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G26 Oilers vs Ducks: Nurse Injured |
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Those darned Oilers are at it again. Edmonton has lost its spot atop the Pacific Division recently as San Jose surged ahead and Anaheim has caught up with them. Edmonton has been inconsistent over the last month. At times they seem like an unstoppable scoring force, at others they look like a 1 man team.
It’s true that McDavid is the driving force behind the team, but ultimately this is the highest scoring club in the Pacific division. They have scored 13 more goals than the Flames who are 2nd in that category, and the Flames have played 2 extra games! We can finally say that the Oilers have the skill and ability to take advantage of teams who make mistakes against them. They could be better given Nugent-Hopkins and Pouliot’s struggles!
There’s another player the Oilers need to keep an eye on and that Jesse Puljujarvi. After doubling up the Jets I don’t anticipate a lineup change and given his offensive struggles that might be a good thing. Edmonton has to start considering the possibility that the best place for Puljujarvi is in the American Hockey League. The club isnt handcuffed by CHL agreements with this player. They have options.
In the meantime, the Oilers are running a line of Pitlick-Caggiula-Slepyshev. This trio has limited NHL experience but are playing their roles well. Pitlick is something of a human torpedo, Slepyshev is getting greasy in the corners, and Caggiula has untapped skill. Caggiula is the big wildcard for me. I don’t know what he is truly capable of in the NHL, but he has a little bit of speed and likes to shoot. That’s a decent start.
Against the Jets the Oilers PP looked completely renewed. I give a lot of grief to the Oilers coaching staff for that PP but they were trying lots of one-touch plays and the bumper player in the middle finally looked dangerous. Mark Letestu had a chance for a hat trick on the back of 2 PP goals. Letestu has always performed well on the PP. Would you believe that, among NHL forwards who have played at least 300 minutes 5v4 between 2012-2016, Mark Letestu is 28th in Points per 60 minutes? He’s in Thornton-Marleau territory.
I cant explain it. I have no idea why he’s so productive when given the opportunity to play the PP. All I know is he should absolutely stay on the man-advantage based on the last game and the years of information we have from before that game. Mark Letestu, as mad as it sounds, is part of the solution for Edmonton’s woes on the PP.
The big news is that Darnell Nurse may be injured for the “long term”, whatever that means. The Team placed him on the IR today but according to Ducks radio colour-man Dan Wood McLellan said it was a long-term thing in his lower-body that happened against the Jets. I personally don’t recall any major collision with Nurse in the Jets game. To be fair, there were lots of goals and I tend to get excited by those. I might have been distracted.
In any event, the Oilers losing Nurse for any extended amount of time is not ideal. Nurse has been playing the best hockey of his career so far. He was well insulated on the 3rd pairing and performed well with both Gryba and Benning. That pairing was winning the battle for puck possession and Nurse’s ability to skate with the puck was a big part of his success.
LINEUP
The Oilers have placed Darnell Nurse on IR and recalled Dillon Simpson from the AHL. No idea what the injury is but that might explain why he’s seemed less than his regular self lately. McLellan is making some odd choices for defensive combinations tonight.
Lucic McDavid Draisaitl
Pouliot RNH Eberle
Pitlick Caggiula Slepyshev
Maroon Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Fayne
Sekera Benning
Russell Larsson
Talbot
Gustavsson
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Flying Fowler. Over the last several seasons there have been plenty of doubters when it came to Cam Fowler’s impact on the game. While he’s been known as a puck mover since his Junior days, he’s had lackluster to poor results by the major shooting metrics. He’s been a sub-50% player via Shot Attempts and a negative in Shot Attempts Relative to his teammates. His offense was good for roughly mid-30’s which is good but obviously not great enough to overcome defensive weaknesses. This year, however, Fowler is having something of a breakout season in terms of the fancy stats and the offense is really rolling too. He’s over 50% in Corsi and a positive CFRel player. Mix in the fact that he’s on pace for roughly 50 points and you can see why some are saying he’s the Ducks best defender so far this year.
2) Pacific Rivalry. Edmonton is 3-3-1 against the Pacific division and those 3 wins feel like they came a LONG time ago. The Oilers need to be better than a .500 team against the Pacific if they want to maintain a Playoff spot. This is a 4 point game and the Oilers can legitimately claim that they matter now. It’s not just the 2 points that Edmonton can gain, it’s the 2 points they can prevent Anaheim from getting. The Oil outshot the Ducks in their last outing 34-27 but lost 4-1. Edmonton went 0-4 on the Power Play that night. They are coming off a strong performance against the Jets including a dominant PP performance. They need to channel the positives from that won because the Ducks run a pretty tight ship defensively.
3) Russell-Larsson. This is a new pairing that McLellan put together because of the Nurse injury. The new combinations fix the Lefty-Righty ratio but this duo is a big red flag for me. Russell has the worst attacking metrics of any Oiler defender. The puck rarely seems to leave the Oilers zone when he’s on the ice. Larsson is a defense first, second, and third kind of defender. He has a decent shot but breakout passes aren’t his forte. I worry about this pairing, but it puts Russell back to his natural side, so there is some hope that he’s more effective moving the puck as a result. We can probably assume McLellan wants to match this line against the toughs. This is going to be an interesting experiment.
Puck drops tonight at 8PM Mountain Time on Hockey Night in Canada. Game On!
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