. After Sekera returned I actually cant even begin to wager what he thought would happen. Nothing makes sense given everything we know about Russell and the fact that he got that boat anchor contract.
All we can say is that, shockingly, without Andrej Sekera patrolling the blueline both Russell and the top pair struggled mightily. It’s almost impossible, from my perspective, for the GM to have known Sekera would be gone for almost half the season and decide that he didn’t have to improve the defense in order to maintain the performance of the group as the whole.
So when the GM looks at the performance of a team he purposefully downgraded or refused to help and says that he’s “disappointed”, it makes me a little unhappy. What was he expecting? This is the team he built.
LINEUP
There’s more discussion recently about splitting up Draisaitl and McDavid. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Maroon McDavid Draisaitl
Lucic RNH Puljujarvi
Cammalleri Strome Pakarinen
Caggiula Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Benning
Nurse Larsson
Russell Gryba
Talbot
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) McDavid Cleans Up His Game. Against the Blues Connor McDavid played a very poor game. In terms of shot attempts and possession his line was fine. In terms of execution they were brutal and it starts with the Captain. McDavid passed the puck at every opportunity, especially when he was expected to shoot from the slot. For some time there has been a growing suspicion that McDavid is either playing hurt or sick and the team all but confirmed that when McDavid missed practice yesterday. Edmonton needs McDavid to be the best player on the ice. It’s a standard that is unfair, but that’s what the team has been built around. He cannot be giving the puck away as often as has been in recent games.
2) Passing. While McDavid is getting criticism for passing the puck too much, the rest of the team needs to figure out how to pass in general. They couldn’t make a breakout pass or a 6 foot neutral zone pass to save their lives against the Blues. I’d like to say that was because the Blues had stuffed 5 men in the NZ, but that wasn’t the case. They kept a standard forecheck on most of the game and still the Oil couldn’t string two passes together. It was an embarrassment of a game by Edmonton’s skilled players who looked like they had given up trying.
3) Bishop Struggling. I am fully aware that every goalie who plays Edmonton suddenly becomes possessed by a malicious ghost who hates Oiler goal scorers, but this is another game where the Oil are facing a goalie who is otherwise struggling. Ben Bishop is sporting an .899 save percentage this season in Dallas. What is more than a little scary is that he’s still won more games than he’s lost for the Stars, which means he’s getting lots of run support. They’ve been overcoming Bishop’s poor play with a wicked Power Play. Stay out of the box and don’t give them a lifeline.
Puck drops today at 12PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!
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