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G30 Oilers vs Wild: Connor McDavid and Brandon Manning

December 9, 2016, 3:12 PM ET [395 Comments]
Matt Henderson
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
I’m torn on who to blame for that loss. Is it Todd McLellan for playing his backup goaltender against the 2nd highest scoring team in the NHL or is it Peter Chiarelli for signing a dumpster fire of a backup goaltender with career below-replacement level numbers? I actually don’t have the answer there. Maybe the same firm that told him Larsson was appropriate value for Hall and Russell was the league’s 2nd best zone exit specialist told him that Gustavsson was a good goalie.

Either way, the Oilers blew two separate 2 goal leads and a 5 goal performance just to lose in regulation. Yeah, Oscar Klefbom was -4 on the night. No, that’s not good. The last goal he was beat 1 on 1 and he looked like a broken man afterwards. The team as a whole wasn’t good enough defensively (predictable given the injuries) but nobody could possibly be happy with their night based on the outcome.

Naturally, I’m most upset with the performance of Jonas Gustavsson, who stopped just barely more than 80% of the shots on net against the Flyers. He scares me every time the puck goes into the defensive zone. Every. Single. Time.

It’s not like I can say, “If he just stays in his net then things are calm”, because just in the course of sliding from post to post Gustavsson leaves his net. He has absolutely no control whatsoever, as far as I can tell. If the career .902 save percentage wasn’t convincing enough that there’s a problem, then surely you can be confirmed of your fears by watching him flop and slide around like a spastic fish on the docks.

***

While my anger about the way the Oilers blew the game is strong, it clearly didn’t match the anger felt by Connor McDavid towards the coward Brandon Manning. We all remember Manning as the minor-leaguer pretending to be an NHLer who jumped on McDavid’s back, because McDavid was too fast for him to deal with, and drove the super rookie’s shoulder into the end boards at high speed.

Everybody involved maintained that the injury was a fluke (except Don Cherry) and nothing more than a tragic accident that robbed the NHL of seeing a premier player simply because a pretender didn’t have the requisite skill to be on the ice with him and committed to making a dangerous play. It happens.

Well, apparently on the ice Brandon Manning was bragging about how he actually hurt McDavid on purpose. McDavid didn’t like it, abused the kid all night, and then outed him to the press afterwards. Brandon Manning injured McDavid on purpose, as per his own words. Not sure what else there is to say about it except that Manning recklessly and purposefully injured McDavid and he was lucky to have only broken his collar bone.

In the process, the Oilers missed out on almost half a campaign by their most talented players, the NHL missed a chance to sell tickets for their fans to see the most dynamic player in the game, and McDavid missed out on a chance to win a major award in the NHL (which would have also meant financial gain in the form of bonuses). So to suggest that nobody should care what Manning did or said would be absurd.

LINEUP

Not really sure of the lineup but I sure as heck wouldn’t have Puljujarvi in the game nor would I have Hendricks.

Lucic McDavid Caggiula
Maroon RNH Eberle
Pouliot Draisaitl Kassian
Hendricks Letestu Pitlick

Klefbom Larsson
Sekera Russell
Simpson Benning

Talbot
Gustavsson

OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME

1) 5 in 7. This game against the Wild will be the 5th game in 7 nights for the Edmonton Oilers. That is tough sledding and the team is breaking down under that kind of schedule. The team has won just a single game in that stretch but they have picked up a point in two of the losses. The problem with the Oilers during this stretch is that they should have been more than competitive. They needed to win against Buffalo. They needed to win last night against Philadelphia. They shot themselves in the foot in OT against the Wild. Physically the 5 in 7 is taking its toll and once the body starts to break down then so too follows the mind. It’s mental mistakes that will take the Oilers out in the end.

2) Mikko Eats Nuge’s Lunch. Against the Wild earlier this week Bruce Boudreau matched Mikko Koivu against RNH in the faceoff dot. The result was that Mikko finished the game 91% in the dot and Nuge finished 17%. It was ugly. During their time playing against each other, the Nuge line had 1 shot attempt for and 8 against. This has been a difficult week for Nugent-Hopkins and it’s been on the faceoff dot, on the scoresheet, and by shot attempts. This game isn’t going to be a breeze for RNH either. He needs to find a way to be better. Mikko Koivu is not leading the Wild in scoring but he does lead their forwards in ice-time per game. He can be better offensively, but the Wild aren’t in the top offensive tier.

3) 40 Before 30. Tonight Connor McDavid has the opportunity to score his 40th point (he has 38 right now). The next highest scoring players in the NHL are Crosby, Kucherov, and Seguin with 29. It is possible for McDavid to hit 40 points before anyone else gets to 30. He has a 9 point gap in the scoring race and there are 53 more games to go for him. In terms of points per game there are McDavid and Crosby over 1.3 P/GP and that’s it. The next closest player is Stamkos who has played just 17 games and has a 1.18 P/GP. McDavid has 19 points in his last 11 games. He’s had more 3 point games than he’s had 0 point games during that stretch. Pretty incredible.

Puck drops at 6PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!

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